MBTA Construction Projects

Re: T construction news

Instead of an 'open letter' on obscure blog, I wonder if she has tried sending a real letter that someone from the T might actually read?
 
Re: T construction news

From an actual news source:

Boston.com - December 5, 2008
Large crack develops in landmark church
Posted by Michael Paulson December 5, 2008 10:08 AM

At a joint news conference today, both the church?s senior minister, the Rev. Nancy S. Taylor, and the MBTA?s assistant general manager, Charles L. O?Reilly, said the crack was caused by work done by a T contractor installing elevator shafts to make the Copley Square T station accessible to the handicapped. O?Reilly said the multi-year, $45 million construction project has been indefinitely halted.

Taylor and O?Reilly both said that the T would be responsible for repairing the church, which is a national historic landmark; O?Reilly said the T would in turn seek to hold its contractors responsible for the damage.

The construction project was complicated by the fact that the church, like much of the Back Bay, is built on fill, and both church and T officials said they were mindful of the fact that Trinity Church was seriously damaged by the construction of the John Hancock Tower three decades earlier.

Taylor said the crack appeared sometime Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, and appeared to have been triggered by a single construction event, rather than to have happened over time. This morning the crack was clearly visible both on the exterior Dartmouth Street wall of the church (which is at the corner of Dartmouth and Boylston, just above one of the Copley Square T entrances) and on the interior of that wall.

The damaged wall is the so-called ?fine arts wall? of the church, with 140-year-old stained glass windows, and the workings of one of the largest organs in New England.

Taylor said it is not clear whether there is any structural damage to the church, and she said safety engineers will examine the church today before deciding whether to allow a concert, two weddings, and worship services scheduled for this weekend to proceed. She said it is also not clear whether the organ, which creates significant vibrations when played, is usable. She said there is no estimate of the financial cost of the repairs, and that the value of the church is inestimable.

The T said that its project was mandated in order to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and that it had demanded that the contractors take extra precautions to protect the church?s wall. The church and the T had been talking for more than two years about the project, and had installed monitors on the church walls, and hired a battery of specialists, in an unsuccessful effort to prevent the damage that has now occurred.

Because the Copley Square area is built on fill, underground construction has always been problematic in the area. Trinity Church, across Copley Square from Old South, wound up winning $4 million in a jury award after suing the Hancock for damage caused during construction of the tower in 1975.

Taylor said that Old South was fully supportive of the T project in the interest of making Copley Square more accessible to people in wheelchairs and with other mobility limitations, and she said T officials have been collaborative both in their efforts to prevent the damage and in their pledges to "make the church whole.''

Old South is a congregation of the United Church of Christ, which is the largest Protestant denomination in Massachusetts, and which has also been the denomination of president-elect Barack Obama.

News of the damage was first reported by Alecia, a blogging actress who spotted the crack last night when she showed up at the church for a rehearsal. That blog post was brought to wider attention this morning by Universal Hub.
Click to expand...
 
Re: T construction news

Ron Newman said:
Some commuter trains from Franklin or Providence still run down this line. The whole idea of this project is to gradually improve it until it has the frequency and station-spacing characteristics of a subway line.
Click to expand...

So their intentions are good, but why wait? Isn't it already pretty dense? And besides, surely more people will want to live and develop there if there's already a subway, right? Doing it the other way around is crazy--it'll take far longer, and the constant small upgrades will probably wind up costing more than a complete renovation all at once.
 
Re: T construction news

That's great that she wrote a blog entry and something happened.

Here's my go at it:

"Dear Santa,
 
Re: T construction news

I wonder if this damage would have still happened if they located this where the back bay asked them to.
 
Re: T construction news

Or, if it did, the damage would have been to a building we'd all like to see demolished anyway (the Citizens Bank at the NE corner of Dartmouth and Boylston).
 
Re: T construction news

I don't understand your question. She's been with WGBH for many years.
 
Re: T construction news

I find her irritating. I heard her start too many diatribes with 'I don't know anything about this, but I think.....'
 
Re: T construction news

Kenmore.

Whats wrong with this picture?
IMG_6963.jpg


Hint.
IMG_6962.jpg


IMG_6964.jpg




At least the glass stops snow (because wind is not a factor in boston)
IMG_7026.jpg

IMG_7027.jpg
 
Re: T construction news

I dont see the problem, I just see Kenmore Station NOT looking like a WW2 era bunker.
 
Re: T construction news

Yeah, I don't know about anyone else, but the new Kenmore station is definitely one of the few successes the MBTA has had recently.
 
Re: T construction news

Yeah but that happens all the time with new construction.

To get nit-picky, the one thing I've always hated with the new Kenmore station is that puke green tiling. Isn't there an Arts for Transit program? Throw up some Red Sox related stuff just to make it look nice. Or at the very least why can't there be white tiles, like at Arlington? Maybe I'm just asking too much. It is an improvement from the dark brink that used to be there.
 
Re: T construction news

Do they really need escalators at Kenmore? They're just going to break down and be less than useless, not to mention probably have to be turned off for Red Sox games.
 
Re: T construction news

I know, people are so lazy and fat, they should all be forced to walk up and down stairs.
 
Re: T construction news

I don't see why it would be necessary to turn off escalators for Red Sox games.
 
Re: T construction news

"Or at the very least why can't there be white tiles, like at Arlington? Maybe I'm just asking too much. It is an improvement from the dark brink that used to be there."

The cheap concrete panels on the tunnel walls across from the platforms cover the original red and white tiles in patterns similar to Arlington Station. A few of the panels fell off during construction to reveal them. Unfortunately the panels were reapplied and freshly painted. Why they wouldn't remove the panels and replace the few bits of tile damaged by the anchor bolts, and let the tourists be wooed by 'old school' Boston is beyond me. My guess is the architects wanted nothing to do with anything non-Modern for fear of dejection from their like minded peers.
 
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