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Late concessions could add $18m to Greenbush cost
By Mac Daniel, Globe Staff | November 17, 2006
Seven months from opening, the long-fought Greenbush commuter rail line could cost an additional $18 million, in part because of changes to mollify community opponents.
A project official familiar with a recent risk assessment done by the MBTA said the T estimates the price tag could rise from $497 million now to between $512 million and $515 million, once lawsuits from landowners along the 18-mile line are settled.
"There's no way around the fact that even conservatively the project's cost will climb," said MBTA General Manager Daniel A. Grabauskas, who toured the line last week.
The T says the line would carry 8,400 riders per day, relieve congestion on Route 3 and the Southeast Expressway, and reduce air pollution. Residents in Hingham and other South Shore communities, however, vociferously opposed the Greenbush project and went to court to try to stop it.
The latest concession to communities is $2 million for black, cast-iron fencing, which the Army Corps of Engineers is requiring in historic districts in Hingham, Scituate, and Cohasset. In other stretches, black chain-link fencing is being installed, which costs $10 to $20 more per foot than standard fencing.
"The whole issue was litigated to a fare-thee-well," Alexander Macmillan, Greenbush coordinator for the town of Hingham, said yesterday. "Nothing lasts forever, and we assumed that maintenance might eventually be a problem, so the more solid the better. It's both a maintenance issue and historically appropriate."
Also, the project's conservator is requiring the MBTA to paint signal bungalows forest green, instead of their usual metallic silver, a request by locals to have the boxes better blend in with the suburban surroundings.
Those concessions are the latest in a string of costly items:
# T officials admit they "wasted" $300,000 for tunnels placed under the tracks to allow endangered spotted turtles to reach nearby pools. That species was taken off the endangered list midway through construction.
# In Cohasset, the town asked that parking spaces at the station be made wider to accommodate larger sport utility vehicles. T officials said they were able to accommodate the town without increasing costs.
# In 2004, after much resistance, the MBTA agreed to use four-arm barriers at some of the street crossings, which cost an additional $2 million.
Town officials say the gates are necessary because train horns were ordered silenced to appease neighbors. Unlike typical crossing gates, which block two lanes of traffic, these gates extend across the entire road at all four corners of the railroad intersections.
T officials also said that they seriously considered a woman's request to have the T pay for Prozac for her dog, who she said would be traumatized by the train noise. The woman's claim was eventually denied.
There were also 18 legal challenges to the line, all of which were won by the T but cost the agency "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in legal fees.
"No question that this project could have come in tens of millions of dollars less if dilatory legal challenges and unnecessary spending" had been cut back, Grabauskas said.
The project's price jumped from $479 million to $497 million in 2005, mostly to pay the contractor after the T put construction of the line on hold for two years due to rising expenses. The recent purchase of a $4 million insurance policy nearly depleted the project's emergency fund. Greenbush was originally budgeted at $215 million in 1994.
About 15 of the line's 20 miles of track, which includes 2 miles in train yards, are complete, as are 22 of 28 grade crossings and 17 of 18 bridges. The shallow cut at Weymouth Landing is about 90 percent complete.
And the $30 million Hingham underpass is 95 percent complete, with its rail expected to be laid out in the coming weeks. The tunnel will take trains under picturesque Hingham Square, shielding the pricey shops from the rumble of locomotives.
Ombudsmen for communities along the line are beginning to get more questions about ticket prices than complaints about construction.
"I'm beginning to see the questions come to me of when the trains are running," said Al Bangert, Greenbush ombudsman for Scituate. "It's moving on now from what can we do to stop the trains. There's a willingness to accept the fact that the T is coming."
Even with the prospect of future cost overruns, Grabauskas, standing at the expansive Greenbush station at the terminus of the line, was gleeful.
"There are a lot of government services that people would like to eliminate, but what we've seen time and again is that people clamor for public transportation," he said.
"Greenbush is going to do what it was intended to do, which is alleviate congestion on the South Shore."
Mac Daniel can be reached at mdaniel@globe.com.
? Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
By Mac Daniel, Globe Staff | November 17, 2006
Seven months from opening, the long-fought Greenbush commuter rail line could cost an additional $18 million, in part because of changes to mollify community opponents.
A project official familiar with a recent risk assessment done by the MBTA said the T estimates the price tag could rise from $497 million now to between $512 million and $515 million, once lawsuits from landowners along the 18-mile line are settled.
"There's no way around the fact that even conservatively the project's cost will climb," said MBTA General Manager Daniel A. Grabauskas, who toured the line last week.
The T says the line would carry 8,400 riders per day, relieve congestion on Route 3 and the Southeast Expressway, and reduce air pollution. Residents in Hingham and other South Shore communities, however, vociferously opposed the Greenbush project and went to court to try to stop it.
The latest concession to communities is $2 million for black, cast-iron fencing, which the Army Corps of Engineers is requiring in historic districts in Hingham, Scituate, and Cohasset. In other stretches, black chain-link fencing is being installed, which costs $10 to $20 more per foot than standard fencing.
"The whole issue was litigated to a fare-thee-well," Alexander Macmillan, Greenbush coordinator for the town of Hingham, said yesterday. "Nothing lasts forever, and we assumed that maintenance might eventually be a problem, so the more solid the better. It's both a maintenance issue and historically appropriate."
Also, the project's conservator is requiring the MBTA to paint signal bungalows forest green, instead of their usual metallic silver, a request by locals to have the boxes better blend in with the suburban surroundings.
Those concessions are the latest in a string of costly items:
# T officials admit they "wasted" $300,000 for tunnels placed under the tracks to allow endangered spotted turtles to reach nearby pools. That species was taken off the endangered list midway through construction.
# In Cohasset, the town asked that parking spaces at the station be made wider to accommodate larger sport utility vehicles. T officials said they were able to accommodate the town without increasing costs.
# In 2004, after much resistance, the MBTA agreed to use four-arm barriers at some of the street crossings, which cost an additional $2 million.
Town officials say the gates are necessary because train horns were ordered silenced to appease neighbors. Unlike typical crossing gates, which block two lanes of traffic, these gates extend across the entire road at all four corners of the railroad intersections.
T officials also said that they seriously considered a woman's request to have the T pay for Prozac for her dog, who she said would be traumatized by the train noise. The woman's claim was eventually denied.
There were also 18 legal challenges to the line, all of which were won by the T but cost the agency "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in legal fees.
"No question that this project could have come in tens of millions of dollars less if dilatory legal challenges and unnecessary spending" had been cut back, Grabauskas said.
The project's price jumped from $479 million to $497 million in 2005, mostly to pay the contractor after the T put construction of the line on hold for two years due to rising expenses. The recent purchase of a $4 million insurance policy nearly depleted the project's emergency fund. Greenbush was originally budgeted at $215 million in 1994.
About 15 of the line's 20 miles of track, which includes 2 miles in train yards, are complete, as are 22 of 28 grade crossings and 17 of 18 bridges. The shallow cut at Weymouth Landing is about 90 percent complete.
And the $30 million Hingham underpass is 95 percent complete, with its rail expected to be laid out in the coming weeks. The tunnel will take trains under picturesque Hingham Square, shielding the pricey shops from the rumble of locomotives.
Ombudsmen for communities along the line are beginning to get more questions about ticket prices than complaints about construction.
"I'm beginning to see the questions come to me of when the trains are running," said Al Bangert, Greenbush ombudsman for Scituate. "It's moving on now from what can we do to stop the trains. There's a willingness to accept the fact that the T is coming."
Even with the prospect of future cost overruns, Grabauskas, standing at the expansive Greenbush station at the terminus of the line, was gleeful.
"There are a lot of government services that people would like to eliminate, but what we've seen time and again is that people clamor for public transportation," he said.
"Greenbush is going to do what it was intended to do, which is alleviate congestion on the South Shore."
Mac Daniel can be reached at mdaniel@globe.com.
? Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
