MBTA Construction Projects

TheRatmeister said:
That figure ignores all other regular maintance costs, any costs from parking enforcement, and other regular costs. While I don't know for sure how much those are, they've got to be taking a big chunk of that parking revenue as it is.
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I left that out because it's impossible to parse out Alewife specifically, but Keolis has a 3 year contract for parking management for all 101 MBTA owned parking facilities for $19M, including revenue enforcement as well as general upkeep maintenance and cleaning - call it $6.3m a year. Notably doesn't include life safety, elevators or snow and ice since the T broke it out of the bid, (because climate change, snow isn't as predictable so it's now a as-needed direct pass through cost) but the original bid that included it was for ~$25.5M. That said, I'm pretty sure actual repairs to anything is part of the facilities on call contracts so it's basically invisible to me. But on a per-space basis, Alewife has ~2500/44000 total spaces on the MBTA system, so it's share of parking management expenses is ~345k a year.

For FY24, parking revenues systemwide were budgeted at ~$24M, (In FY19 they were ~$53M) so yea - that management is definitely taking a healthy bite of the budget but it's not a completely accurate comparison since now I'm not including the capital work across all the other garages and lots.
 
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Got some photos today on the way home. Not sure if the 'white' part is decoration or if they are moving the T elevator; and the elevator will now stop at 'park' level.
 

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bigpicture7 said:
Yes, renders do show an elevator in that location that reaches the roof/patio level:
View attachment 53009

From the Dec 2023 presentation here:
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Looking closer at the rendering. The steel is up for the main square addition. No steel yet for the little piece in back - looks like where the park will connect to the stairs I stood on to get some of those pics.
 
Is there any significant risk that the speeding up of the Braintree branch for 40mph to 50 mph with the rebuild comes from using the geometry required for double tracking the old colony lines?
 
No - it was built for 70 mph speeds (as were the 01400 series "Silverbirds" built for the extension), though I'm not sure it was ever consistently operated above 55 mph. Getting back to 50 mph is primarily a matter of maintenance standards and shouldn't require any change to track geometry.
 
The EGE said:
No - it was built for 70 mph speeds (as were the 01400 series "Silverbirds" built for the extension), though I'm not sure it was ever consistently operated above 55 mph. Getting back to 50 mph is primarily a matter of maintenance standards and shouldn't require any change to track geometry.
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It would be pretty cool to see a Red Line train blasting past you at 70 mph when sitting in stopped traffic on 93 (not that I think it could reach that given stop spacings).
 
bakgwailo said:
(not that I think it could reach that given stop spacings).
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The new RL and OL cars are specced to accelerate at 2.75 mph/s up to 16 mph and rated for a maximum speed of 70 mph (63 in service). Acceleration typically tapers off at higher speeds; making some rough assumptions about that, you're probably looking at about 1/3 mile to hit 60 mph, or about 1/2 mile to hit 70. (Braking distances are typically a bit longer so you don't overshoot the platform.) Distances starting at JFK/UMass are 3.6, 0.8, 1.2, 1.4, and 1.8 miles. So except for North Quincy-Wollaston and maybe Wollaston-Quincy Center, it would be possible to hit those max speeds.

Realistically, even going from 40 to 50 limit (and eliminating the lowest speed limits where possible) will make a pretty big difference. (I spent way too long on a Friday evening making a spreadsheet.) JFK-Braintree is currently timetabled for about 32 minutes outside the peak. A 'standard' run time (using the times from the 2014 Blue Book) is 20 minutes. Assuming 30-second dwells, 40 mph speeds with no speed restrictions would theoretically be 17.1 minutes. (That also assumes perfect physics conditions, such as the operator braking at the last possible second, and wouldn't ever be possible in real conditions.) That would go down to 15.0 minutes with 50 mph max speed, and 13.7 minutes with 60 mph max speed. Realistically, I think we could see close to 2 minutes of time savings (about 15%) on the Braintree Branch from upping speeds to 50 mph.
 

So that helps explain why this escalator at Boden was never repaired or replaced!! This station is NOT ADA-compliant & the Lord only knows when it will ever be. People are frustrated, (myself included) as to why this issue has never been resolved. Next time that I have an appt with my eye doctor, I think that I'll either take the Orange Line or walk from Gov't Center Station. I don't mind walking, but who wants to walk uptairs all the time because an escalator is so badly broken & hasn't been replaced for eons?!! :eek:
 
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