Again, like the Orange and Red Line order, they could do smaller dimensions for the Highspeed line - and thus it would at least still have full component compatibility with the main fleet.
I am more pointing out the arguments made at the various community meetings - but, it is interesting that the GLX through Camrbidge/Somerville/etc gets the Type-9s, then all of the rest of the Green Line gets the Type-10s less than a decade later, while the Highspeed Line gets the PCCs, and then maybe in a decade+ the Type 9s after the Type 10 rollout. I can see where advocates from Dorchester and Mattapan wouldn't be happy with the plan, and the MBTA's reasoning was pretty flimsy and nonsensical. And, yes, it is only "incredibly wasteful" that the MBTA made the Type-9 order to have the GLX languish and then change direction and go full bore into the Type-10s.
Whether it's just relaying neighborhood sentiment or not, this is an utterly incoherent argument. Refer back to my last post debunking the myth that Type 9's are any sort of technological or livery 'sloppy seconds'. 50% low-floor cars bust M Line platform dwells to the absolute minimum, because there is no dwell in existence on that purely shuttle route that will ever saturate 2 doors' worth of low-floor entry such that you need 100% high-floor. The vehicles are brand-spanking-new, same technological generation as all of the wares the vendors in attendance at last week's GLT procurement meeting are pitching. CAF is contractually on the hook for 20 years of parts-n'-labor Service & Support. Which also means...with S&S locked down it would be
insane for the T to walk away from those 24 cars at any time before 2040 unless we are selling the whole fleet
AND the S&S agreement to another agency. And let's please duly note here...they are not leaving the Green Line until final retirement. Mattapan has no need or space for more than 8 or so cars. There's at least 16 more of them that are staying put, and will have to because the backlog of B and C platform lengthenings is going to take a painful extra decade longer to get compliant for the stretched cars than Central Subway. So if you're a regular Allston or Brookline rider...your fleet is going to be majority so-called 'sloppy seconds' too. Sloppy seconds of cars
so new they haven't yet made a B or C revenue trip. Boo-fucking-hoo!
As to the first point...no, they can't order smaller dimensions for the HSL. These new orders come with extra-heavy vendor S&S support vs. past orders, and so scale is everything. S&S scale is everything with 404 alike heavy rail cars coming in for Red/Orange with 20 years of CRRC support, and with 200 alike GLT trains. Break out a piddling 8 units of a smaller form-factor variant of the base model with a differing (if still standard-flavor) truck design and the lifetime cost-per-unit sails for an extreme outlier share of the fleet. The deal they are seeking for 200 cars is not suited for including a divergently-configured 8 units; they get their price point by leveling the configuration ALL across the fucking board. It is literally easier and less cost-bloating to to do a whole separate Mattapan procurement for 8 streetcars with a whole separate-and-divorced S&S agreement...only there you'll be buying something like Brookvilles from a vendor specializing in small-order price points and not the 800 lb. gorillas Siemens or Bombardier. Do not get fixated on the supposed smallness of the M customization tucked into the largeness of the Green order as an equitable solution. That is
not at all how the economics of this order works. Bulk, bulk, bulk...and make savings on the years of S&S coverage packaged in by being a slave to bulk, bulk, bulk.
And still, with that being how it works, there's nothing to consider here. Because the brand-spanking-new Type 9's of equal technological generation are fully covered by S&S from CAF for 20 years. So they are damn well going to get their money's worth using those 24 cars on (mostly) Green and Mattapan while their deal is locked in, because otherwise it would be an even bigger waste to leave stuff on the table. And as far as Mattapan is concerned with its extremely-limited shop capabilities...the fact that CAF techs are available for on-demand site visits for the next 2 decades is going to save the T yearly operating dough not having to truck the cars from Mattapan to Riverside for maint when the vendor techs can be on-call for widening the spread of on-site fixes. It gets cheaper to run more M service with the so-called 'sloppy seconds'. The horror!
As I said last post, this bitching about trolley types has nothing...zero...nada to do about trolley types. It is the corridor's inability to articulate exactly WHAT rankles so much about the state constantly giving their service short shrift. Type 9's vs. Type 10's do not influence the actual service levels; a 50% low-floor car that satiates any/all platform dwells the line can throw at it already increases service levels to the max sustainable for however long it remains a trolley shuttle. So it's not that, and there is nothing technologically different or customer-facing you can point to 9's vs. 10's as evidence for a shortchanging. The visceral gripe is something else entirely. The state just rendered a value judgment on the corridor that they are not worthy of so much as an HRT
paper study...the only service enhancement that would provide tighter headways (6 min. Ashmont branch) and above-and-beyond access (one-seat to downtown) over any LRV-running permutation of the trolley shuttle. They so brazenly thumbed their nose at the neighborhood telegraphing they're not even worthy of
paper. And there is still no commitment beyond the 20-year duration of the next fleet's S&S vendor agreement to retain rail transit of
any kind on the corridor, so this is just the latest punt to another 20-year re-evaluation period coming off the
last one in the early-00's where they damn near got bustituted. There's no generational certainty with their transit, and goalposts-moving games have boxed in the growth ceiling of their transit by witholding a crucial set of study data collection that could otherwise answer this recurring 20-year uncertainty for good.
THAT'S worth getting pissed off about. And that's what they are pissed off about. It's just not coming out clearly, or being pointed at the actual injustice being perpetuated by the state on them. It's being pointed at utterly, totally irrelevant trolley Type wars. When, as you have pointed out in these posts, there is no more specificity than a 'gut feeling' as to why the best-possible for costs & applicability reassignment of Type 9's is a born insult and 'sloppy seconds' when Allston and Brookline aren't seeing their Type 9-dominated 2025-35 decade that way...that's the tell that they can't explain their feelings in any actionable way. They need messaging help. These are irrelevant diversions, and there IS a short shrift being perpetuated on the neighborhood that messaging help can bottom-line for them. But this isn't going to go anywhere productive if inarticulate feelings stay inarticulate and incoherent, then simply pick the CAF trolleys to throw rotten vegetables at on grounds that someone's got to be the asshole. That's giving the state all the leverage they need to keep dicking the neighborhood around for another generation. THEY know full well what transit improvements they're witholding; they're counting on neighborhood ire to keep pigeonholing the wrong target so they can keep witholding consequence-free.
Please do keep this in mind every time some gut feeling wells up a wad of spit to huck at the not-a-Type 10 vehicle. It's perpetuating the misdirection one citizen at a time.
