I-90 Interchange Improvement Project & West Station | Allston

Wow, that’s shocking. Sorry that happened to you! Seems like a problem if that attitude toward reasonable questions is prevalent on the project…
Even more shocking is that (according to the article), we're 11 years in and $42M spent on just plans and they are STILL unworkable...

VHB is one of several large engineering firms that has been assisting MassDOT in designing the Allston Multimodal Project since 2014.

Over the past decade, the project has gone through multiple major design revisions in response to rising costs and logistical challenges associated with building 12 highway lanes on the banks of the Charles River.

All those trips back to the drawing board have been lucrative for the project's private-sector design consultants.

At the end of 2020 (before MassDOT switched to the current "at-grade" design, and the last date for which MassDOT had released public invoices on its spending for the project), VHB had already collected over $6.7 million in payments from MassDOT for its work on the project.

StreetsblogMASS requested up-to-date copies of MassDOT's contracts and invoices with VHB and numerous other consulting firms involved in the Allston Multimodal Project last July.

In violation of public records laws, the Commonwealth still has not fulfilled those requests.

However, a MassDOT official told StreetsblogMASS last fall that the agency had already spent over $42 million on the project's preliminary designs.
 

Designers’ Tempers Fray As Major Issues Remain Unresolved for Allston I-90 Project

Glad they've been removed from the project, and it's awful that happened to you.

I'm a bit confused as to what the big issue is here, though. The Grand Junction was out of service for 4 months in 2013 without it leading to the inability to maintain commuter ops to my knowledge. And I feel like it's been said here before that the trackage they have to use for a detour is in better shape now than in the past.

On the scale of the budget/scope of this project, the possibility of having to run 2 extra crews/work train trips a day for even a couple years to move train cars back and forth on the trip through Ayer daily doesn't seem insurmountable or budget busting on the face of it.

Not saying it's good, but it doesn't seem like some kind of "unsolved issue" that the project can't move forward with without some drastic alteration to resolve.

What am I missing here?
 
Seems like a problem if that attitude toward reasonable questions is prevalent on the project…
Not just a reasonable question but a crucial question. There is no practical path toward preceding with construction without a solution to the bridge approach issue. It's critical path and the consultant sees it as an annoying distraction?
 
You can watch the meeting to learn why MassDOT says they can now only survive a few weeks of GJ closure.
While I appreciate the link - I am not quite so interested as to watch an hour and a half video to possibly get a question answered and I doubt many others will either. If you've got a rough timestamp of some kind where the key discussion happens, that would be helpful both to me and I suspect to get any other significant number of people to watch this/learn about the problem.

Briefly flipping through the slides and skipping around for a minute to try to find it, what I am getting out of this is something along the lines of:

- The current operations level is not impossible to sustain without the GJ for a while.
- There are planned/hoped for service increases in the next 15 years.
- There is planned expansion of Southside train layover spaces, but slower than the service expansion goals.
- The timing of when, on the current schedule, the GJ would start it's lengthy closure, corresponds with when the gap between expected service levels + available layover berths is particularly large and would present large operational challenges.

Is that correct? And if not, are you able to indicate what about that summary is wrong/describe it in a similarly straightforward fashion?

---------

If so, I'm not sure how to word this in a way that doesn't come off as flippant and cynical, but know that I'm not trying to be obnoxious here:

- I expect that the schedule for this project will slip noticeably, because this is an extremely complicated project in the state of MA. And I expect that the service increases will be delayed, smaller than planned, or both, for the same reason. (also, the federal admin...).

- It sounds a lot like keeping Widett Circle on schedule (as the Allston project likely slips forward) or accelerating it - which should conceptually be easier, because it's a much less complicated project mechanically (bulldoze, lay tracks) would resolve much of the layover crunch.

- And that's assuming it even is an issue, because aside from SCR Phase 1, exactly what else is driving the need for layover space to supposedly increase from ~50 to ~85 spots in the 2020-2030 timeframe? Are these assumptions actually aligned with what we think service reality is likely to be, or are these assumptions aligned with relatively wishful thinking about the pace of change in MA? I'm aware that there's a funded project to add 2 RT's on the Inland Route that's supposed to start running in 2029, but that's what....1 spot? - what else is there that's actually a somewhat real commitment/timeline at this point?
 
Not just a reasonable question but a crucial question. There is no practical path toward preceding with construction without a solution to the bridge approach issue. It's critical path and the consultant sees it as an annoying distraction?
If I had to guess, the consultant team (and probably MassDOT too) are quite frustrated at being constantly called out for not doing their jobs well. During the meeting, no one could specify if the new layovers were needed overnight, for midday, or both, whether their were options further west on the line, and what service would be jeopardized without them. They also claim to be running with fewer layovers than necessary, which means the T or MassDOT is basically just fabricating how many layovers are necessary. The whole project feels incompetently managed and community members keep pushing back.
 
Briefly flipping through the slides and skipping around for a minute to try to find it, what I am getting out of this is something along the lines of:

- The current operations level is not impossible to sustain without the GJ for a while.
- There are planned/hoped for service increases in the next 15 years.
- There is planned expansion of Southside train layover spaces, but slower than the service expansion goals.
- The timing of when, on the current schedule, the GJ would start it's lengthy closure, corresponds with when the gap between expected service levels + available layover berths is particularly large and would present large operational challenges.

Is that correct? And if not, are you able to indicate what about that summary is wrong/describe it in a similarly straightforward fashion?

First, the issue with Grand Junction is not layover space but access to Boston Engine Terminal (BET) in Somerville. I believe this is the only site where heavy maintenance can be performed on the CR locomotives and GJ is how all south side locos access BET. The city of Boston also effectively has a moratorium on any new diesel maintenance facilities in city limits to not further enable to T to let electrification slip. The problems of accessing the BET are mentioned a little more below.

Glad they've been removed from the project, and it's awful that happened to you.

I'm a bit confused as to what the big issue is here, though. The Grand Junction was out of service for 4 months in 2013 without it leading to the inability to maintain commuter ops to my knowledge. And I feel like it's been said here before that the trackage they have to use for a detour is in better shape now than in the past.

On the scale of the budget/scope of this project, the possibility of having to run 2 extra crews/work train trips a day for even a couple years to move train cars back and forth on the trip through Ayer daily doesn't seem insurmountable or budget busting on the face of it.
Two main issues were brought up by the project team (I can't speak for how limiting they should be):
1. When the previous Grand Junction closure occurred, there was significantly less CR traffic on the South Side (and I believe the same number of locos). This meant the time to take the loop out to Ayer and back was less of a problem because the T could get away with lower fleet availability.
2. Ownership of the line from Worcester to Ayer (the Worcester Subdivision) has changed hands from Pan Am to CSX since 2013. It appears that CSX puts significantly more traffic on the Worcester Sub than Pan AM did. Also, some of the MassDOT representatives basically said they have a bad relationship with CSX and would not be able to cooperate as well as they did with Pan Am.

I think this is everything, but feel free to let me know if there are any points or questions I missed.
 
My tinfoil theory is that MassDOT is sandbagging to get funding for the south side maintenance facility out of this project.
 
My tinfoil theory is that MassDOT is sandbagging to get funding for the south side maintenance facility out of this project.
Maybe, but based on the lack of progress we're seeing from East-West Rail and Regional Rail, malice is not needed to explain these designs.

Also, city representatives seemed to indicate they would fight the state tooth and nail to prevent any new diesel maintenance facility within city limits. There don't really appear to be any decent sites outside of Boston, and certainly none that can be finished in 3 or 4 years.
 
First, the issue with Grand Junction is not layover space but access to Boston Engine Terminal (BET) in Somerville. I believe this is the only site where heavy maintenance can be performed on the CR locomotives and GJ is how all south side locos access BET. The city of Boston also effectively has a moratorium on any new diesel maintenance facilities in city limits to not further enable to T to let electrification slip. The problems of accessing the BET are mentioned a little more below.
The City does not have a "moratorium" on diesel maint facilities. They can't put a moratorium on it because only the feds have the right to regulate railroads using railroad property. Menino found that out the hard way when he huffed and puffed and failed miserably to try to block the original Readville layover from being built in the 90's. So the impotent screaming isn't going to do anything, and for the most part there hasn't been a lot of impotent screaming (some Council dunderheads aside) because they know it. The Readville vehicle maint facility is well into design. The problem is that it isn't yet funded for construction, and that seems to be what the state's fearmongering is all about. They can get it done in time for the GJ closure if they simply do their jobs and allot the funding to advance the design to build. They're not...they're just publicly bitching and complaining as a distraction. Claims of toothy city opposition is just more of that distraction.
Two main issues were brought up by the project team (I can't speak for how limiting they should be):
1. When the previous Grand Junction closure occurred, there was significantly less CR traffic on the South Side (and I believe the same number of locos). This meant the time to take the loop out to Ayer and back was less of a problem because the T could get away with lower fleet availability.
This isn't true at all. Peak service levels on the southside have been more or less flat over the last dozen years because of ongoing equipment turnover (retirements, out-for-rebuilds, etc.) and because of South Station being near-capacity. Even South Coast Rail isn't going to increase service any since it's simply taking existing Middleboro slots. With the HSP-46 loco fleet being next to go to rebuild, it figures to stay flat for a few more years. Midday slots have increased, but that only means less midday layover use not an increase in total throughput.
2. Ownership of the line from Worcester to Ayer (the Worcester Subdivision) has changed hands from Pan Am to CSX since 2013. It appears that CSX puts significantly more traffic on the Worcester Sub than Pan AM did. Also, some of the MassDOT representatives basically said they have a bad relationship with CSX and would not be able to cooperate as well as they did with Pan Am.
Not true at all. CSX runs the same 1 RT daily on the line that was run before the merger, and P&W runs the same 1 RT daily on the shared double-track Worcester Union-Barbers Jct. portion that they have for the last 50 years. CSX is all about packing more cars onto existing schedules and running them faster, but being stingy about running more trains. That's the essence of Precision Scheduled Railroading ops philosophy they've religiously adopted as a corporation. The upcoming introduction of 1 RT from Norfolk Southern after clearance improvements are completed will increase overall traffic levels, but not by very much (and still less than years ago when Pan Am still had local customers to serve on the line before they pissed them all away). The line still has 2 more RT's worth of slack before a signal system with PTC is required. Those can easily be the T's daily slots + cushion slots if they choose. And they do have trackage rights, so they don't have to ask CSX's permission to use it.

MassDOT and CSX have had a very good working relationship over the last 15 years, while Pan Am had bad working relationships with nearly everyone because they were Pan Am. That statement doesn't wash at all unless something has completely, utterly collapsed behind the scenes in a span of months...and yet not leaked a drop through the ranks throughout all the East-West progress of late. But regardless, what are the scruples in a MassDOT rep trashing one of their partners in a public forum? They have to work with CSX on a daily basis; what do those barbs actually accomplish? Egad...the lack of basic decorum with the public outreach here paints an ugly picture of the chaos behind the scenes.
 
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Thank you for those corrections, @F-Line to Dudley. I was trying to remember everything from the meeting and clearly made some mistakes. I was also trying to only reiterate the points made in the meeting by MassDOT, instead of presenting them as fact, which was certainly not clear in my first post.\

After reviewing the video, I was unable to find the discussion on limitations of using the Worcester Sub. I believe it was discussed in the roughly 30 minutes of meeting that exists before Harry started recording. Hopefully the working group makes the whole video available to the public, but I doubt they will based on the lack of professionalism in the meeting.

However, I was able to track down the comments made on the expansion of diesel facilities. Their are two main parts, listed below:
  • Timestamp 53:40 - Matthew Peterson from City of Boston: City is working collaboratively with MassDOT on this project. However, city strongly against any new diesel facilities in Boston and will work to ensure that does not happen.
  • Timestamp 1:14:00 - Glen Berkowitz from A Better City: ABC believes MassDOT is legally required to perform an alternative analysis on layover space and maintenance facilities. I interpreted this as a veiled threat to sue if this does not happen.
I misinterpreted these as a moratorium against new diesel facilities, and apologies for spreading that. However, it does seem fair to suggest that the opposition to those facilities could make it almost impossible for MassDOT to meet a September 2026 deadline for NEPA review to get federal funds. More broadly, MassDOT will need to keep a lot of people happy to get the environmental review done on time, and with how things currently look, those odds keep getting smaller.
 
If I had to guess, the consultant team (and probably MassDOT too) are quite frustrated at being constantly called out for not doing their jobs well. During the meeting, no one could specify if the new layovers were needed overnight, for midday, or both, whether their were options further west on the line, and what service would be jeopardized without them. They also claim to be running with fewer layovers than necessary, which means the T or MassDOT is basically just fabricating how many layovers are necessary. The whole project feels incompetently managed and community members keep pushing back.
This is kind of the problem of having consultants do the job at all. Presumably what they're not allowed to say is they've been directed by someone higher up to include a series of unworkable provisions. And they can't just say "my client has directed me too..." etc.
 

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