Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

fattony said:
I read in the Globe today that Lechmere, Union, Washington, and Gilman would account for 75% of ridership and the 3 outer stations the remainder. That is a nice Paredo answer to the question of where to make cuts if they are really needed.
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It certainly says that they could afford to switch to farebox ops {if we can't get POP} and bare platforms {level crossings and bus shelters} for Ball, Lowell, & Gilman and wait for TOD/TIF help (and ridership) to help fund a heavy rail upgrade later.

I'm assuming that Tufts will make sure it gets a headhouse & faregates and a workable 80/94/96 (and probably a Woburn/Winchester,{ eg. the 134 from Cummings Park (Mr Cummings is Tuft's station benefactor)}) bus feed & transfer at "Hillside"
 
The EGE said:
You can't do that. CLF absolutely has the state by the balls. Unless the project is completed to "Medford Hillside" - which is Winthrop Street by all historical definitions, but the state managed to get College Ave tolerated - then they will file another lawsuit, and there is zero doubt they will win. The upside of that is that because the project is specifically a result of the CA/T construction, tolling 93 is much more likely to pass USDOT muster than it would otherwise.
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My understanding is that the primary consequence of the state losing the lawsuit and/or telling CLF and the Feds to go scratch would be the loss of federal highway/transit funding and grants. If that's the case - and if the Governor really didn't want the project - it seems like all he would have to do is stand behind his podium and tell the citizens of the Commonwealth that their roads/buses would be falling into an even greater state of decline because of the efforts of a special interest to force the Commonwealth to spend $3 billion of your dollars on a 4.5-mile train extension to serve a relatively small area, when compared to the entirety of the state. And perhaps the citizens of the Commonwealth would like to let that special interest group what they think of their efforts?

Seems like you could make life for the CLF pretty uncomfortable, poltically speaking.

And let me just be clear, I am absolutely in favor of the GLX, though I'd sure like to see some of the costs reigned in. I'm just thinking about how powerful the prospect of a lawsuit really is at the end of the day.
 
The CLF deal only demands College Ave.(and no Union Sq)
The FFGA specifies exact stations.
Politics ensure that they'll build something sometime

The CLF ensures that the track gets laid to "hillside"
The FFGA will ensure that stops get put on that track where promised.
We're now in politics cost-benefit zone beyond that.

Pollack/Baker have wide lattitude to strip out the Yard (if they can show it isn't needed, somehow), and strip stations down to an ADA platform where volume isn't yet there. From Fattony's math, I'd guess that of the final 25%, Tufts is 12% (given bus feed+reverse commutes), Ball 6% and Lowell 7%.

*IF* the city decamps from Gilman, it'll be because the whole hillside is being redeveloped and *that developer* should go halvsies on a headhouse. Or Somerville Co-pay now to ensure service at launch and a better price when it sells out.

Lowell and Ball remain pitifully low density to say they need heavy rail in the short term. If Tufts/Medford go 5-story on their side of Ball/Magoun or if there's a whole Ball-Magoun-Lowell TOD push, that's where the Ball & Lowell headhouses get paid for.

I'm also going to say that a headhouse at Union is low-value initially, despite its high volume.
1) Station dwell is fixed by schedule (stop-and-turn at the end of the line) folks will dribble onto a berthed train between runs instead of waiting on the platform. Either the operator stays at his/her farebox and watches them board or you actually could do an Old Lechmere style gates-but-no-headhouse.
2) It is easy enough to make a backward-F-shaped platform where the trains "dock" and there's a full-width platform across the end of the ROW, just like is done at plenty of end terminals everywhere (O'Hare airport, even)
 
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In a very real way we are the government, and this is our hard earned money is being spent.

$250M for 4.5 miles equates to $10.6k per foot. The original cost of GLX, near $2B, equates to $106k per foot. Would any of us pay a million dollars of our own money for a 10 foot long driveway, dock, sidewalk, hallway, ramp, or elevator? It sounds ridiculous to me (most of us could not afford that amount even in a lifetime of work).

So all perspectives aside, most of us on this board want more and better public transportation. Somehow our society must figure out how to build, run and maintain it for FAR less money and we must make our elected officials make this happen. The cost is absurdly high just to build without considering drivers, maintainers, dispatchers, managers...

The idea that it cost $2b to begin with is way out of line. That elected officials say yeah just throw another billion at is shows how out of touch the entire public transportation process is.
 
Place your bets - in the end what's going to happen with the extension in your opinion?
 
Not what I want, but what I guess:

1) They will separate each station into its own contract and rebid.
- Find a TOD/TIF/Tufts sponsor, it gets built as designed & on time
- No sponsor, it gets stripped to minimum functional station (whatever the FTA will permit) and delivered when redesign permits

2) Yard acquired but less track laid and less elaborate shops; maybe a purchase-and-10-year-leaseback to an abutting parcel owner (that they've otherwise just bulldozed) so that they know that additional yard space can come online whenever the Type 10 order happens.

3) Delay of 1 to 2 years so that CMAQ that could have been used for going to Rt 16 can be used to cover some of whatever gets pushed into the 2020s
 
mass88 said:
Place your bets - in the end what's going to happen with the extension in your opinion?
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I bet:

1) we have substantial negotiating drama from the Baker Admin, potentially up to and including cancellation of some contracts,
2) CLF launches at least some degree of additional litigation,
3) there is some scaling down of station designs and/or elimination of a station or two or (worst case) elimination of the new repair yard, but
4) GLX does get built, and not on too much more delay than it's already on, but
5) the various efforts to scale back costs do result in noticeable harm to eventual operations, and
6) the opportunity to really rethink ops on the existing portions of the Green Line get lost in the sauce.
 
The EGE said:
What flew for acceptable rapid transit in 1959 does not fly in 2019. What works in Norfolk with a few hundred passengers a day does not work in Somerville with 5,000 passengers per day at stations. This is not a surface streetcar line, and this is not Newton with nicely sized residential lots and light walk-up traffic.

This is Somerville, ....That means grade separation, no...track crossings. They are not safe for passenger loads that high, they are less safe for people in wheelchairs, and having to wait for floods of people to cross the track will absolutely murder your schedule reliability.


....By the time you go through literally years of redesign - ...- you're not going to save any money no matter how much you fantasize about third-world asphalt platforms.
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EGE -- have you ever been to Park Street -- people are crossing at grade by the hundreds every hour

The only reason you don't want a grade crossing is the 3rd Rail -- no third rail and even with the frequency at Park Street -- no problem

Crossing the rails themselves is far less of a problem than crossing a busy street such as Huntington where for several blocks you have to do both

Your inflexible approach will lead to a Big FAT Zero!
 
I suppose that it's too much to expect that there might be a solution and a plan put in place at this meeting on 9/9
 
The EGE said:
You can't do that. CLF absolutely has the state by the balls. Unless the project is completed to "Medford Hillside" - which is Winthrop Street by all historical definitions, but the state managed to get College Ave tolerated - then they will file another lawsuit, and there is zero doubt they will win. The upside of that is that because the project is specifically a result of the CA/T construction, tolling 93 is much more likely to pass USDOT muster than it would otherwise.
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EGE -- the era of CLF holding anyone hostage is thankfully coming to a close -- There is no money -- period -- and therefore there is no enforcement of their nuisance behavior

Particularly in a deflationary spiral -- if there really is one -- the entity owing money is screwed big time -- as each bit you pay off or refinance costs you more in real terms than the previous bit and your income through taxes declines as well

Prediction:

GLX goes to Union for now

Provisions made for as much additional prep work as can get included for a future Tufts branch -- no new cars and no yard
$2.2B
 
The new cars are happening it would cost too much to cancel considering that is already committed to and will be helpful even without GLX. Also I wouldn't bank on nothing beyond Union Square.
 
mass88 said:
Place your bets - in the end what's going to happen with the extension in your opinion?
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They cancel the contract with the current contracting company.
They put Phase 2/2A out to bid.
They get sued by the current contracting company.
Phase 4 gets delayed among years of litigation and political can-kicking while Phase 2/2A and 3 get built.
 
jdrinboston said:
My understanding is that the primary consequence of the state losing the lawsuit and/or telling CLF and the Feds to go scratch would be the loss of federal highway/transit funding and grants. If that's the case - and if the Governor really didn't want the project - it seems like all he would have to do is stand behind his podium and tell the citizens of the Commonwealth that their roads/buses would be falling into an even greater state of decline because of the efforts of a special interest to force the Commonwealth to spend $3 billion of your dollars on a 4.5-mile train extension to serve a relatively small area, when compared to the entirety of the state. And perhaps the citizens of the Commonwealth would like to let that special interest group what they think of their efforts?
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The GLX is part of the State Implementation Plan, which is a document to ensure compliance of the CA/T project with the Federal Clean Air Act.

There is no 'special interest' involved here. The CLF is merely the messenger (a set of lawyers who do work on behalf of environmental protection).

The SIP is an agreement reached between the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

There are some Republicans who argue that agencies like the Mass DEP and the US EPA are 'special interests'. They also tend to be the same people who want to abolish the Fed, the IRS, and the Department of Education. Those Republicans are largely ignored by anyone sane. The rest of us enjoy clean air.

I highly doubt Charlie is going to demagogue that strongly against the EPA.
 
Matthew said:
...There are some Republicans who argue that agencies like the Mass DEP and the US EPA are 'special interests'. They also tend to be the same people who want to abolish the Fed, the IRS, and the Department of Education. Those Republicans are largely ignored by anyone sane. The rest of us enjoy clean air...
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Let's not devolve into a "wingnut/moonbat" message board that you find in the armpit of the internet.
 
Anywhoo, here's how I'd roll out off-board-payment to just the D&E
- E to Union, D to College Ave. Two "whole lines"
- College Ave, Brickbottom, & Lechmere stay as elevator/faregate stations (since they have serious elevation changes and no "Community Path" easy access)
- 4 GLX built as pay-before-boarding (Union, Gilman, Lowell, Ball)
- 9 Surface E converted to pay-before-boarding
- 12 Surface D converted to pay-before-boarding

~25 platforms, 80 Machines like NYC Uses, ~3+ per platform. This greatly speeds all rolling stock. Faster/happier trips, for sure, but likely lower equipment costs, smaller active fleet (with more spares!) and the chance to shrink the takings for the yard&shops.

Charlie Ticket says "KEEP THIS TICKET AS PROOF OF PAYMENT"
- if you pay cash while boarding (like bus or B & C), drivers remind you to print out
- if you pay cash on platform at POP stops, ticket will print and YOU MUST TAKE IT

Silver Line Airport users will get some mix of
- ticket printed as they board,
- recorded reminder of the "must have proof" scheme for D & E
- ticket/transfer printer on paid-side platform "proof of Airport Boarding" good for 4 hours.
- Inspectors will go easy on you if you can show an airplane ticket for today or bag tags dated today

When 100% of POP machines are known to be offline or not-yet-installed at a platform, farebox used.

I promise that as soon as B & C users see this in action, they will *beg* for station consolidation and switch to POP.
 
Really? Anyway, the point is that the GLX build requirement derives from the Federal Clean Air Act and is not some kind of special favor being done for the CLF.
 
Matthew said:
Really? Anyway, the point is that the GLX build requirement derives from the Federal Clean Air Act and is not some kind of special favor being done for the CLF.
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That is a stretch. Like the original lawsuit was. I like the CLF, but no way they win that lawsuit. The lawsuit was lobbying leverage.
 
No, it is not a stretch. It is the law.

https://www.massdot.state.ma.us/planning/Main/PlanningProcess/StateImplementationPlan.aspx

The State Implementation Plan (SIP) – as approved in regulation by both the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – requires that MassDOT and the MBTA complete the following transportation improvement projects:
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The failure to meet the goals by Dec 2014 has resulted in intermediate steps, required by law, to reduce air pollution.
 
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