Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

[Texasian]

That clearly isn't true. Or at least that is why you call it a "stop".

I'll take pedantry for $200 Alex.

If you want an example, just look at any of the underground Silver Line station stops. Arguably, the customer experience at South Station would be much improved with a way to get from one platform to the other without having to go either up or down a level, and yet it's still verboten.

 

[Arlington]

And you'd still need an ADA compliant way to reach the outbound platform walking across the tracks isn't going to cut it, for all the reasons discussed to death on this thread

Nope. Despite the self-satisfied ArchBoston answers that "its the ADA" only circular reasons of we-must-have-because-we-must-have were offered here.

ADA which is perfectly satisfied with very high volumes of people crossing active rails on virtually every other new, ADA-compliant light rail system in the USA. A trainful at rush hour is about the same wherever you go Dallas, LA, Norfolk, Minneapolis, Portland, San Diego. They all cross tracks happily and legally [and safely with little operational impact]

ANd particularly at low-traffic places like Ball Sq, which could have a Lechmere-style faregate and station area at Ball. No ADA problem.

All we can really say is that we've decided that we won't accept level crossings and because elevators are ADA-compliant we've decided to label level crossings as ADA non-compliant.

That and we don't want to make the Ball Sq people feel bad and so have decided to overbuild their neighborhood station as if it were in the middle of Assembly TOD.

At this point, the only justification for building Ball as designed is that changing it (now) in the name of saving money will cost too much money and time.

 

[Texasian]

Nope. Despite the self-satisfied ArchBoston answers that "its the ADA" only circular reasons of we-must-have-because-we-must-have were offered here.

ADA which is perfectly satisfied with very high volumes of people crossing active rails on virtually every other new, ADA-compliant light rail system in the USA. A trainful at rush hour is about the same wherever you go Dallas, LA, Norfolk, Minneapolis, San Diego. They all cross tracks happily and legally.

All we can really say is that we've decided that we won't accept level crossings and because elevators are ADA-compliant we've decided to label level crossings as ADA non-compliant.

Isn't part of it also the slopes of the bridges? If you look at the site plans for the Union Square station, they indicate that the sidewalks along Prospect Street are too steep for ADA compliance:

In the case of Union Square, removing the upper entrance effectively makes the station ADA compliant only for those living north of the tracks. The Broadway bridge in Ball Square is pretty similar (although they do indicate that the upper entrance is the designated accessible drop off):

EDIT: Of course, all of this is complete speculation on my end as I only read this stuff for funzies.

 

[Arlington]

You can apply for variances for existing sidewalks. Or coulda run a simple ramp to an entrance slightly further out Boston Ave (but within the footprint of the parcel).

It isn't the MBTA's job to push the tendrils of its stations to the far corners of the ridership basin, smoothing every obstacle as it goes. They chose to include the sidewalk as part of the station and fix it as a problem (or to not ask Medford or Somerville to fix them). Same for Union Sq in deciding that it needed to have a second entrance up on the bridge and not just a level-boarding terminus (such as is common elsewhere), but a Porter-extension-ready, center platform extravaganza

Really that was the problem: each "station design workshop" became a "fix every problem in my neighborhood" session on Santa's lap. Our First Reading is a reading from the Book of Amenities. Curbs. Sidewalks. Trees. Drainage. Street Furniture. Basic municipal stuff somehow got rolled onto the T's capital budget.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Nope. Despite the self-satisfied ArchBoston answers that "its the ADA" only circular reasons of we-must-have-because-we-must-have were offered here.

This was explained on prior pages. The only thing circular going on here is returning back to the exact...same...statements...of personal belief.

Explanations of regs, explanations of degrees of difference in ridership between builds, explanations of physical dimensions, explanations of how design costs are accrued in the real construction industry, explanations of all-world fucked bidding process and the enormous degree of cost recovery between addressing THAT vs. possible savings that can be salvaged from a redesign without making the design's cost recovery worse, explanations that banal talk radio duckspeak is banal:

None of that matters, no matter how many people offer evidence, because "I believe in my personal design preferences, have the indefatiguable stamina to repeat it, and believe in that harder than evidence."

Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!

ADA which is perfectly satisfied with very high volumes of people crossing active rails on virtually every other new, ADA-compliant light rail system in the USA. A trainful at rush hour is about the same wherever you go Dallas, LA, Norfolk, Minneapolis, Portland, San Diego. They all cross tracks happily and legally [and safely with little operational impact]

Explain with evidence how the projected ridership of GLX is like any other newly constructed light rail system, and how the physical location on narrow ROW shared with commuter rail and freight mainline is similar to other newly constructed light rail systems. You've heard the counterpoints. What is your evidence-backed argument?

ANd particularly at low-traffic places like Ball Sq, which could have a Lechmere-style faregate and station area at Ball. No ADA problem.

So please explain how you would shave cost by wholesale-changing the design at Ball and incurring the design change costs that multiple posters (including those with real career in the design-engineering process) have cited. And the physical utility structures which the station must contour around.

All we can really say is that we've decided that we won't accept level crossings and because elevators are ADA-compliant we've decided to label level crossings as ADA non-compliant.

No. That's not all we can say. Paragraphs upon paragraphs of evidence have been offered. They are being countered not by evidence, but by repetition of personal belief.

You can do better than that. You're choosing not to.

That and we don't want to make the Ball Sq people feel bad and so have decided to overbuild their neighborhood station as if it were in the middle of Assembly TOD.

Have you sampled opinion around Ball Square and found evidence that fee-fees is the driving process? Can you cite quotes from neighborhood meetings, from politicians, from the T to point to a profound case of Assembly penis-envy? Surely there must be some profound undercurrent if that if you're catching that vibe on a purely analytical sense.

Oh, hell...don't know the stakeholders' opinions? Invent them. Nothing reinforces self-belief like the firm belief of omniscience of others' beliefs.

At this point, the only justification for building Ball as designed is that changing it (now) in the name of saving money will cost too much money and time.

Yes. This is a factual statement backed by evidence.


Is anyone willing to square their counterpoints with this, or does general consensus fly out into the ether the second "Submit Reply" gets hit to be forgotten until next time?

Because that's the feedback loop this thread is now rather firmly stuck in.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Isn't part of it also the slopes of the bridges? If you look at the site plans for the Union Square station, they indicate that the sidewalks along Prospect Street are too steep for ADA compliance:

In the case of Union Square, removing the upper entrance effectively makes the station ADA compliant only for those living north of the tracks. The Broadway bridge in Ball Square is pretty similar (although they do indicate that the upper entrance is the designated accessible drop off):

EDIT: Of course, all of this is complete speculation on my end as I only read this stuff for funzies.

See here for more than you ever wanted to know about sidewalk ADA:
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/bicycle_pedestrian/publications/sidewalks/chap4b.cfm

Yes, there are maximum grades before a sidewalk has to have special accessibility features like handrails or periodic level landings to prevent a runaway wheelchair. One side of that overpass is steeper than the other, but you'd probably have to go out there and measure it for yourself to determine if it runs afoul.

But note well. . .

Union Station's design is predicated on not structurally impacting the overpass. Because that would've involved a much more complex and costly design. The station comes to a rest against the bridge so it doesn't have to be modified. The accessibility features are as they are because modding the bridge's surface or walls was more costly--by a lot--in every possible scenario.

Changing the accessibility features of the egress on the side of the bridge that is not compliant means that you have to change the bridge features. And conclusively prove the original scoping wrong that changing the bridge was more expensive.

"I think / you think / we think" < "the ADA says". If the ADA says it's not in compliance with a feature removal, then it's a redesign. A redesign involving double design by sucking in change costs to a pre-existing and separate MassDOT structure that was not scheduled to be changed.


To the true believers in the universal solvent of redesign: good luck with that.

 

[Arlington]

...vs. possible savings that can be salvaged from a redesign without making the design's cost recovery worse

No. I am not arguing for a design change now (or future) on the GLX. I DO SEE that change orders dominate considerations at this point.

What I am arguing for is that in the "lessons learned" (and for future projects) we do not conclude that big headhouses are the only ADA-compliant form that a light rail station can take. If GLX is ever to go to Belmont Ctr or Winchester Ctr, it is as valid--or more--to conclude that it should get there with slab stations accessed by ramps as often as possible, even at the cost of not building a station where it cannot be built cheaply.

At this point you know (but others, citing "ADA" don't get) that the reason we're building it "as designed" is the cost of change orders, not ADA mandates.

 

[citylover94]

I agree on a Belmont Ctr. or Winchester Ctr. extension those would be comparable to the D Line from a ridership perspective. On the other hand a grand junction and an Everett/ Chelsea branch I would do station designs like these with the one change being POP being used instead of faregates.

 

[Matthew]

Arlington is correct. Houston is another good example because it's one of the busiest light rail lines in the United States outside of Boston. Prior to the recent expansions it was seeing 36,250 boardings per weekday. Now that should be much higher. The original MetroRail Red Line runs straight through the heart of downtown Houston at-grade, with many crossings that are coordinated with the train. Some are signal priority, some are outright preemption. The entire system was built post-2000, so well within the ADA era.

There is nothing about the ADA that prevents a new light rail line from having at-grade pedestrian crossings. Obviously there are other busy new lines such as in Minneapolis/St Paul have many crossings as well. The ADA is a very fine law that helps transit a great deal for everyone by ensuring that designers do access properly; access being a very important part of the entire transit riding experience. It shouldn't be skimped or disdained. For example, one of the reasons that we are getting much-needed station consolidation on Comm Ave is because of requirements to have two accessible egresses for each station stop.

Since the GLX is built inside of a cut I have no problems with the current plans to supply elevators at the stations and to use center platforms. However, if we ever wish to dream of further Green Line extensions -- such as Washington Street to Dudley -- then the MBTA must get over its fear of constructing at-grade pedestrian crossings. Or else those extensions are simply impossible, because they will largely have to occur at-grade in order to be feasible at all.

 

[CSTH]

Amen.




....and do we really believe that T is THAT concerned about of large numbers of people crossing busy rights of way at-grade in constrained spaces near heavy rail lines in the first place?

[/url]https://flic.kr/p/Cb8q98

 

[cden4]

Re grade-crossings and the MBTA, I noticed that the Silver Line Gateway project includes at-grade crossings of the busway at many of the stations. I wonder if it's because this project is run by MassDOT rather than the MBTA, because the T has been absolutely adamant about not having at-grade crossings on the GLX.

 

[citylover94]

I think it really has more to do with the fact that one is busses and essentially a road and one is trains and most likely much busier with more frequent service and that is why the Green Line is being built without at grade crossings.

 

[whighlander]

See here for more than you ever wanted to know about sidewalk ADA:
[
But note well. . .

Changing the accessibility features of the egress on the side of the bridge that is not compliant means that you have to change the bridge features. And conclusively prove the original scoping wrong that changing the bridge was more expensive.

"I think / you think / we think" < "the ADA says". If the ADA says it's not in compliance with a feature removal, then it's a redesign. A redesign involving double design by sucking in change costs to a pre-existing and separate MassDOT structure that was not scheduled to be changed.


To the true believers in the universal solvent of redesign: good luck with that.

FLine -- Please give it a rest -- there's a new Sharif in Town -- Devall is Gone -- the watchword now is cost control -- here in the Hub and also in DC

If you can cross very very busy tracks in Park Street -- you certainly can cross far less busy tracks in Somerville

Assuming that the GLX moves forward -- No station will be immune from a look at all of its features -- some will stay, some will be redesigned, and some may vanish

Also don't expect any significant extra $ from Washington -- essentially all of the new transportation bill's money will flow through Beacon Hill

There is one possible additional benefit to the rebid after review and redesign as needed -- the world seems to be heading into a Recession with plunging commodity prices

In a year or so steel and concrete may be way way cheaper as China essentially stops importing such materials for the projects which they are beginning to cancel wholesale

 

[The EGE]

I think it really has more to do with the fact that one is busses and essentially a road and one is trains and most likely much busier with more frequent service and that is why the Green Line is being built without at grade crossings.

Correct. GLX will have frequencies as low as 5.5 minutes at rush hour (the D actually gets to 4 for a while before rush hour as Riverside feeds the other lines, so 5.5 might be conservative) and that's assuming that ridership doesn't exceed predictions. If it does, they will have to through-route a second branch to Tufts or there will be denied boardings at Washington and Lechmere. In that case, your headway drops under 3 minutes. SL Gateway won't start below 10 minutes and under 5 minutes is unlikely.

Buses also stop much, much quicker than trains, and the SL busway has better lines of sight than some of the GLX stations.

If you trip on pavement, it's still easier to get out of the way. Rails are easier to trip on and offer more chances to twist an ankle or badly slam a skin. If a wheelchair tips or gets stuck, it's easier to move on flat pavement than rails (even embedded in concrete). Grocery carts, too - I fell flat on my face on Chestnut Hill Avenue today when I dipped a wheel in the tracks.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Arlington is correct. Houston is another good example because it's one of the busiest light rail lines in the United States outside of Boston. Prior to the recent expansions it was seeing 36,250 boardings per weekday. Now that should be much higher. The original MetroRail Red Line runs straight through the heart of downtown Houston at-grade, with many crossings that are coordinated with the train. Some are signal priority, some are outright preemption. The entire system was built post-2000, so well within the ADA era.

There is nothing about the ADA that prevents a new light rail line from having at-grade pedestrian crossings. Obviously there are other busy new lines such as in Minneapolis/St Paul have many crossings as well. The ADA is a very fine law that helps transit a great deal for everyone by ensuring that designers do access properly; access being a very important part of the entire transit riding experience. It shouldn't be skimped or disdained. For example, one of the reasons that we are getting much-needed station consolidation on Comm Ave is because of requirements to have two accessible egresses for each station stop.

Since the GLX is built inside of a cut I have no problems with the current plans to supply elevators at the stations and to use center platforms. However, if we ever wish to dream of further Green Line extensions -- such as Washington Street to Dudley -- then the MBTA must get over its fear of constructing at-grade pedestrian crossings. Or else those extensions are simply impossible, because they will largely have to occur at-grade in order to be feasible at all.

No prepayment stations have ever been proposed for an MBTA street-running or reservation line, so that's worrying about administrative culture fucking with imagined, not proposed builds. There were real, no-foolin' designs advanced for the Arborway restoration. They were curbside pull-ups to bus stops with curb juts. Silver Line Washington and Silver Line Gateway, both designed for future LRT conversion, are open-access. The Urban Ring Phase II DEIR showed stops that were open-access. I cannot recall any serious explanation given for the modal choice requiring "because reasons" a completely different station setup.

GLX is prepayment because every single station happens to require an up/down move to access an island platform. Track crossings are moot. There isn't even room for any of these stops to have done side instead of island platforms because of the constrained width or the shared-use commuter rail ROW. There is no station on the whole route free from that constraint, no plausible redesigns that could do it different at any better price. Including Route 16, where the fare lobby is literally the hollowed-out downstairs of the existing-width high embankment next to the UHaul building.


So I don't understand why so much bandwidth is being wasted on this when we've yet to tally up one single station where it's an unequivocal "YES! That's a wholly arbitrary choice explainable by nothing other than bureaucratic FEAR!" And I don't know why the citation that there's a legacy track crossing at Park Street proves anything when Park's constipated pedestrian flow is just about the worst on the whole systemi. If that weren't unchangeable 19th century legacy cruft and the only plausible way of providing access to the Winter St. concourse that crossing would be the Exhibit A on how not to do it.


In fact, I can only think of one potential LRT build being advocated by any organized group with possibility of going on the planning board within the next 15 years...where this choice of access configuration really could break the wrong way along political and not engineering grounds. A Union Branch extension to Porter with intermediate stops. Some intermediate stop candidates more than others. Porter: existing fare lobby, no-brainer. Wilson Sq.?: existing ADA-compliant Sacramento St. underpass serves up design where a graded ramp upstairs to an island platform is more or less much-miniaturized version of the Kenmore lobby. Roll with it and stick a couple Charlie gates since that's probably the lowest-profile and least-costly way of doing anything there. Conway Park? OK...there you have excellent side access from the park and really have to consider whether it's pure unadulterated lard to building some convuluted up/down/over thing to avoid a track crossing.

Conway Park. A low-ridership intermediate we wouldn't even be sure is worth building at all for that extension. This doesn't rear its head on the streetcar line restoration or conversion proposals, it doesn't rear its head on the Urban Ring where nearly all stops SL Gateway or Everett would-be's are open-access by default, or on the Grand Junction where open access is virtually unavoidable at any stop.

What is this big access wrong-decision we're worrying about again, when digging into the details at real station sites eliminates most choice in the matter?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

FLine -- Please give it a rest -- there's a new Sharif in Town -- Devall is Gone -- the watchword now is cost control -- here in the Hub and also in DC

If you can cross very very busy tracks in Park Street -- you certainly can cross far less busy tracks in Somerville

Assuming that the GLX moves forward -- No station will be immune from a look at all of its features -- some will stay, some will be redesigned, and some may vanish

Also don't expect any significant extra $ from Washington -- essentially all of the new transportation bill's money will flow through Beacon Hill

There is one possible additional benefit to the rebid after review and redesign as needed -- the world seems to be heading into a Recession with plunging commodity prices

In a year or so steel and concrete may be way way cheaper as China essentially stops importing such materials for the projects which they are beginning to cancel wholesale

Oh, Professor. The word salad that tries to say something profound while simply repeating in agreement statements that were never in dispute almost earns you the Howie pic. But the intentional misspelling of names in the pursuit of botched wordplay is such a junior varsity move I'm surprised the AM station it originated from can be heard through drywall 4 blocks from the transmitter.


You get a Jay Severin head for mailing in that one: http://www.sadtrombone.com/.

 

[Texasian]

Commonwealth Magazine has a write up about those GLX documents they FOIA'd: Basically, the MBTA didn't really know what it was doing with the new contracting process and didn't have enough safeguards in place to prevent WSK from taking them for a ride.

 

[CSTH]

"The report criticized the Green Line extension contractor, White-Skanska-Kiewit Joint Venture, for taking advantage of the MBTA’s inexperience by shifting the risk of cost overruns onto the MBTA and by submitting requests for payments without detailing what the costs were for. For instance, the report said, White Skanska had been paid $206 million as of December but only $11.1 million – about 5 percent – was for documented allowable expenses.

White Skanska was tapped, in part, because it had submitted an offer to cap its profit at 4.25 percent, but the report said the T could not determine if, in fact, the company was adhering to that profit margin because there was no accounting breakdown required. The consultant’s report said there was every indication that White Skanska was dunning the T with higher-than-agreed-upon bills that were escalating the cost beyond what was sustainable.

“WSK can and likely will earn a far more significant profit on the remaining 95 percent of the awarded work and does not have any contractual obligation to limit its markup or refund any earned markup in excess of the 4.25 percent,” says the report, which was issued before the T fired White Skanska as well as its project manager, HDR/Gilbane, and its independent cost estimator."

 

[whighlander]

"The report criticized the Green Line extension contractor, White-Skanska-Kiewit Joint Venture, for taking advantage of the MBTA’s inexperience by shifting the risk of cost overruns onto the MBTA and by submitting requests for payments without detailing what the costs were for. For instance, the report said, White Skanska had been paid $206 million as of December but only $11.1 million – about 5 percent – was for documented allowable expenses.

White Skanska was tapped, in part, because it had submitted an offer to cap its profit at 4.25 percent, but the report said the T could not determine if, in fact, the company was adhering to that profit margin because there was no accounting breakdown required. The consultant’s report said there was every indication that White Skanska was dunning the T with higher-than-agreed-upon bills that were escalating the cost beyond what was sustainable.

“WSK can and likely will earn a far more significant profit on the remaining 95 percent of the awarded work and does not have any contractual obligation to limit its markup or refund any earned markup in excess of the 4.25 percent,” says the report, which was issued before the T fired White Skanska as well as its project manager, HDR/Gilbane, and its independent cost estimator."

CSTH -- it looks as if the basic DOT mismanagement that was a significant part of the Big Dig screw-ups just found a new home in the GLX project

Somehow, Massport seems to navigates similar scale projects with far less trouble

 

[Matthew]

So I don't understand why so much bandwidth is being wasted on this when we've yet to tally up one single station where it's an unequivocal "YES! That's a wholly arbitrary choice explainable by nothing other than bureaucratic FEAR!"

What is this big access wrong-decision we're worrying about again, when digging into the details at real station sites eliminates most choice in the matter?

Commonwealth Ave is where the battleground has been for the most part. Comm Ave has a major problem: there aren't enough ADA-compliant pedestrian crossings. The section from the BU Bridge to Packard's Corner has blocks that are over 700 feet long, which is twice the recommended distance between crossings for a business district. In particular, the Naples Road junction in front of Star Market is a heavy desire line used by thousands of people each day: but they have to gingerly step between the tracks to do it. We pushed hard for a crosswalk at this location, as well as mid-block crossings for all the Green Line stations along the street. But the city and MBTA engineers simply do not want to do it, even though it would be entirely appropriate for a tram line operating in a "high pedestrian and cyclist zone" (city's phrasing).

Further along Comm Ave the problem is even worse as the blocks are long and the crossings are even more decrepit -- often without curb cuts even. The consulting firm in charge of the Phase 3/4 redesign has claimed that they are seeking additional ADA-compliant crossings, but we'll see.

GLX does not need at-grade track crossings (yeah, it's basically a subway), but future light rail extensions will. Have we given up on the idea of reopening and extending the Tremont Street branch down Washington Street? Or D-E connection? Probably won't happen within 15 years but down the line? I hope so, someday.