Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

[F-Line to Dudley]

The MBTA is required to build the GLX, according to the CLF lawsuit and whatnot, to "Medford Hillside." There is some disagreement between MassDOT and CLF as to what "Medford Hillside" means as CLF says that the extension needs to be built to the Route 16 location while MassDOT maintains that College Ave fulfils that requirement. This is why the Medford Branch is not getting stations trimmed out or outright canceled.

Medford Hillside is an official (though seldom-referenced) neighborhood in Medford: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medford,_Massachusetts#Neighborhoods. It's College Ave. and the border with Somerville/Davis by any other name. So, yes...that's a very specific location and not a placeholder open to interpretation.

 

[Proposition Joe]

Medford Hillside is an official (though seldom-referenced) neighborhood in Medford: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medford,_Massachusetts#Neighborhoods. It's College Ave. and the border with Somerville/Davis by any other name. So, yes...that's a very specific location and not a placeholder open to interpretation.

Rafael Mares, Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), stated that the State Implementation Plan (SIP) requires that the Green Line Extension be built to Medford Hillside. He said that the current planned terminus of Phase 1 at College Avenue, Medford does not meet that requirement; however the terminus of Phase 2 at Route 16 does meet the requirement. D. Mohler countered that MassDOT considers College Avenue to be at Medford Hillside and that the Department of Environmental Protection (which oversees the SIP) has concurred that the College Avenue terminus meets the requirements of the SIP.

From here.

MassDOT agrees with you in regards to College Avenue and the CLF does not. Not doubting the existence of Medford Hillside, but neighborhoods do not necessarily have agreed upon boundaries as this spat above suggests; I just thought it was interesting to bring it up when referencing the legal requirement to serve the neighborhood in regards to suggestions that the Medford Branch be dropped in favor of the Union Square Branch.

 

[Arlington]

MassDOT agrees with you in regards to College Avenue and the CLF does not....when referencing the legal requirement to serve the neighborhood in regards to suggestions that the Medford Branch be dropped in favor of the Union Square Branch.

Yes. Whether "Hillside" is at College Ave, Winthrop St, or Rt 16, it is "Hillside" that the original settlement required, and not Union.

Still, if MassDOT says Union Sq plus some other stuff (bus signal priority throughout Somerville, and added CNG or hybrid buses, for example) would produce 110% of the air quality benefit for less money (highly likely), and a judge agrees, they'd be free to postpone the Hillside branch (and forego the FFGA $)

In fact, to reduce the claims of "wasted money" they could park the extra buses on the acquired trolley-yard site, "in the meantime" (Storing buses has been the main constraint on adding rush/peak service for the T).

 

[Semass]

This should be about the time in the process where the pols, sensing trouble, will likely set up their own "investigation" and subpoena the WSK execs. The WSK folks will be made to sit in front of a committee and mumble while the pols well at them to protect their own posteriors and prove that they are "doing something" about this mess. I'm frankly surprised this hasn't happened already.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Yes. Whether "Hillside" is at College Ave, Winthrop St, or Rt 16, it is "Hillside" that the original settlement required, and not Union.

Still, if MassDOT says Union Sq plus some other stuff (bus signal priority throughout Somerville, and added CNG or hybrid buses, for example) would produce 110% of the air quality benefit for less money (highly likely), and a judge agrees, they'd be free to postpone the Hillside branch (and forego the FFGA $)

In fact, to reduce the claims of "wasted money" they could park the extra buses on the acquired trolley-yard site, "in the meantime" (Storing buses has been the main constraint on adding rush/peak service for the T).

Yes, but the other very real issue is Red Line capacity, and the fact that some of our densest residential areas (Cambridge, Somerville) and most prolific economic center (Kendall Square) are served by rapid transit that runs above capacity at peak rush hour. Without rapid-transit level augmented capacity, the regional and statewide economic impact of these areas is stalled. GLX, particularly the Hillside branch, adds desperately needed extra capacity that buses cannot match.

It also takes burden off Park Street and Downtown Crossing as transfer stations, also reaching capacity. Red to Green for some riders becomes stay on Green or Green to Green at North Station or Government Center. Red to Orange for some riders becomes Green to Orange at North Station. Could be significant transfer load leveling (North Station is barely used as a transfer station today between the Green and Orange Lines).

 

[Arborway]

The MBTA is required to build the GLX, according to the CLF lawsuit and whatnot, to "Medford Hillside."

Been there, don that. Within five years, the State will agree to build 250 commuter rail parking spaces in exchange for the CLF dropping its lawsuit.

 

[George_Apley]

Yes, but the other very real issue is Red Line capacity, and the fact that some of our densest residential areas (Cambridge, Somerville) and most prolific economic center (Kendall Square) are served by rapid transit that runs above capacity at peak rush hour. Without rapid-transit level augmented capacity, the regional and statewide economic impact of these areas is stalled. GLX, particularly the Hillside branch, adds desperately needed extra capacity that buses cannot match.

This point is one that is unfortunately ignored by the "don't expand, reinvest" crowd. It's not an issue that anyone but transit junkies think about, but it's very real.

People say "don't waste $$ expanding the system, reinvest $$ into the core system that exists!" They neglect the point that the core system is maxed out or almost maxed out across lines. Expansion is necessary just to keep the existing system functional.

Cancel GLX and all those people who currently take busses to Wellington, Sullivan, Harvard, Central or Kendall will still do so. They'll taking badly needed square footage from riders who live on (or drive to) the Red and Orange lines.

Neglect to build Red-Blue and watch crushing dwell times at Park, DTX and State kill headways on the Red and Orange lines.

Downtown connectivity (through Red-Blue) and flanking release valves (such as GLX to Porter via Union or to Harvard via Allston) are important for the T to not kill itself with ridership growth.

This is a dimension that is always left out of the housing conversation. "Build more TOD! Build median-income housing in the neighborhoods on the MBTA lines! Build for density!" YES! I agree! But what's going to happen to the reliability of the T when hundreds or thousands more riders pile into Red Line cars to commute downtown? Or transfer to the Red Line to get to Kendall Square? Without expansion projects taking some riders off of the Red Line, the line will cease to be a useful mode of transportation. If we're going to grow the city by tens-of-thousands of people, we need the transit system to be able to handle it. Without expansion AND reinvestment, we are setting ourselves up for a (more) failed MBTA, which will only stifle our economic growth.

 

[datadyne007]

Press release just went out that the MBTA is terminating contracts with current GLX contractors.

 

[statler]

I assume there are some fees associated with that move?

 

[jdrinboston]

So apparently we're moving to the "re-bid" option. Here's the one thing that bothers me - okay there are many things about this that bothers me, but this is the one that's easiest for me to articulate at the moment:

The entire cost of this project has ballooned over the years as it has gone through the various stages of concept, environmental impact studies, community patch design, political foot dragging etc. Assuming we now have to wait another 9 to 12 months or longer for the project to be redesigned and rebid, aren't the costs just going to inflate more? In the end, how much money are we really going to be saving?

And has anybody ever put together a detailed accounting of where the billions of dollars are actually going? How much does it cost to reallign the commuter rail, ballast the new GLX bed, cantenary wires, stations etc.?

I was as big an advocate of this project as anybody, but I'm seriously starting to wonder if it would just be better to pull the plug.

 

[datadyne007]

Press release:

For Immediate Release: 12/10/2015 CONTACT:
MassDOT Press Office: 857-368-8500

MBTA ACTS ON GREEN LINE EXTENSION CONTRACTS
Control Board to also make changes in GLX project management


BOSTON – Thursday, December 10, 2015 – Following a joint meeting of the MassDOT Board of Directors and the MBTA Fiscal and Management Control Board (FMCB), MBTA General Manager Frank DePaola today notified several firms working on the Green Line Extension project that the MBTA is acting to end their current contracts. The FMCB is also planning to restructure the MBTA’s GLX project management team and is taking other actions, which will include appointing a new interim project manager.

The moves follow a meeting yesterday at which the boards met to consider options for the project. Both boards had been earlier briefed on a Look Back review that identified flaws in the implementation of the construction manager/general contractor (CM/GC) project delivery method. That review also found that unrealistic schedule demands drove decision-making and costs. The FMCB directed T General Manager DePaola to notify the MBTA’s CM/GC (White-Skanska-Kiewit), the MBTA’s Project Manager/Construction Manager (HDR/Gilbane), the MBTA’s Independent Cost Estimator (Stanton Constructability Services), and the MBTA’s final designer (AECOM/HNTB) of the decision.

The decision marks the start of a transitional period, during which no new construction work will be awarded. During this time, however, much of the construction work that is already under contract and in progress will continue.

As previously disclosed, the GLX project, as currently designed, will significantly exceed previous budget estimates. The FMCB believes that if the GLX project is to be built, the MBTA must (1) reduce the cost of the remainder of the project by aggressively adjusting its design, (2) accurately determine a budget, (3) determine the best means to procure and deliver the design and construction of the project, and (4) ensure sufficient funding by engaging multiple funding sources.

“Today’s actions are necessary steps to resolving the future of the GLX project,” said FMCB Chairman Joseph Aiello.

“The Look Back report has brought clarity to two important factors in this decision: first, the construction manager/general contractor project delivery method was not successfully implemented; and second, that we need a complete reassessment of the project’s design, scope, and cost,” said T General Manager DePaola.

The current CM/GC project delivery method has proven to be impracticable to complete a redesigned and affordable GLX project. The current CM/GC contract and the statute that created this project delivery system combine to render the current process unworkable. Accordingly, the FMCB needed to recommend the full break from CM/GC and the associated contracts for this project.

The FMCB has also directed that it must approve all GLX contracts and actions, regardless of value, over the next 90 days, as the MBTA moves forward with cost reduction, accurate budgeting and reprocurement efforts.

The MassDOT board and FMCB will continue their consideration of options for the Green Line extension at a joint meeting scheduled for next Monday, December 14 at 1 p.m.

http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/tran...A-Acts-on-Green-Line-Extension-Contracts.aspx

 

[cden4]

Yes, this. Someone needs to suffer other than just the taxpayers. Walking away is a just a copout.

You guys don't get it.

NOBODY IS LISTENING to the "Well, it could've been worse" half of that message. By the time you have said that Joe Taxpayer is already mid-rant about how the government has pissed more of their tax dollars away and tuned out the second half of your statement. "Well, it could've been worse" isn't a comfort, it's a reinforcing dose of negativity.

Again: can somebody cite an ACTUAL EXAMPLE of a taxpayer money-for-nothing situation where the outrage has been placated that way? With no token tangible thing salvaged from it like an "oh, but at least 93 is a little better with the tunnel", just an abstract quote of how high the waste could've theoretically run...and that successfully nipping the outrage? Any citations from the last 30 years of Herald and talk radio archives to back that up? Anyone?

If you can't back up this supposition about voter psychology re: gov't waste with some real examples, it's sticking head in sand with some dangerous wishful thinking.

The Governor of New Jersey was not mathematically in any sort of electoral harm for any actions regarding cancellation of ARC. He won reelection 60-38 in 2013. The cancellation also wasn't a cancellation, but an immediate re-pivot to Gateway with NJ's own Congressional delegation leaping into action rustling the feds. And now 3 years of constant back-and-forth later we've got Christie, Cuomo, the Feds, and the Congressional delegations from 2 states setting up the formal authority that advances the project. No relation whatsoever to walking away for good, because while Christie played hard-to-get he eventually came around and signed on to a better reboot of the project.

Second, a voter participation swing of ~9.3% in the GLX host municipalities accounts for the entirety of Baker's margin of victory. In actual math, not suppositions. Those big-population places can't go off-scale high on participation and deliver him a reelection in 2018. You can posit all sorts of scenarios where he can or will prevail using real math estimates. But you cannot claim with anything other wishful thinking that this simply doesn't matter or is nothing more than an adorable figment of the Somervillean imagination. Somebody cite some reality-based evidence that it doesn't matter. Because actual electoral math paints a sphincter-clenching picture that it does.

Agreed. But that kind of action would actually impress some voters by 1) trying to salvage something real instead of doing the "It could've been worse" negative reinforcement that never ever works; and 2) going after the bad guys to make them feel pain for screwing us. Both of them. WSK's sins aren't punished if the project is just removed and everyone loses...especially if there's no mechanism to blackball them on future bids like the Big Dig contractor grifters weren't blackballed. You actually have to use the free market as a weapon to punish them by getting a re-bid that steals the job away or makes them forfeit the insanest over-padding of their profit margins and explain that to their shareholders. That's playing the short attention-span voter psychology to good effect. If people are mad that we got screwed and mad that there's three-quarters of a billion in sunk cost...they want to see vengeance against those who wronged them if they're not going to get anything tangible salvaged from the fleecing. If that doesn't mean definitive comeuppance for the contractors on their own turf of profit-and-loss, the only other alternative is comeuppance through counting of votes on the pols own turf.

This is why I have to keep hammering against the oversimplistic fantasy that a cut-and-run is so neat, tidy, and consequence-free. Nobody's going to be placated by "it could've been worse" when they're out for blood before those words are even uttered. They're out for blood. Either salvage something net-gain in the real world out of it so they're not out for as much blood, serve up some bad guys on a platter...or they'll take your "it could've been worse" negative reinforcement and find their own bad guys to serve up on a platter. With only mechanism for that being in a voting booth at the precise time when a cancellation decision is freshest. Either way somebody's hands are going to get dirty.

A whole lot of math and a whole lot of Voter Outrage Psych 101 presents evidence in triplicate of that being the way it usually goes down. Got a counterargument? Present your evidence, not wishful thinking repeated.

 

[whighlander]

Come back after the winter is over [circa May] and this thing will be resolved

I'm still betting on Union Sq. and the new Green Line cars and the flood control improvements -- later after a revisit [circa 2025] of TOD a possible Washington St. station could be added

This will be a compromise sufficient for all but the hardest core of the CLF and will make the Fed's happy under the clause that allows substitution as long as the air cleaning goals are exceeded by 10% [read the presentation pdf]

There might even be a sweetener that the redesign of Union Sq could support a barebones CR station as well as the VE'd Green Line Station

and somewhere down the timeline [circa 2030] after Union Sq is in full development -- DMU's can the stop at Union Sq. to provide a Purple Line connection from North Station to Union Sq and on to Porter Sq. providing a back-up Red-Green connection

 

[djimpact1]

If there were to ever be any serious consideration of Green/Red/Blue/Orange extensions in the future, does this current situation kill any chance of it, or would future extension proposals be taken seriously (assuming a re-bid/re-design occurs) only if this project is salvaged & executed somewhat respectably (again, post-revisions)?

 

[datadyne007]

I have updated the press release from MassDOT in full now that they have posted it online. See above.

Also, my heart goes out to the hundreds of hard-working ‪‎GLX‬ contract employees at WSK, AECOM/HNTB, HDR/Gilbane & Stanton who are receiving pink slips today. They are collateral damage from their companies gaming the CM/GC system and getting caught.

 

[Arlington]

If there were to ever be any serious consideration of Green/Red/Blue/Orange extensions in the future, does this current situation kill any chance of it, or would future extension proposals be taken seriously (assuming a re-bid/re-design occurs) only if this project is salvaged & executed somewhat respectably (again, post-revisions)?

Getting this right (and proving we can do "contracting" more like Europeans do) has got to be a win for all kinds of future expansions (like GLX to Porter..the ultimate Red Line reliever). A disciplined MassDOT working with competitive constructors has got to be a better ecosystem for expanding transit than the thing that just died.

Already, doing this phase wrong has cost us the $200m in the CMAQ planning that would have gotten us GLX to MVP/Rt16 by 2025. It was in the draft plans for about a month before the GLX overruns ate it. So the old way was a far more mortal threat to future extension(s).

If projects can be done cost effectively we can have more of them.

 

[Scalziand]

Can't the flood control costs be dumped on the Army Corp of Engineers or something?

 

[datadyne007]

CM/GC was not intended to be used with the GLX. The State passed the legislation with the intention of using it on the Longfellow Bridge. At the time, the Feds were heavily pushing CM/GC for highway projects and were also giving MassDOT $1 billion for the GLX, so we're inclined to believe that the Feds had a little bit of a hand in pushing CM/GC on the GLX.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Can't the flood control costs be dumped on the Army Corp of Engineers or something?

Not after the fact, no. Those are the jobs that are already mid-surgery and can't be canceled. Ground has to be stitched back up all the same in a project cancellation. They made that abundantly clear in the presentation yesterday what share of the sunk cost that contributes by default. Army Corps can't legally be used as an insurance policy there.

 

[Ruairi]

Come back after the winter is over [circa May] and this thing will be resolved

I'm still betting on Union Sq. and the new Green Line cars and the flood control improvements -- later after a revisit [circa 2025] of TOD a possible Washington St. station could be added

This will be a compromise sufficient for all but the hardest core of the CLF and will make the Fed's happy under the clause that allows substitution as long as the air cleaning goals are exceeded by 10% [read the presentation pdf]

There might even be a sweetener that the redesign of Union Sq could support a barebones CR station as well as the VE'd Green Line Station

and somewhere down the timeline [circa 2030] after Union Sq is in full development -- DMU's can the stop at Union Sq. to provide a Purple Line connection from North Station to Union Sq and on to Porter Sq. providing a back-up Red-Green connection

Could be wrong but is there a minimum of stations that need to be constructed to unlock the federal money? also, is there a time limit of pre 2022 on it? if so, I doubt it will be just to Union.

At the meeting yesterday, someone suggested a 40% saving if only one of the CR tracks is moved. I'd say, ideas like this, combined with a normal bidding process will lead to the whole extension being built, all be it with scaled down stations and a two or three year delay.