Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011
Bill White is correct:
the SIP says:
Pulled from various pages, here is the phasing/scheduling:
Code:
July 2014 90% Plans for phase 2/2A Lechmere, Washington St, & Union Sq Submitted
July 2014 60% Plans for "Beyond Washington St" recommence
Sept 2014 FTA submission for Full Funding Grant Agreement (FFGA) under New Starts to be submitted
Fall 2014 Temporary (Construction) easements acquisition
Sprg 2015 Design begins on Vehicle Storage & Maintenance Facility (VSMF / Stage 3)
???? 2014 MBTA is "proceeding" with rehab of eight existing cars to support Phase 2/2A ops
Dec 2015 FTA/Congressional approval of FFGA expected
???? 2015 Construction on Phase 2/2A Begins
Late 2017 Completion of Phase 2/2A Complete
Late 2017 New Type 9 Cars start arriving
Sprg 2018 New Type 9 Cars all delivered
???? ???? VSMF completed (as precondition for "Beyond Washington" ops)
June 2020 Completion of "Beyond Washington St" & "Project Completion"
As F-Line previously pointed out, they seem to fudge the most on the VSMF's dates (I could only find the design milestone and the fact that its a "must have" before the "beyond" segment opens in 2020). The FTA has signed off on it to this point but there are lots of reasons to fudge: it is ~$400m of pure overhead, it is not directly part of the original CLF legal deal (it is "just" an operating precondition), and the site has utility & geotechnical complications and only 2 of 4 parcels have been acquired.
Now, the SIP says they have geotechnical and utility problems and, despite agreeing on the site & pricing with the FTA they have only acquired 2 of the 4 parcels.
Politically & budgetarily, I'd guess they'd like to delay the VSMF until 2020 when it is critical, as opposed to 2018 when it'd just be a "nice to have" as the Type 9s arrive--and keep part of the LRV fleet offsite somewhere
Until the VSMF is there to hold the expanded fleet overnight, the Type 9s can't expand the numbers in dailiy operations and you also can't see 3-car ops. You'd think that current Green Line constituencies would be crying out to make sure that the VSMF comes on line in early 2018 and the 3-car trains start the same day.
I'd also point out with the maint facility that the current design specs that haven't been updated in close to 5 years pretty much murder Pan Am's freight access across BET. And that is going to be a major problem.
If you go on Google Maps and look at that wrap-around track that connects between the Lowell and Fitchburg Lines it's usually stuffed full of freight cars as their parking spot to time movements between commuter rail frequencies. It's 1 mile of grade-separated storage between the split with the Lowell Line underneath the McGrath bridge around the horn to the crossovers by 3rd St. and MS Walker. And they use all of it.
-- The Lowell split is getting moved 1500 ft. to the other side of the Washington St. bridge as necessity for fitting the GLX mainline tracks and Washington station.
-- Then the around-the-horn portion is getting cut at about where Innerbelt Rd. bends back on itself for the carhouse lead tracks. There'll be a 2000 ft. stub, but no thru connection.
-- Pan Am can only get around by going through Yard 8 along New Washington St., which has 2 grade crossings and less than 1000 ft. of storage space between crossings where it isn't blocking traffic. That track is only useful for running thru-and-thru and unloading maybe 2 cars at a time to trucks at that tiny freight house.
-- If they can fit their storage needs on that stub, it requires backing up and fouling the Lowell Line for 10 minutes at a time to change ends and get into/across Yard 8. And they would have to do this on both ends of every midday trip to Everett Terminal, and both ends of every late-day trip to Peabody.
-- If they can't fit their storage needs on that stub, they either have to run straight from Lawrence to Everett afternoon commuter rail schedule be damned, or bring day freight back to the inner Fitchburg Line and its 25+ grade crossings the rich NIMBY's in Acton and Concord are going to bitch about. AND hurt its Everett revenue intake because they can't use their wide clearance route on the Lowell Line to bring max-size boxcars and other high-capacity cars you need to have available at major shipping terminal.
-- If Pan Am's capacity is kneecapped, you have no hope of cutting a deal with CSX to hand it's own Framingham-Grand Junction-Everett daily freight job over to Pan Am to tack onto its Everett run, then shuttle CSX's cars to Worcester via Ayer. Meaning, you lose the chance to purge the last of the inner Worcester Line and Grand Junction freight slots off the day schedule and make those lines passenger-exclusive.
I really hope you aren't counting on those magic Anderson DMU's keeping a consistent headway on your lunch hour, because Lowell Line takes it right in the teeth over that track getting severed. You should listen to the Pan Am employees on RR.net scream bloody murder over this.
Pan Am blithely signed off on this 6 years ago before it cut its partnership deal with national freight behemoth Norfolk Southern for half-ownership of the Patriot Corridor and the big-money, CSX-competitor intermodal freights. While NS does not co-own any of Pan Am's territory east of Ayer, they entered into that agreement on expectation that Pan Am was going to do its part to bring them back some traffic from Maine and Boston to take back out of Ayer. Which Pan Am is starting to do in a bit of corporate renaissance after close to 30 years of reputation as the country's don't-give-a-shittingest large regional RR. That was doesn't-give-a-shit pre-NS Pan Am that cut this deal in the Innerbelt. Oops.
Norfolk Southern is the straw that stirs the drink, and if they have subsequently (I would wager $20 that they have) slapped Pan Am across the head to go back to the bargaining table with the T an un-fuckup that severed connection there's going to need to be a price-bloating design change to the Maint Facility. The viaduct for the yard lead tracks and the Union/Medford branch junction is going to have to get longer and allow that connecting track to be tied into the remaining wrap-around tracks that fork off the Fitchburg Line. It's the only way you won't be counting losses in what's left of Metro Boston annual freight revenues in the millions. Yes, Pan Am fucked up allowing that. No, it would be quite very unwise for the state to tell them to shove it when that now entails telling Norfolk Southern's huge national reach and millions in in-state investment to shove it. NS craps bigger'n the T.
Maybe the project managers don't realize this yet, but that's a non-optional project change. Or maybe they do realize it and have an inbox full of nastygrammes from Norfolk Southern and a chastened Pan Am to ponder somberly while they try to control costs and keep the schedule from slipping another 3 years. And nastygrammes from their own commuter rail dispatchers, and transcripts from a bunch of meetings during the CR contract bidding where Keolis said "Erm, yeah...you're gonna have to fix this if you want to hold us to running northside DMU's, because that's insane."
