Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

Delayed again:

Nicole Dungca ‏@ndungca 4m ago

Not particularly surprising, but transportation secretary Stephanie Pollack explicitly says Green Line extension will be delayed again
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Recommendations for next steps are coming on Dec. 9.
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Earliest that the MBTA would move forward with next segment of the project is spring 2016
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Sounds like they might miss this latest deadline by nearly a year -- the contract for this section was supposed to be done by this summer.
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Does this mean Lechmere will remain open? When is the earliest that Lechmere would be replaced?
 
There will be about 17 months from the closure of old Lechmere until the completion of new Lechmere, Union Square, and Washington Street. We're now looking at late 2018 for that, so old Lechmere may well remain open into 2017.
 
Wow. Well, at least we will see a year of *regular* Green Line operation after Government Center reopens. Haha.

Disclaimer: unless Hynes Convention Center renovations cause disruptions in service.
 
Hynes shouldn't be a particularly disruptive build. Raise platforms, drop elevator shafts, rebuild the tunnel to the southside bus stop. You might see a handful of late-night or weekend bustitutions, but it'll be nothing like GC. GC was an oddball because it was a two-level station that needed a much more complete rebuild (Hynes got cosmetic work in the 80s or so; GC was untouched since 1963) and didn't have alternate entrances.
 
The EGE said:
Hynes shouldn't be a particularly disruptive build. Raise platforms, drop elevator shafts, rebuild the tunnel to the southside bus stop. You might see a handful of late-night or weekend bustitutions, but it'll be nothing like GC. GC was an oddball because it was a two-level station that needed a much more complete rebuild (Hynes got cosmetic work in the 80s or so; GC was untouched since 1963) and didn't have alternate entrances.
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Government Center was actually modernized in 1968, when most of the Green Line level was still only 5 years old. If you find any photos of the Green Line level of Government Center in 1963-67, you might mistakenly have thought it was built in the 1940s (incandescent lights, hand painted signage). The 1968 work was mostly cosmetic (lights, false ceilings, Cambridge Seven signage and maps) but they did reconfigure the then only five year old entrance from the bunker-style headhouse to include a second escalator, as the 1963 layout caused pedestrian backups on the platform. All this has now been replaced with the new facility. The Blue Line level never received much work in the 1963 or 68 modernizations beyond lighting and signage, except to replace an escalator that went direct to the surface with one that instead went to the Green Line level.
 
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2...pushed-back/3ysg4HAmGjBm2lvNjx7WLP/story.html

The completion date of the Green Line extension will likely be pushed back yet again as MBTA officials look for ways to drive down the costs and find new revenue to pay for the project.

Officials do not yet have an estimate for when the extension could be complete, but top state transportation officials acknowledged that the project is unlikely to meet its latest timeline, which pegged some of the stations opening by 2017.
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Ever the optimist--if the stations are simplified then perhaps that block of time will be reduced making it not a year delay but maybe six months. That is until the next delay pushes that out further.
 
Does nobody in leadership realize that another delay could easily lead to higher costs again?

Wasn't that part of the issue with the increasing cost or am I remembering incorrectly?
 
Construction time isn't going to go down with "simpler" stations - the lengthy parts of drainage (absolutely required for even questionably compliant bare platforms) and elevators (required for actual ADA compliance for reasons discussed to death upstream) are what drags on and on. So the end result is that you spend a year redesigning stations, rack up as much in redesign costs as you save in construction, and the users get a worse system later at the same cost.

The first rule of transit is that it's always cheaper to built it now. That's a consequence of Baumol's cost disease and seems to be largely universal across transportation, regardless of the competence and public/private affiliation of the builder.
 
Will the state be on the hook for any more mitigation projects given the new delay?
 
^ Based on the last set of mitigations (parking garages and off-peak bus service), I'm guessing that even if they are forced to do more, the most we'll see is more off-peak bus service.
 
Arlington said:
^ Based on the last set of mitigations (parking garages and off-peak bus service), I'm guessing that even if they are forced to do more, the most we'll see is more off-peak bus service.
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Actually, that would be pretty great, especially if they target the bus service to the areas where the GLX would run. Bumping up the 69, 87 and 88 would be a real boon on the weekends.
 
Story in Boston Magazine about the on-time and on-budget work on the not so Sexy Silver Line to Chelsea [StoCh] should be instructive to the discussion of the Highly Sexy but way over budget GLX

By being not so sexy and under the radar the StoCh is coming in under $100M including new stations, new bridges, and the busway

Why is the GLX estimated to be 25X StoCh?

Other relevant data points -- the private & T partnerships involved with Assembly Sq and Boston Landing stations
 
whighlander said:
By being not so sexy and under the radar the StoCh is coming in under $100M including new stations, new bridges, and the busway

Why is the GLX estimated to be 25X StoCh?
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Higher capacity. Reconstruction of Lechmere and viaduct. Electrification. Stations instead of Platforms. Maintenance Facility. Storage Facility. Utility Relocation. Bridge Reconstruction. Flyovers instead of grade-level crossings.

But, yes, there's some blame on anyone who viewed the GLX as a burden that needed to mitigated and "go slow-ed", and a gravy-train that needed to be supped at, instead of just a plain old huge mobility win.

The delightful thing about Chelesea is that it got a gift and was happy with it. It does make you want to do 10 more SLGs for the state's cost of one GLX. But it doesn't quite mean that the GLX should not be done.
 
Walked by the future GLX Washington st. station on Saturday and there seems to be plenty of activity. Does anyone know if the work going on there is part of the GLX project or something else?
 
Ruairi said:
Walked by the future GLX Washington st. station on Saturday and there seems to be plenty of activity. Does anyone know if the work going on there is part of the GLX project or something else?
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Yep. Utility, culvert, bridge, and retaining wall work is cranking right along on the whole corridor.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Yep. Utility, culvert, bridge, and retaining wall work is cranking right along on the whole corridor.
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And let's be clear on how excellent this stuff is too see. This stuff, while coming in a suspiciously-consistent +50% above estimate/contract, is at least the part that is only ~250m-ish (IIRC/real rough). They are creating a fully-cleared 2-track-wide additional railbed from Lechmere to the termini, widening bridges that were too narrow, old, or low, and putting retaining walls to ensure that "the trench" is as wide at its bottom as the original Boston & Lowell ROW property lines permit.

When done, there won't be any signals, ties, rails, or power, but you will have a beautiful corridor. To me, it is near-inconceivable that once this phase is done that they won't be able to come up with a good value-for-money way of filling it.
 
November 30: what happened
December 9: what will happen
 
Anybody go tonight (Mon) to Tufts' update on its TOD building atop College Ave GLX?
 
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