Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

belmont square said:
Cantab's point about total population per census tract is irrelevant. It's the pop density that matters.

If you were looking for a corridor to implement rapid transit and could only choose two of the following criteria to guide your decision which would you choose?

1) overcrowded high frequency bus routes
2) high population density in the corridor
3) high population density over a larger area defined by municipal boundaries that bear no relationship to travel patterns

I would think you'd base it on 1 and 2, but since those aren't winning justifications for glx, its supporters typically resort to #3
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Again, your point earlier was that Somerville's statisical position as the densest town in New England was that the industrial areas in Everett and Chelsea skew their pop densities lower. Somerville is the 15th densest city with 10,000+ resident in the US, if that's not good enough for you, I don't know what else you want. My point was arguing that you're claim that Chelsea is denser and I was using tracts (which are relatively equal in size across urban New England locations). Not precise, but it gives you an indication of whether you're claim was true or not. And your's wasn't.

So 1, 2, 3 all apply. Whether or not you accept that is on you. And FWIW, Davis-Kendall is the largest origin-destination pairing on the Red Line that doesn't have the Financial District as a destination. Cambridge-Somerville is a statistically and historically relevant commute pattern. I'm not sure what your argument is against GLX?
 
The other point is that Somerville now has a proven Capuano-Curtatone era record of good multimodal planning (Hubway/bike-to-transit, particularly) and good TOD implementation (at Assembly), and vigorous support for new infill and density.

A proven record of knowing how to deliver the larger, social, housing, & employment benefits that actually pay back the "investment" being made here. That has to be a major criterion: the political will to actually *leverage* transit, not just be dense enough, hypothetically, to have some dropped on them.

Medford is still a bit of a rookie, though has delivered promising results at Wellington and (if Tufts helps) a good plan at College Ave.

With the GLX being late, Somerville's population, planning, and actual projects have changed prior to the GLX's opening, taking a whole lot of risk out of the question of whether the ridership will be there. Really, given how the city has already changed and is changing, I have no doubt it will blow away original ridership estimates. Originally "2020" was supposed to be something like year 11 or year 6 of GLX ops...mature ridership after years of growing use. I'd guess somerville is ready to deliver "Year 6" ridership numbers starting in Year 1 of GLX ops, which rapidly accelerates payback.

The best anecdotal evidence that this is happening is the number of infill densifications that are being built on the sites of former gas stations, tire shops, auto repair places all over town: proof that the people of Somerville have already chosen to disfavor the auto in a way no transit forecaster would have dared to specify.

Also no planner doing forecasts in 2005 for GLX would have incorporated the power of Hubway and Zipcar and bus-tracker apps to pre-free people from cars and pre-dispose them to rail transit. But all that is already in place (but not in evidence in South Coast Rail, for example)

And Chelsea is getting its Silver Line. Yeah, it is not rail, but when you consider how FAST and controversy-free and fully-state paid it is, it seems to me to be exactly the right package for the right place, and the jury is out on whether Chelsea itself knows how to actually leverage the project for optimal payback the way Somerville does. It is a bit risky for the infrastructure to get built so much faster than the land-use plan comes together.

And so on to Everett. Partly you have to look how they spend their own (Casino) money before you decide whether they are ready for the State to offer something. Any signs they'd know what to do with a prime piece of new infrastructure? Why should the State give them one before there is such evidence? Sounds risky and potentially wasteful.
 
Sounds like the groundwork is being laid for cancellation. Too bad Charlie will get all the blame because this is a culmination of years of indescribable mismanagement and overregulation. The actual blame list is too long to print here.
Woulda been nice.
 
I realize there is a labyrinth of Federal regulations at play here, but what are the chances they can at least get the thing built to Union Square? My understanding is can actually get away with adding the two stations to Union without having to build a new maintenance facility.
 
Arch101 said:
Sounds like the groundwork is being laid for cancellation. Too bad Charlie will get all the blame because this is a culmination of years of indescribable mismanagement and overregulation. The actual blame list is too long to print here.
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What makes you think that Sec Pollack's list (below) isn't the actual blame?
Pollack said there are several reasons the T vastly underestimated the price. For one, officials completed their estimates based on premium construction prices during the depths of the recession, which artificially deflated the costs, she said.

DePaola also pointed to the contracting process being used for the Green Line extension, which the T has not previously used. The project has been divided into several contracts, and the T must negotiate with its main contractor for the price of each portion.

The T is currently negotiating the price tag of one of the largest jobs of the extension, which would create three new stations and tracks. While the T believes that portion could cost $487 million, its main contractor, White-Skanska-Kiewit has estimated that the portion will cost nearly double that -- $889 million.

“We were stunned at the cost difference,” said Frank DePaola, the interim general manager of the T.

Pollack said the T “simply cannot afford” to build those stations at that cost.
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This reads, to me, somewhere between Gov Hogan (Maryland) nibbling at their Purple Line (to prove budget-control bona fides) and plain old can't-inflate-prices-just-because-Pollack-is-transit's-friend.
 
Assuming all parties are acting in good faith on the cost estimates, we're looking at up to $744 M/ mile to build light rail on existing surface ROW.

How is this possible? Sound Transit is paying $603 M/ mile to build a light rail extension that's pretty much a subway in all but the name. Is it the T's glass palace stations and the new yard that's killing the budget?
 
If this is cancelled there will be some huge repercussions seeing as how Somerville has already started densifying and has some major development plans in the works that rely on the GLX happening to work.
 
Well it was a nice idea. So much for GLX. I expect it's canned by years end.
 
So how does Somerville's lawsuit play into this? Also what about all of the work being done contingent on this? The Union Square redevelopment plans basically can't go forward without this.
 
citylover94 said:
If this is cancelled there will be some huge repercussions seeing as how Somerville has already started densifying and has some major development plans in the works that rely on the GLX happening to work.
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So can Somerville sue the Commonwealth and the MBTA for gross malfeasance, or something?
 
At the very least, that GLX-Rt. 16 extension will beat a hasty retreat from the TIP.

I thought we'd turned a corner on, you know, building the proper infrastructure to secure economic growth and quality of life improvements. But, hey, is what it is. We get the system we pay for. Why this is so expensive is beyond me, but the fundamental fact that public infrastructure requires appropriate public investment holds true.

Not a peep about SCR.
 
This is a total guess but I think this could play out like this:

-gov. says we are canceling the project
-somerville says fine we will sue you your legally obligated to build this so just finish it half the work is done
-state eventually gives in because of court ruling

or something like that.

Also costs go up because of the delay.
 
I'd hope they at least do a VE exercise on the admittedly ridiculous stations to try to shave off costs. The problem is that the new MBTA accessibility & station design standards specify that redundant elevators are necessary, so they can't VE out the extra elevators to save some money.
 
datadyne007 said:
I'd hope they at least do a VE exercise on the admittedly ridiculous stations to try to shave off costs. The problem is that the new MBTA accessibility & station design standards specify that redundant elevators are necessary, so they can't VE out the extra elevators to save some money.
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It's beyond sad that in the name of accessibility for everybody, we get accessibility for nobody.
 
What if the just do PoP instead of full stations so that they don't need two levels and can use ramps in place of elevators?
 
WBUR said:
Transportation officials are now looking at whether more modest stations — similar to elsewhere on the Green Line, in Newton — could shave costs
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Hopefully this goes somewhere.
 
citylover94 said:
What if the just do PoP instead of full stations so that they don't need two levels and can use ramps in place of elevators?
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Ramps get enormous and tedious to use with dramatic changes in elevation (when they substitute for an elevator). See: JFK/UMass & Suffolk Downs.
 
Powerpoint summary up: http://www.mbta.com/uploadedfiles/A...Presentation for FMCB Final - 08.21.2015.pptx

Cost cutting options:
  • $129 m: Downsize, delay or eliminate vehicle maintenance and storage facility
  • $40 M : Downsize/streamline or delay stations (to be more like stations elsewhere on the Green Line
  • $28 M : Downsize, delay or eliminate Community Path Extension – Up to $28 million in savings
  • Rebid project and step away from current management
  • Kill whole project, or kill the College Ave. Branch, or kill Union Square

Revenue options:
  • $158 m: Reallocate $158 million in federal funds programmed by Boston Region MPO for future Route 16 extension to core GLX projectfacility
  • TIF from immediate neighborhoods to pay for stations
  • Donations for Community Path Extension
  • Get some Federal earmarks and/or shake down Tufts and US2

Obviously, the entries with dollar signs next to them don't add up to $1B.
 
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