Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

I've mentioned this before, but with the seemingly endless possible expansion projects, I feel that the T should have an in house design and construction team. Although as with any government entity, there is the possibility of superfluous management and union contract issues, it would bring transparency to the construction and labor costs. Additionally, projects wouldn't have to go out to bid, they would just get done.

Specialized stuff would still have to be bid out to subs, but the grunt work of building brisges, abutments, stations, etc would all be done in house.
 
That would only make sense if the MBTA was doing some massive, all lines expansion. Capital projects of this scope are rare for them so to hire a whole department and all that comes with it would be a waste. It only makes sense to hire outside contractors who already own their equipment.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
That would only make sense if the MBTA was doing some massive, all lines expansion. Capital projects of this scope are rare for them so to hire a whole department and all that comes with it would be a waste. It only makes sense to hire outside contractors who already own their equipment.
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But aren't / shouldn't they be? GLX, red to blue, BL to Lynn/Danvers, OL to Roslindale, GL to Needham is easially 40 years in the pipeline. Past there, OL to Reading, Red to Waltham and/or Arlington, Green to West Roxbury or even Winchester, etc. That's not counting ongoing maintence like bridge replacements, station upgrades/rebuilds (orange is going to need a refresh soon, and red south), and CR construction.

Arguably, these projects would have an easier time happening if the whole bidding process didn't have to happen, and it was just mateirals procurement.
 
^ I think it'd be a good idea if it went hand in hand with a commitment to built light-and-fast. If we could prove to ourselves that the Fairmont/Indigo, GLX, & Silver LIne Gateway were fast light and cheap, we'd have the confidence to keep expanding the system along existing CR lines.

Like plopping SL platform-with-pay-before-boarding every 1/4 mile, and pushing signal priority out key/dense bus corridors. There should be an office full of engineers devoted to pure mobility-value-for-money.

Apropos of the discussion above that the GLX "should have been" BRT, I'd go the other way: there are universal standards for cost effective level boarding on all doors and POP/Prepayment that should be applied regardless of rubber-or-steel wheels.
 
Boston.com has done us the service of creating a timeline of the cost escalation of the GLX.

Some was inflation. Some was having to add the vehicle-storage facility. Some was adding the Union Branch (and needed junction). Some was as the stations went from Light/D-Branch to Heavy/Multi-level.

Community path at $30m is not the problem.
 
Arlington said:
Community path at $30m is not the problem.
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I very, very, very highly doubt that cramming a community path (essentially a fifth track as far as ROW is concerned) into a 4-track trench is only "$30m." And then the flyover at Swift, too.
 
For Washington Street, Gilman Square, and Lowell Street, the SCP is serving as the emergency egress from the station. That has to happen to meet fire code regardless of having a continuous path, so it's only an extra 30 million to pull the rest of the path alongside the ROW.

The Lowell Line ROW is incredibly wide - except for a few spots where it's been narrowed over the years, most sections are between 85 and 110 feet between property lines. Four tracks fits cleanly in 50 feet (that's the width of many NEC bridges) and the SW Corridor is largely 80 feet except for stations.

The SCP runs on top of the GL-side retaining wall at many locations rather than in the trench, which means it doesn't increase trench construction cost there.
 
davem said:
But aren't / shouldn't they be? GLX, red to blue, BL to Lynn/Danvers, OL to Roslindale, GL to Needham is easially 40 years in the pipeline. Past there, OL to Reading, Red to Waltham and/or Arlington, Green to West Roxbury or even Winchester, etc. That's not counting ongoing maintence like bridge replacements, station upgrades/rebuilds (orange is going to need a refresh soon, and red south), and CR construction.

Arguably, these projects would have an easier time happening if the whole bidding process didn't have to happen, and it was just mateirals procurement.
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If the Governor was to step up and given them the money then sure. As it is using contractors is the only reasonable thing to do.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
If the Governor was to step up and given them the money then sure. As it is using contractors is the only reasonable thing to do.
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The premium is the large project aspect. If you could break up the bidding process so smaller construction companies could bid on completing parts of the project at agreed upon times then you would have more competition and lower costs. You could have 6 crews completing a mile of track each. Each station could have a separate contractor. Further subdivide the project for more savings by moving more management to the state side.

That would require better more professional project management on the state side. That is challenging, but doable.
 
tangent said:
...If you could break up the bidding process so smaller construction companies could bid on completing parts of the project at agreed upon times then you would have more competition and lower costs. You could have 6 crews completing a mile of track each. Each station could have a separate contractor...
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No. Try again.

Economies of scale
 
^ the question is: who reaps the economies? Without competition, the contractor keeps the benefits of scale rather than passing them on to the customer. Tangents point is if you make projects so big that you only get a few bidders (consortia of companies that would otherwise compete, like White, Skanska, or Kiewit) then you you are the victim of monopoly /oligopoly pricing.
 
Managing a host of small contractors is no joy ride either. I have seen projects done this way in other countries, and often the quality suffers a lot. You get a bunch of rinky dink contractors who are barely qualified landing short segments or a station, but they really do not have the experience to build the job. And the interfaces between contractors can be a disaster.
 
Arlington said:
^ the question is: who reaps the economies? Without competition, the contractor keeps the benefits of scale rather than passing them on to the customer. Tangents point is if you make projects so big that you only get a few bidders (consortia of companies that would otherwise compete, like White, Skanska, or Kiewit) then you you are the victim of monopoly /oligopoly pricing.
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I agree that increasing the number of contractors competing is a good thing. But having each mile of track be a different project only makes the project incredibly more inefficient and costly overall. So the question there would be: who pays for the inefficient economies. The answer would be everyone.
 
Yes per-mile would be pushing it too far. The again we seem to have ignored all kinds of project creep, bloat, & cruft with the false consolation that economies of scale made each incremental bell or whistle cheaper per unit, but seems more like we were gold plating (the heavy rail touches grew faster than they scaled)

In finding the happy medium, it would help to have simpler, slab style stations that were buildable by regular big-works firms individually & competing
 
Arlington said:
Yes per-mile would be pushing it too far. The again we seem to have ignored all kinds of project creep, bloat, & cruft with the false consolation that economies of scale made each incremental bell or whistle cheaper per unit, but seems more like we were gold plating (the heavy rail touches grew faster than they scaled)

In finding the happy medium, it would help to have simpler, slab style stations that were buildable by regular big-works firms individually & competing
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If we are talking about regular construction activities at particular stations or work that is done by a crews with non-specialized construction equipment then there is no economy of scale because there is no effective difference in how the work is done. It is just a matter of how the project is being managed and how much you are paying for the management, whether it is a contractor or staff. The more you contract out the work and sub-contract the more middlemen are getting profits and overhead on top of each level of contracting. Overhead upon overhead.


Yes, per-mile was just an example. You divvy up the project the way the contractor would divvy up the project to subcontractors. So, hire a company or multiple companies to do particular jobs that can be subdivided by specialty, location or schedule.

Actually laying track was not really the intended example, that would probably be better done by under one contract. More like the widening work, which could be done independently in segments under various contracts. And station work is certainly independent of other station work.

As for the economies of scale argument. If one company can realize economies of scale, then that should be reflected in the bids for the individual tasks. And I have no issue with the same company winning all the bids if they are the best company for each particular job.

But economies of scale only translates to certain production activities. Laying the tracks could benefit from economy of scale if they use specialized equipment that is more expensive but can lay track more cost effectively than less expensive equipment.

If you are talking about a work crew with a few pieces of standard construction equipment performing a particular task, then there is no economy of scale. You either have more crews doing separable tasks or you have one crew doing work sequentially and taking longer.
 
Saw this in the Silver Line to Chelsea thread, and had to comment over here.

So the MassDOT is smart enough to build this type of economical station on the Silver Line Busway to Chelsea:

picture.php


Why aren't they smart enough to build this kind of station on the GLX to save a billion dollars???
 
Uhm, the GLX is in a deep cut that requires elevator access (+ redundancy) to achieve AAB compliance.

Is there crap that could be cut? Absolutely. Switching over to Proof-of-Payment and eliminating the need for separated, controlled, monitored spaces could simplify the design a great deal. But you still need enough mezzanine to support two elevators (down to a single, center platform).

And of course it does cost money to restart the design process that has already wrapped up... sigh.
 
Matthew said:
Uhm, the GLX is in a deep cut that requires elevator access (+ redundancy) to achieve AAB compliance.

Is there crap that could be cut? Absolutely. Switching over to Proof-of-Payment and eliminating the need for separated, controlled, monitored spaces could simplify the design a great deal. But you still need enough mezzanine to support two elevators (down to a single, center platform).

And of course it does cost money to restart the design process that has already wrapped up... sigh.
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Grade level access is available at many of the station locations (and is even used in a few). But most of the station head house positioning was purposefully picked at a maximum elevation point to allow a concourse level then platform level, thereby mandating the elevators. Move the station access points to grade, and the elevators are not needed. This was possible in many of the locations, but not done to get that super rapid transit station feel (for lots of extra money!).

This is very similar to stations on the Riverside line -- Brookline Hills, for example. You could have an uber rapid transit type station by building a concourse off of the Cypress Street bridge and then two controlled access platforms below; or you can do what was done economically on the D line and gain access from the at grade side street Tappan Street. Seems to work just fine on the D line!
 
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