Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

[found5dollar]

Ok so if anyone on this board lives along the path of the extension, they should try to be a part of this

https://www.commentmgr.com/Projects/1228/docs/GLX%20Design%20Working%20Group%20App%20-%20final.pdf

The Design Working Group. You only have until the 30th to send in the application.

GO FOR IT!

[PaulC]

Location For Maintenance Facility:
press release: http://www.eot.state.ma.us/default.asp?pgid=content/releases/pr051710_greenLine&sid=release

report: https://www.commentmgr.com/Projects/1228/docs/GLX_MF_EnvAnalysis_Final_20100421.pdf


source:
http://greenlineextension.eot.state.ma.us/currentmaterials.asp?area=mls

[vanshnookenraggen]

Seems to me that Option L is the best choice will all things considered. It sticks the yard away from any residential developments and is pretty good from an operations standpoint.

[Ron Newman]

This is great news. It removes the only source of dissension regarding the Green Line in Somerville (the originally planned maintenance facility would have been right across the tracks from the Brickbottom Artists Building).

[GW2500]

So is the only thing preventing this from starting construction North Point?

[jass]

So is the only thing preventing this from starting construction North Point?

Nothing is preventing it from starting, its on schedule. The original schedule was extremely slow, and theyre sticking to it.

[GW2500]

Hopefully that is the case, but I was under the idea that lechemere needs to get re-alligned and the developers at North Point are going to do that, but right now the NP developers are in some kind of legal battle and won't be building anything anytime soon.

[BostonUrbEx]

At least we'll have some wonderful Medford to Brickbottom and Union Square service if North Point doesn't get straightened out.

[Lurker]

Am I not the only person here who thinks North Point is a really big mistake and should remain a major rail yard?

[BostonUrbEx]

Am I not the only person here who thinks North Point is a really big mistake and should remain a major rail yard?

Me. I think it's just one more loss of important infrastructure for the future.

[found5dollar]

anyone know where this is?



http://www.mbta.com/about_the_mbta/news_events/?id=19425&month=&year=

AGREEMENT ON NEW LOCATION FOR GREEN LINE EXTENSION VEHICLE MAINTENANCE FACILITY

Start Date: 5/17/2010
Email: colin.durrant@state.ma.us

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) today joined Congressman Michael Capuano and Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone in announcing an agreement on a new preferred site for a maintenance and storage facility needed for the Green Line extension to Somerville and Medford.

Supported by the City of Somerville and elected officials throughout the Green Line Extension corridor, the new site is located in the Inner Belt area of Somerville and is known as 'Option L,' due to its L-shaped configuration. The new location eliminates many of the negative neighborhood impacts associated with the original site proposed by MassDOT, and presents the best opportunities to further long-term planning and development objectives in the area.

The selection of the Option L site is the culmination of a community planning process that engaged community advocates, local residents, business people and elected officials at all levels with MassDOT planners and engineers. MassDOT has received valuable input throughout the planning process and will continue to work with interested individuals and organizations, including municipal officials and staff, on specific design elements of the facility.

"I'd like to thank all those involved in this decision," said Congressman Mike Capuano. "Everyone showed the necessary flexibility and willingness to compromise when it came to locating the maintenance facility. As a result, we continue moving forward on the greater issue - making the Green Line Extension a reality."

"The Green Line Extension is one of our highest-profile projects, and one that offers enormous potential transportation benefits for the communities northwest of Boston," said MassDOT Secretary and CEO Jeffrey Mullan. "The City of Somerville, its municipal officials and local residents, are our partners in the planning process, and their participation has been and will continue to be invaluable as we move forward. The selection of Option L is an example of that partnership."

The Option L site makes possible the future redevelopment of the areas closest to the Green Line Extension corridor, and the creation of long-term transportation connections between the Inner Belt and Brickbottom neighborhoods.

"This is a momentous decision for the City of Somerville," said Somerville Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone. "Not only does the decision about where to locate the Green Line maintenance facility ensure that the Green Line expansion into Somerville remains on its 2014 timeline, the chosen location creates the opportunity for significant redevelopment inside the city's industrial Inner Belt. Best of all, this will help preserve the quality of life for nearby residents, notably those in the Brickbottom artist lofts. Today we're significantly closer to achieving the better, brighter, more connected future we envision for this city."

"We are very happy that MassDOT has chosen Option L as the preferred site for the maintenance facility," said Senator Patricia Jehlen. "As a legislative delegation we convened many meetings with MassDOT and the city to discuss this issue. In the end, however, it was the hard work and determination of the residents themselves who attended one public meeting after another to express their concerns that lead to this decision. The residents of Somerville, the Mayor and the many advocacy groups who have been involved in this process from the beginning deserve tremendous credit for their hard work and determination."

"This decision is reflective of a healthy and vigorous community process and a testament to the sustained involvement of so many community members and elected officials," said Representative Timothy Toomey. "Option L is by far the best alternative for the residents of Brickbottom and for the long-term economic development potential of the Inner Belt area of Somerville, and I'd like to thank Secretary Mullan and Governor Patrick for their commitment to finding the best possible location for the facility."

"I'm pleased that the siting of the maintenance facility has been resolved well away from the Brickbottom/Inner Belt area," said Representative Denise Provost (D-Somerville). "The Green Line extension is a priority for Somerville, and it's time to move the project forward."

"I appreciate MassDOT's willingness to work with our community and their continued responsiveness to our concerns," said Representative Carl M. Sciortino, Jr.

More information about the Green Line Extension project, including information about upcoming public meetings, can be found at http://greenlineextension.eot.state.ma.us/

For transportation news and updates visit MassDOT at our website: www.mass.gov/massdot, blog: www.mass.gov/blog/transportation, or follow MassDOT on twitter at www.twitter.com/massdot.

[found5dollar]

also a new fact sheet with nothing really new in it...

https://www.commentmgr.com/Projects/1228/docs/GLX_FactSheetSPRG2010_web.pdf

my favorite part is on the last page
"crap we don't have enough info to fill the last page"
"it's ok... just throw a picture of some guy there... no one will notice"

[BostonUrbEx]

Small map of Option L:

http://www.somervillestep.org/files/SupportFacility_L_120909.jpg


It's also somewhere towards the end here:

https://www.commentmgr.com/Projects/1228/docs/Additional%20Maintenance%20Facility%20Study%20-%20Final%20-%2012.09.2009.pdf

^ Along with the other 2 plans that were given much consideration.

[Arborway]

I love the placeholder Urban Ring BRT bridge with lots of sharp turns. So glad that disaster of a project didn't happen.

I look forward to my great-great grandchildren bringing the project back as a LRT / HRT combo.

[czsz]

I'm rooting for a maglev S-Bahn.

[GW2500]

Boston Globe mytowns section Cambridge
http://www.cambridgeday.com/2010/05/28/linking-green-red-rail-lines-at-porter-draws-interest/


Linking green, red rail lines at Porter draws interest
By Marc Levy
Published: May 28, 2010

There is public interest in the Porter Square red line rail station getting a link to green line rail, a state transportation official says. (Photo: Marc Levy)
A link between green line and red line trains in Porter Square could be in the future, Katherine Fichter, project manager for the Green Line Extension project, said at a Wednesday project update in Cambridge.

The far, far future, she said.

?The extension that we?re building that?s currently going to terminate in Union Square, there could be a future in which that was then extended to make the connection for the red line and commuter rail at Porter. That?s not part of this project,? Fichter said before the meeting at the Kennedy Longfellow School. ?But there?s nothing we?re doing to make it impossible ? we are not doing anything to preclude that.?

There was public interest in exploring the link, she said.

Plans to extend the blue line 1,500 feet to meet the red line at the Charles/MGH stop in Boston are under way, with environmental reviews and final designs to be complete by Dec. 31, 2011.

The Union Square spur off the green line stop at Lechmere in Cambridge has a Dec. 31, 2014, deadline, along with several other new stops through Somerville into Medford.

But the idea of linking the red and green lines at Porter is new ? perhaps because there hasn?t been a Union Square stop from which to link.

The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority asked for transportation suggestions from the public in 2003, a ?financially unconstrained? exercise that drew about 400 proposals and launched the green line extension.

A proposal to connect the green line to the red line, but at Harvard, didn?t survive, authority spokeswoman Lydia M. Rivera said.

?This idea was raised ? but was screened out,? Rivera said in an e-mail in 2005. ?The MBTA felt that there was not sufficient demand for this service, and other proposed projects in the area would meet any potential demand.?

Not precluding the ?urban ring?

The idea of an ?urban ring? connecting MBTA stations far outside Boston, instead of having riders come into the city to switch lines, has existed at least since the 1970s, but the state acknowledged in January that it doesn?t have the money to pursue the plan.

Fichter?s language in answering whether planning for the green line extension would enable connection with the urban ring, whenever it came about, was similar to her answer on a red line link: ?Again, we?re working hard not to do anything to preclude it,? she said.

Whenever it?s tackled, plans are for the urban ring to be served by buses, not rail.

In explaining why the green line extension is rail instead of buses, Fichter said that switching would mean ?saddling your riders with a change at Lechmere, which is something you always want to avoid. The optimal solution is to continue the existing mode.?

?We have existing green line travel to Lechmere and rail rights of way,? she said. ?East Cambridge, Somerville and to a somewhat lesser extent Medford are already well served by MBTA buses. They don?t operate particularly well in the environment given the corridors, the congestion, the density. So that?s when you begin to think that a different mode would be more appropriate, and in this case we have the rail opportunity.?

?It?s not like we have a mode-specific policy,? she said.

[vanshnookenraggen]

It would just be cheaper to build a commuter rail station at Union Sq.

[Ron Newman]

That might be a good idea but would not serve the same purpose at all.

[czsz]

A Red-Blue connector pipe dream for the 21st century!

[Charlie_mta]

A Red-Blue connector pipe dream for the 21st century!

Or, much more likely, the 22nd.

[GW2500]

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/somerville/2010/06/_danielle_dreilinger_photos_th.html


By Danielle Dreilinger, Globe Correspondent

In Somerville, everyone's speculating and dreaming about When the Green Line Comes ? just see the real estate ads. In May and June, the Community Corridor Planning coalition put a little reality into the mix by holding open meetings to design the future light-rail stops. Almost 100 people attended, said organizer Ellin Reisner.

Well, not entirely reality: The state has no obligation to put any of the designs into practice. But the results provide an interesting imaginative exercise for the city. Here's a few of the ideas. You can see sketches at the Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership website.

BRICKBOTTOM

Now: Residents recently won a battle to keep the Green Line maintenance facility tucked away instead of smack in the middle of things, but this neighborhood still faces a lot of challenges. Light-industrial buildings ? Cataldo Ambulance, Gino's Ornamental Ironworks ? lead down Joy Street to the Brickbottom live-in artists' studios. But the rail bed completely cuts them off from the small shops and restaurants a stone's throw away. With no crossing lights, the people who live across Washington Street hesitate, then run.




Later: Stephen Kaiser, a Cambridge engineer who participated in the design workshops, thought the state's draft design was all wrong: It allowed access only from the Brickbottom side. But "the corridor's there and the people are there," he said.

His team presented several alternatives. One shifts the station closer to Washington Street, taking over the Cataldo storage site. Another lofts the station into the sky, with access to Washington Street on both sides.

If the station stays at its half-hidden proposed location ? a block down Joy Street ? at least the state should cut an underpass through to Caf? Belo. Whatever happens, "It's got to be coordinated with good traffic lights to get people across the street," Kaiser said.

There's also a proposal afoot to move the station to the other side of Washington Street, squarely into an isolated wedge of residential East Somerville. "The key thing to emphasize here is the need for flexibility and to work things out with the locals," he said.

GILMAN SQUARE

Now: It's arguably the least promising spot ? weedy, strewn with debris. The station site, tucked behind the high school, is next to a piano factory and the decrepit, city-owned Homans Building, which officials determined in 2004 was too expensive to renovate. Ed Leathers Park is new, green, and tidy but separated from the future station by Walnut Street. Commercial activity is limited to the Paddock pizzeria and several gas stations. The high school, blotted out by trees and the steep slope, towers above. If you have a taste for urban Gothic, it's actually kind of gorgeous.

Later: In the designers' vision, the Homans becomes "Somerville Center," with community multi-use space, a job center, and a caf? with outdoor seating facing the station. A walkway runs to a new north/south bus on steep School Street ? a useful addition in a city whose buses all run crosstown. Another covered walkway channels visitors directly to the high school, City Hall, and the library uphill on Highland Avenue.

BALL SQUARE

Now: It smells like fried food ? fitting for a commercial strip known for its popular eateries. But Ball Square remains unassuming, perennially hobbled by the 15-minute walk to Davis Square. There's an old bowling alley, an old bank, an old travel agency that's been empty for years, an old ? you get the picture.

Later: The priority was "connectivity," said design group member Jason Zogg, a Cambridge resident and urban planner. "We moved the bus stops to the top of the bridge," he said. "You could basically get off the bus and go directly down an escalator or an elevator to a central platform" and pick up the train. That's especially important for this stop, which is right along Broadway bus lines from the northern Winter Hill area, which gets bupkis from the Green Line extension.

But along with practicality, Zogg's team wanted something spectacular, as unique and striking as Boston's new courthouse or the Charles/MGH stations. Their design has wooden benches, LED light design, public art ? no little Allston Green Line platforms here. "Why shouldn't our transportation systems ? be these really amazing and inspiring public spaces?" he asked rhetorically. They even made a Ball Square logo: a sphere and a cube.



ROUTE 16

Now: If Gilman at least has a run-down sense of place, the possible end of the line ? being designed with the rest of the stations but not currently on the list for funding - has a sense of ... rear parking lot. It takes several minutes of scrambling among U-Haul trucks to locate the rail bed (above, below), tucked behind bland office buildings and cut-rate gyms. The tracks are fenced off and landscaped with neat beds of crushed stone.





Later: In designers' imaginations, this stop that may not happen is the "(Meanest) Greenest" of them all. An overpass would bring pedestrians over to Mystic River parkland; an underpass, to the Medford Whole Foods. A new park would abut Boston Avenue. That said, as befits the end of the line, there's plenty of parking.

Traveling back inbound, the sun breaks out on a cloudy day, gold and gunmetal, and the bright future looks a little more plausible.

[Arborway]

Or, much more likely, the 22nd.

We'll get it right after Silver Line: Phase XXX

[erikyow]

And the recession claims another victim.

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/medford/2010/06/final_impact_report_filed_for.html (Latest plan has Green Line
ending at College Avenue)

[Lurker]

It's awful how the comments on that story seem to think adding transit options INCREASES traffic. The typical cheap rent, those who want to intentionally keep a neighborhood flawed or otherwise less desirable to keep their rent down, NIMBYs also appear.

[found5dollar]

sad.

[Shepard]

Seems like it's time to officially change the title of this thread ("to start in 2011")...

Starts & Stops

Long-awaited Green Line extension to Somerville, Medford delayed again

By Eric Moskowitz
Globe Staff / July 11, 2010

Somerville and Medford residents waiting to swipe their CharlieCards and ride the Green Line must now wait even longer. State officials disclosed Friday that completion of the project ? discussed for decades, put off by a succession of administrations, and planned in earnest for the past five years ? will be delayed again, until at least October 2015.

his Expensive, complex projects get delayed all the time, and this one will run through the state?s most densely populated city (Somerville) and cost an estimated $954 million, 50 percent more than the state predicted just a few years ago.

But this delay means more than disappointing residents in an urban corridor bracketed by elevated highways and suburban-bound commuter rail tracks but served only by buses and cars. The state is legally bound to finishing the Green Line by the end of 2014, because it is part of a list of nonautomobile improvements it pledged to offset environmental impacts of the Big Dig, comply with the federal Clean Air Act, and avoid a lawsuit from the Conservation Law Foundation.

Missing that deadline will make the project more expensive, because the state will need to come up with an air-quality-improving short-term alternative to the Green Line or face legal and community pressure. The project delay was acknowledged in an annual status report that the state Department of Transportation must file with the Department of Environmental Protection to update its progress on the Green Line and other Big Dig mitigation efforts, a list known as the State Implementation Plan. The 2010 report was filed Friday, and transportation officials began calling local leaders and stakeholders to alert them to the delay before the report landed at DEP.

Jeffrey B. Mullan, the state?s transportation secretary and CEO, said supporters should not see this as a lack of commitment to the Green Line or a sign of financial woes.

?This is, if not our top priority, one of our top priorities in the transportation world,?? he said. ?It is a good project, it is a worthy project, and it?s one that we?re committed to.??

Mullan attributed the delay to the year or more the state spent negotiating with the community and investigating alternative locations for a 24-hour, 11-acre service yard for Green Line trains that the state wanted to put squarely amid the Inner Belt, a little-utilized industrial area. That seemed like a suitable location to the state because it?s something of a no man?s land and because part of the property was publicly owned. Locals objected for the same reasons ? arguing that if the Green Line is to fulfill goals of getting people out of cars and encouraging new development around transit, then the Inner Belt should instead be readied for new housing, businesses, and amenities.

The state ultimately agreed in May to relocate the yard, pushing it to the east edge of the Inner Belt, next to an existing 30-acre maintenance yard that serves MBTA commuter rail trains, though the plan would be more expensive and require some eminent domain takings. Officials said previously the maintenance yard debate would not delay the project, but when they prepared their annual report they realized they were wrong, Mullan said.

?I think it?s time well spent, because I think we?ve got a better project than we had,?? Mullan said.

He said the state would work with the community on a short-term environmental alternative, like retrofitting local MBTA buses to use less fuel and release fewer emissions.

?It?s disappointing, because you want the Green Line to happen as soon as possible,?? said Rafael Mares, a Conservation Law Foundation staff attorney for transportation and environmental-justice projects. ?What I think is important is if there?s no way to avoid the delay that at least there?s appropriate mitigation and the community has a say in that.??

Ellin Reisner is president of the Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership, which has spent years engaging the community and trying to hold the state?s feet to the fire. ?On some level I?m not surprised, but I?m disappointed,?? she said. ?As someone who works as an advocate for this, you have to constantly be paying attention to the process to make sure it doesn?t get railroaded.??

The state does not have the money in hand to build the project but is working on an application for the Federal Transit Administration?s New Starts program, to win half the funds. Governor Deval Patrick has said the state will make good on its commitment even if that application does not succeed.

Mullan said that is still the case, and the state is especially optimistic about winning federal money with changes looming for the scoring process. US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has said New Starts will be redesigned to value ?livability,?? including economic development potential and sustainability; under the Bush administration, projects won or lost largely on a riders-per-dollar formula.

But advocates of greener transportation worry that the state has not moved fast enough to balance transit and bike projects with highway construction, and that it remains hampered by the massive debt burden from the Big Dig and political wariness over new taxes for transportation.

?The good news is it really appears that Secretary Mullan understands the vision and . . . is actually trying to move the direction of planning and implementation toward what the law requires and logic says is needed for the future,?? said Steven E. Miller, a board member of the transportation advocacy group LivableStreets Alliance. ?[But] it obviously is proving difficult to happen quickly.??


T ridership up; increases for 3 months registered
MBTA ridership numbers are in for May, and they show a weekday average of 1,262,000 daily one-way trips on all modes, a 3 percent increase over May 2009. The April numbers were up 2.5 percent over April 2009, and the March numbers were up 3 percent. That?s the first time the T has posted three straight months of year-over-year growth since fall 2008, when gas was just beginning to fall from $4 a gallon and the Great Recession had not exacted its greatest toll on employment.

Here?s how individual modes in May compared with May ?09: Buses up 6.7 percent, heavy rail (subway) up 3 percent, light rail (Green Line) up 5.7 percent, commuter rail down 10.7 percent.

The T is traditionally a lagging indicator, not a leading indicator, of economic recovery, said Brian Kane, budget and policy analyst for the MBTA Advisory Board, which represents the cities and towns served by the T. The drop in commuter rail ridership is the surest sign the economy is not back yet, he said.

What to make of the increases to other categories?

The T itself touted the bus increase as a sign that people appreciate its investment in new hybrid buses for a couple of routes (purchased with federal stimulus funds) and the release of real-time data to help riders catch the bus on select routes.

But what, then, do we make of the subway increases, despite a pattern of service-related delays on the Red Line and other problems afflicting an aging and financially burdened system?

?What this indicates to me is that we?ve had some good months of tourism,?? Kane said. ?We?ve had a couple of conventions in town, and the Sox have had a lot of homestands.??


Rest assured, Concord Rotary delays only temporary
Glenn in Littleton e-mailed to ask about traffic tie-ups on Route 2, which he uses for his early-morning commute to Wellesley.

Every ride for the past two weeks has crawled to a halt at the Concord Rotary and remained stop-and-go to the intersection of Route 2 and Route 62, about 1 1/2 miles east, he reported.

The good news, according to Department of Transportation spokesman Richard Nangle, is that the delays are temporary and should improve by the end of July. The state has engaged in a series of separately bid projects to repave stretches of Route 2, paid for with federal stimulus funds.

Although Route 2 opens up in other places, the Concord stretch of the highway is dotted with traffic lights, and the milling of the road for repavement meant destroying the ?loop detection devices?? ? the wires buried in the pavement that tell the traffic lights when cars are waiting.

As a result, the lights have been changing to allow for traffic to cross Route 2 from side streets, even when no one is waiting to do so.

The delays should not be as bad during peak commuting times ? 6:30 to 9:30 a.m. and 3:30 to 7 p.m. ? because that is when the lights are coordinated for traffic flow and not activated by the loop detectors, which will be replaced with the final repaving, Nangle said.


Quick observation: the article notes that CR ridership is down 10%, and yet it's the CR that keeps getting capital allocations for extensions. Does anyone in government actually want the green line extension, or are they much more happy to see each and every suburb, further and further out, get one or two choo-choos a day (that serve what, an additional thousand or so people)?

[czsz]

They draw all the wrong conclusions. Read what they said: people are riding the bus more because they appreciate the investment in hybrid vehicles and because there have been conventions? What the fuck environmentalist drove instead of riding the bus before because it wasn't hybrid? What kind of other person wouldn't have taken the bus before it was hybrid? And what conventioneer would ever take a bus (unless they're counting the Silver Line, which wouldn't surprise me that they do when it's convenient).

[Arborway]

Agreed. The increase probably has more to do with the spread of real time bus data. It helps when you can see when the next three buses are coming to any given stop.

I will say the hybrids may have triggered a small ridership spike on the #39 as the new fleet of articulated buses suddenly appeared and took over from the Neoplans. People were generally impressed with the prospect of something new and shiny. They're gone now though - all reassigned to the #28, and the Neoplans are back.

[BostonUrbEx]

The state does not have the money in hand to build the project

Cut the shit and stop using the New Bedford/Fall River commuter rail project to gain a few votes with a lot of cash.

[OneOrangeDoor]

That an MBTA budget analyst doesn't understand that the Red Sox play the same number of home games every year seems indicative of the MBTA's understanding of the city's transit environment and needs in general.

Thanks for saying it, UrbEx; Cut the shit, indeed...

[Ron Newman]

The stats are comparing month to month in different years. The Sox played 10 home games in a row this May (and a total of 16 that month), which probably is not typical of most years. Last year they played only 11 home games in May.

[OneOrangeDoor]

Quite right... My mistake...

[found5dollar]

not sure if this has been posted yet, but a new Fact sheet was put online in June.

https://www.commentmgr.com/Projects/1228/docs/GLX_FactSheet_June2010_final.pdf

nothing realy new in it.

[ant8904]

I thought I should include this article. It doesn't really add much, but it about this line so it should be brought up for others to read.


http://www.weeklydig.com/news-opinions/news-us/201007/imminent-domain (http://www.weeklydig.com/news-opinions/news-us/201007/imminent-domain)

[crash575]

Which is worse displacing three healthy businesses or "ruining" the view for the brickbottom residents? I feel that the state shouldn't bulldoze buildings when there is a perfectly good unused former rail yard (Yard 8).

[Ron Newman]

The issue wasn't the view, it was the noise from a maintenance facility.

[found5dollar]

there are some interesting maps here showing the Somerville Community Path that is going to be extended as part of the green line extension.

https://www.commentmgr.com/Projects/1228/docs/TIGER%20II%20Application%20and%20Appendix%20FINAL% 209_7.pdf

[GW2500]

My Towns section of Globe

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/somerville/articles/2010/09/13/green_light_on_northpoint/



THE PROPOSED 44-acre mixed-use development project in Cambridge near the Museum of Science won plaudits from the beginning as a textbook case of smart growth. A relocated Lechmere T station in the NorthPoint complex would reduce auto use by residents, who would also be within walking distance of major employers like Massachusetts General Hospital. Stalled first by a falling-out between development partners and then by the recession, the project still makes sense as a long-term bet on increasing demand for space in Cambridge as Kendall Square fills up.

Tweet 1 person Tweeted thisSubmit to DiggdiggsdiggYahoo! Buzz ShareThis The good news is that new investors, including former Lakers star Earvin ?Magic?? Johnson, have entered the picture with plans to spend about $1.5 billion over 10 years. The bad news is that the investors and their partners will not fund the new T station, as the original developers had committed to do.

Since the MBTA needs the new station to accommodate its planned extension of the Green Line into Somerville and Medford, the transit authority recently acknowledged that it would have to bite the bullet and finance the station itself. NorthPoint will still make a contribution to the new transit line, not least by likely providing rail rights of way through its property.

When developers first conceived of NorthPoint in 2000, the Green Line extension was years off and the new Lechmere station would have been the end of the line, costing considerably less. The developers? pledge to build it then was part of a quid pro quo in which the state would hand over to the developers the site of the old station. Like all real estate, the value of that land has fallen while the projected cost of the new station has risen. Still, the MBTA should bargain aggressively with NorthPoint?s owners to protect the public interest in this complicated public-private collaboration.

NorthPoint has the potential to turn an old railroad yard into a vibrant urban center. Under its original plan, it would include 2,700 residential units, 150,000 square feet of retail space, and 2.2 million square feet of commercial or office space, all spread over 19 city blocks. Since then, the owners have managed to erect just two residential buildings with 330 units. With the new Green Line station and track, NorthPoint has many moving parts ? literally. The MBTA will have to make sure the taxpayer and straphanger don?t get sidetracked in NorthPoint wheeling and dealing.

[vanshnookenraggen]

That's a shame but with lending what it is this isn't much of a surprise. I expect the budget for the Green Line extension to balloon once again.

[jass]

The MBTA has the worst contract lawyers ever.

Not paying for the station shouldn't even be an option.

[found5dollar]

"MassDOT will host two educational public meetings to kick off the Preliminary Engineering phase of the project. The meetings will be held on September 28 at the Argenziano School (Cafetorium), 290 Washington St., Somerville and September 29 at Medford City Hall (Council Chambers), 85 George P. Hassett Drive. Each meeting will begin at 5:30 PM with an "Introduction to the Green Line Extension." New material will be presented starting at 6:15 PM. The presentations at the two meetings will be the same. Please visit the Calendar for more information."

from the greenline extension website

[found5dollar]

there are new floor plans and layouts for each of the planned stations on the website.

click on the station you want to see

http://www.greenlineextension.org/currentmaterials.asp?area=mls

[Arborway]

Mmmmm... island platforms and a new elevated station. Love it.

My only real quibble is with the Ball Square station. In an ideal world, the grade would be a bit lower on that track section, allowing for the station mezzanine to be accessed without using stairs or elevators. Saving passengers - especially the disabled - from having to go through a second set of stairs or elevators to reach the platform level.

[BostonUrbEx]

I find it annoying that the Union Square station basically just serves Prospect St. They couldn't put it under Prospect with the main lobby covering up air rights between Prospect and Webster?

[Charlie_mta]

The Union Square station looks like it would block future Green Line extension to Porter. If that's true, then it's a short-sighted design.

[Mayor Menino's Crohn's]

The Union Square station looks like it would block future Green Line extension to Porter. If that's true, then it's a short-sighted design.
It's probably what they had in mind when they designed it.

[belmont square]

Who is asking for a Green Line extension to Porter?

[Ron Newman]

The city of Somerville would like to keep that option open for the (medium-to-far) future.

[ablarc]

forget it ever happening, its too great an idea. :D

[bdurden]

The city of Somerville would like to keep that option open for the (medium-to-far) future.

Once again this ignores the reality that most who live in Union Square and Winter Hill frequent Porter, Davis, and Harvard for entertainment, as well as for school and the workplace, likely more so than to downtown Boston.

The connection to Porter is equally, if not more important, than the connection to Medford.

[belmont square]

I'd be surprised if your comments about Winter Hill are true.

And for Union people trying to get to Porter--isn't the bus service sufficient to serve what must be a relatively small number of people traveling there for work or entertainment?

To get to Davis or Harvard via a Green Line extension to Porter, you'd be looking at a two seat ride which would not represent a big improvement over the direct bus trips that you can use today (and in the case of the Union to Harvard trip, walking would likely be almost as fast as a Green to Red trip via Porter).

[czsz]

Believe it or not, there are people who believe that transit only consists of the colored lines on subway maps, or will only use these more fixed-infrastructure links with proper stations and obvious routes, and when you begin to build those, you open up a whole new world of possibilities to them. Tourists and visitors, too - they tend to be confused by bus systems. I think there'd be demand on a Union-Porter route.

One side benefit might be the development of Porter as something much more substantial than a dressed up strip mall. Remember, transit can shape development as much as facilitate existing patterns. Porter could be a dense node absorbing high density residential and commercial uses, allowing Harvard and Davis to retain more individual character and flair.

[CSTH]

"One side benefit might be the development of Porter as something much more substantial than a dressed up strip mall."

...you could even imagine porter with these lots filled in and the old white hen replaced - that would be a truly urban place

http://i55.tinypic.com/2cfyt5t.jpg

[Ron Newman]

I believe Lesley University owns those and has some plans to build there, but I don't know the current status. Anyone know what used to be there?

[GW2500]

The thing about Porter is yes it does have a lot of stip mall to it, yet it is very active. Its urban activity in a dense suburban/kinda urban setting.

[belmont square]

Tourists and visitors, too - they tend to be confused by bus systems. I think there'd be demand on a Union-Porter route.

One side benefit might be the development of Porter as something much more substantial than a dressed up strip mall. Remember, transit can shape development as much as facilitate existing patterns.

Sorry to be a pain, but does the board view a Union to Porter Green Line link to be critical b/c it will

1) provide Union Sq tourists with an easier trip to Porter, or

2) b/c it will somehow facilitate a level of urban development that hosting a station on the Red Line (our highest-level of service rapid transit line), a commuter rail station, and one of the MBTA's highest ridership bus routes has not already facilitated?

Neither of these arguments sound like a reason to invest in this corridor over dozens of other higher ridership bus corridors in the Boston area. I think the interest in this connection is probably driven by an overrepresentation on this board of people living the Camb/Som area who are bummed out by ocassionally having to ride a bus to catch a show at Toad.

[HenryAlan]

Answering only for myself (disclosure, I very rarely spend any time North or West of the river):
Sorry to be a pain, but does the board view a Union to Porter Green Line link to be critical b/c it will

1) provide Union Sq tourists with an easier trip to Porter, or
What tourists?
2) b/c it will somehow facilitate a level of urban development that hosting a station on the Red Line (our highest-level of service rapid transit line), a commuter rail station, and one of the MBTA's highest ridership bus routes has not already facilitated?
Clearly there is more to making an urban village than simply throwing up a rapid transit station. If two rail lines don't turn it into the next Harvard Square, why would three?
Neither of these arguments sound like a reason to invest in this corridor over dozens of other higher ridership bus corridors in the Boston area. I think the interest in this connection is probably driven by an overrepresentation on this board of people living the Camb/Som area who are bummed out by ocassionally having to ride a bus to catch a show at Toad.

Preach it! There are two extremely high density bus corridors in Boston that could very easily be turned into Orange Line extensions. An extension along the Needham Heights Row from Forest Hills to Roslindale Square would remove up to 9 bus lines from Washington St. A spur from Roxbury Crossing to Dudley Square would eliminate about 10 bus routes.

These could be done quite inexpensively, especially the Roslindale extension which would cost no more than a Union to Porter extension while serving significantly more riders. Dudley would require a subway under Malcom X Blvd., but a pretty short one, and far easier to build than the silver line 3/Essex St. subway.

[Marley]

I would think an orange line branch that splits from the main line south of NEMC and travels down Washington street to Dudley and then down blue hill ave replacing the Silver Line and Rt 28 would be enough of a Mega project to shut everybody up for the next 50 years.

[ablarc]

When I lived in Union Square I looked longingly at the rail line to Porter. Have you tried the hike in January?

When I lived in Porter Square I looked longingly at the line that passed by Union Square and several intermediate activity nodes.

When I lived in Porter Square and worked in Belmont Center, I looked longingly at the same line.

I think the line should be light rail at least to Belmont --or at least frequent-headway DMU's.

[czsz]

But ablarc, you're illustrating their point. As a (now-ex) Cantabrigian, I admit my desire to see this line made rapid transit is pretty highly driven by a desire for easier access to Union. Rationally I know there are better places within the inner Boston metro to invest in rail.

Boston just has way too much former streetcar suburbia to put back together with the tools we have today :(

[ablarc]

Operated with DMU's the inbound line could terminate at Union Square for a synchronized cross-platform transfer to the Green Line. Very small investment: rolling stock and platforms; no electrification.

[belmont square]

When I lived in Porter Square and worked in Belmont Center, I looked longingly at the same line.

I think the line should be light rail at least to Belmont --or at least frequent-headway DMU's.

The two bus routes that serve Belmont Center rank 101st and 135th out of the MBTA's 191 bus routes for daily ridership. The Belmont commuter rail station ranks 114th out of 131 commuter rail stations for daily ridership. Do you really believe that a light rail/DMU link with Porter and Union is the missing link for sparking the transit market in Belmont? And if so, given the relatively low ridership on Belmont's bus routes, aren't there literally 100 better places to implement such an improvement?

[Ron Newman]

but what if you bring it out to Waltham Center? The #70 bus is pretty busy and there are a ton of express bus routes that terminate in or pass through Waltham Center.

[Shepard]

I'd say that these investments should not only be made with current demand in mind, but also with a transformational objective too.

[belmont square]

But why invest to transform places that are already relatively vibrant (Union, Porter, Belmont Center, Walthem Central Sq) but demonstrate relatively little current demand for the existing transit services that link them, before investing in places that are less vibrant (Chelsea, Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan) and demonstrate much higher current demand for existing transit service?

[Shepard]

^ An extremely good point.

[GW2500]

< Back to front page Text size ? + Somerville
Brickbottom neighborhood squeezed by rail line
E-mail | Print | Comments (1) Posted by Kaileigh Higgins December 20, 2010 10:04 AM

MY Town section of Globe for Somerville

By Danielle Dreilinger, Globe correspondent


If you look at Somerville's Brickbottom neighborhood from above, you'll see a tangled spaghetti bowl of train tracks. It's only going to get more complicated with the Green Line extension: new tracks, a maintenance facility, and possibly more commuter rail traffic.

The state Department of Transportation hasn't made any new design information public in many months, but word has gotten out to advocates that existing congestion in the Brickbottom area will require some fancy design footwork.

"It's clear that the design is going to be rethought," said Wig Zamore, a member of the Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership who sits on advisory boards for the MBTA and the Urban Ring.

The area simply might not be wide enough to fit the Green Line tracks, the Community Path walk/bike route, and access for emergency vehicles. One new idea is a "double-decker" design that would run the Green Line tracks at different heights, similar to the Orange Line at State Street, Zamore said. Continuing design efforts await a new consultant, as have projects to mitigate the delay in the coming of the Green Line, which has been pushed back from its legally mandated opening date of Dec. 31, 2014. Vanasse Hangen Brustlin handled the initial Green Line designs and the environmental permit process.

The key concern at a Somerville aldermen's committee meeting Dec. 13 was the Community Path, Zamore said. The state has not promised to design and fund the Brickbottom part of the path, and residents are worried that it won't happen. That seems foolish to Zamore: Eastern Somerville would be the one missing link in a 20-mile walk/bike route to downtown.

That knot of tracks may get even more congested soon: The state is proposing to route additional Worcester-to-Boston commuter rail along the Grand Junction tracks that run through eastern Cambridge and Somerville on their way to North Station.

"It would increase the disruption markedly," Zamore said.

[vanshnookenraggen]

Link please.

[GW2500]

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/somerville/2010/12/neighborhood_squeezed_by_rail.html

[BostonUrbEx]

What is the point of this article? To snare Green Line plans? There's plenty of room for everything mentioned except maybe the bike path. The bike path can suck my trolley in the name of rapid transit. If there's room, there's room.

[GW2500]

For real, trails are cute and all, but pedistrians can walk on any other side walk and get to where they are going and the same can be said about bicyclists and alternate bike lanes.

If both can happen cool, but a trail is less important than expanding the green line.

[vanshnookenraggen]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roFB7bGCAgc

[Ron Newman]

The bike path is actually important and needs to be built alongside the Green Line. It would allow cyclists all the way from Bedford (as well as Lexington, Arlington, Belmont, Cambridge, and Somerville) to reach downtown Boston. It would also feed people to the new Green Line stations, in the same way it now feeds Davis and Alewife stations on the Red Line.

[Marley]

Jesus Christ,

I hate Light Rail. This should have been an extension of either the Blue or Orange line. That area is far too densely populated for light rail.

[Ron Newman]

How so? Basically it's the Riverside D Line, except in Somerville instead of Brookline and Newton.

[BostonUrbEx]

Jesus Christ,

I hate Light Rail. This should have been an extension of either the Blue or Orange line. That area is far too densely populated for light rail.

It's being built to heavy rail standards and upgrading one straight run of Green line to heavy rail would be much better than a branch of the Orange Line. A Blue Line extension seems reasonable, though, but costs would be tremendous and you'd still have to upgrade the central Green Line at some point anyways. So all in all, it's a good first move, I think. It's better than nothing.

[ant8904]

Is that why this thing is so expensive? In another thread, we did talked about the cost per mile was really close to heavy rail and well above light rail. So close to heavy rail, it might as well take a few mil more and be heavy rail.

[Shepard]

I think a large part of the expense are the hefty stations, as opposed to the bare-bones concrete slabs on many D Line stops. I'm not sure why these were necessary, other than perhaps ADA. I suppose they will be useful for any future heavy rail upgrade...

[Charlie_mta]

I think the main reason the two-branched extension won't be heavy rail is the problem of connecting them to an existing heavy rail line.

Branches from the Orange line would be easy enough to build, but would present headway overload problems in the Washington Street tunnel.

A Blue Line extension would be great, but connecting the Bowdoin Square terminus with the existing Green Line tunnel at Haymarket would require ripping up the GC city hall plaza (I know, not much of loss there), and would cost a lot of money. Plus the Green Line stations at North Station and Haymarket would require extensive revamping for Blue Line cars, and the ancient Lechmere viaduct would need its girders totally replaced, and the piers possible replaced as well, to accommodate the heavier Blue Line cars.

Hence, light rail.

[jass]

Oooooooor you could have a brand new line. Medford to North Station, not a branch.

[Charlie_mta]

How would the separate line get to North Station? A separate tunnel under the Charles would be hugely expensive. Also, all the passengers tranferring to/from the Green and Orange line to the new line would create congestion in the North Station T station.

[jass]

Actually, you could have Government center - Medford run on heavy rail vehicles.

It can share the green line track from government center to north station. The green line would no longer serve science park or lechmere.

There are existing systems in which high and low floor trains call upon the same stations. North Station and Haymarket are long enough to accomodate a 2 car green line train at one end (low platform) and a 4 car heavy rail train (blue line size) on the other end.

So basically:

Medford to Lechmere and Science Park = all high floor heavy rail.

Haymarket and North Station = Shared platforms

Government Center = use the brattle loop. It currently has two platform, one side could be high floor, the other low floor for when green line trains are forced to use it actively (very rare)

Again, this wouldn't be unique, other systems do this.

[TMcLaughlin]

Actually, you could have Government center - Medford run on heavy rail vehicles.

It can share the green line track from government center to north station. The green line would no longer serve science park or lechmere.

There are existing systems in which high and low floor trains call upon the same stations. North Station and Haymarket are long enough to accomodate a 2 car green line train at one end (low platform) and a 4 car heavy rail train (blue line size) on the other end.

So basically:

Medford to Lechmere and Science Park = all high floor heavy rail.

Haymarket and North Station = Shared platforms

Government Center = use the brattle loop. It currently has two platform, one side could be high floor, the other low floor for when green line trains are forced to use it actively (very rare)

Again, this wouldn't be unique, other systems do this.

This is Boston, not Cleveland.

Seriously, what about looping all Green Line trains at GC and making North Station and Haymarket completely high platform? The B & D lines already turn there anyway.

[Charlie_mta]

That would fit the current tunnel layout well. However, the transfer at passengers from one terminated line to the other would be huge, necessitating expansion of the GC upper level station. Maybe an underground moving sidewalk from GC to Downtown crossing would help in that case, or an extension of the new heavy rail line to Downtown Crossing or Charles station in a seperate tunnel.

[ant8904]

Isn't there some kind of rule that prevents mixed use between light and heavy rail? Also, if we do that, why not might as well do the Blue Line option that was actually considered too.

[jass]

Isn't there some kind of rule that prevents mixed use between light and heavy rail? Also, if we do that, why not might as well do the Blue Line option that was actually considered too.

No, you can't mix light and heavy with SUPER HEAVY (aka, commuter rail)

As I said, it's done elsewhere.

I don't understand the need to have one line do everything.

That is, instead of having the green, orange or blue lines do the extension, just have a brand new gold line do it.

[BostonUrbEx]

No, you can't mix light and heavy with SUPER HEAVY (aka, commuter rail)

As I said, it's done elsewhere.

I don't understand the need to have one line do everything.

That is, instead of having the green, orange or blue lines do the extension, just have a brand new gold line do it.

Dumping people at North Station means they make have to make 2 connections just to get the Blue or Red Line.


I'm rooting for an Indigo Line heavy rail from Medford to Readville via North Station, down Congress Street, South Station.

[found5dollar]

looks like the DOT is going around updating all the websites for projects like this. First the urban Ring, now this one.

http://www.greenlineextension.org/

[jass]

Dumping people at North Station means they make have to make 2 connections just to get the Blue or Red Line.


I'm rooting for an Indigo Line heavy rail from Medford to Readville via North Station, down Congress Street, South Station.

Thats why I said terminate at gvt center.

[Mayor Menino's Crohn's]

Thats why I said terminate at gvt center.
Not gonna happen. Haymarket would be more fesible.

[jass]

Not gonna happen. Haymarket would be more fesible.

You cant loop trains in a station without a loop.

Government center is the ONLY westbound station that could loop.

[BostonUrbEx]

You cant loop trains in a station without a loop.

Government center is the ONLY westbound station that could loop.

You don't have to loop, you can crossover. But frankly, I don't see the point in heavy rail line which will end short of downtown and with only a connection to the Orange Line and no others. Ending at GC will put further strain on an already taxed Green Line due to lack of Red-Blue connector and there'd be no direct connection with the Red Line at all.


*still rallying for Indigo Line from Medford to Readville via North Station, Congress St, South Station* Everybody wins! And the Financial District would have a centralized station somewhere at about Post Office Square, much needed IMO.

[Mayor Menino's Crohn's]

You don't have to loop, you can crossover. But frankly, I don't see the point in heavy rail line which will end short of downtown and with only a connection to the Orange Line and no others. Ending at GC will put further strain on an already taxed Green Line due to lack of Red-Blue connector and there'd be no direct connection with the Red Line at all.


*still rallying for Indigo Line from Medford to Readville via North Station, Congress St, South Station* Everybody wins! And the Financial District would have a centralized station somewhere at about Post Office Square, much needed IMO.
Not to say that it isn't fesible, but to extend heavy rail to gov't center would cost taxpayers millions. It would also take years to construct. Add to the already planned Gov't Center Refurbishing in the spring, and you have mass chaos.

Quite frankly, I think that the Commonwealth missed a great opportunity to connect North and South Stations.

[czsz]

It's 2011 in a few hours...can't wait to ride the new Green Line extension to Medf...oh yeah, nm.

[manrush]

It's 2011 in a few hours...can't wait to ride the new Green Line extension to Medf...oh yeah, nm.

I think they mean construction would start sometime in 2011. And by sometime, I mean in December of 2011.

Which is an optimistic guess, on my part.

[czsz]

Either way.

[JohnAKeith]

I think they mean construction would start sometime in 2011. And by sometime, I mean in December of 2011.

Which is an optimistic guess, on my part.

Maybe they were hoping 2011 was a leap year?

[Digital_Islandboy]

Quite frankly, I think that the Commonwealth missed a great opportunity to connect North and South Stations.

Did they? Weren't the exterior walls of the John F. Fitzgerald Expressway tunnel suppose to extend down to bed rock so that the encased soil could be excavated out later and form a hollowed out pre-cast area? I recall the folks at Amtrak were actually at one time considering a Monorail for that area. No idea where that idea has gone since 2002-ish?

~D.I.

[Mayor Menino's Crohn's]

Did they? Weren't the exterior walls of the John F. Fitzgerald Expressway tunnel suppose to extend down to bed rock so that the encased soil could be excavated out later and form a hollowed out pre-cast area? I recall the folks at Amtrak were actually at one time considering a Monorail for that area. No idea where that idea has gone since 2002-ish?

~D.I.
Sarcasm?

[found5dollar]

After you get past the first few paragraphs for people that have no idea what the MBTA is, this is a pretty interesting article about the green line extension as well at TOD's and other small things the T is doing.


http://www.planning.org/planning/default.htm

Getting Around Gets Easier

Big Dig mandates are bringing transit to the inner-ring suburbs.

By Helene Ragovin

Public transit in the Boston area owes a giant debt to the Big Dig, the multibillion-dollar project that essentially buried the Central Artery expressway and in the process created a new roadway network. It's the new highways, tunnels, and a high-style bridge that catch the public's attention. But for planners and environmentalists the bigger news is the number of transit projects that will result from the mammoth public works project ? chief among them, an extension of the Green Line.

New transit lines were required as part of the bargaining that led to the federal and state environmental approvals for the Big Dig, but it took a legal challenge to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to get the larger scale urban projects started. In addition, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation is under a federal mandate to comply with federal Clean Air Act air pollution standards by taking traffic off the roads. That deal is part of the State Implementation Plan required by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which is specifically aimed at offsetting the additional air pollution created by highway projects related to burying the Central Artery.

As one of its Big Dig commitments, MassDOT is adding service along the Fairmount commuter line to several Boston neighborhoods. The Fairmount line now runs from Readville Station, near the border of Boston and the inner suburbs of Milton and Dedham, to South Station. The new service will add station stops to the existing route, which will be renamed the Fairmount/Indigo line. (Rail lines within the city are identified by color-coded names.) The new stations will bring rail transit for the first time to some of the lower income sections of Dorchester, Mattapan, Hyde Park, and Roxbury (some other sections of these neighborhoods are served by existing T lines).

MassDOT is also designing a connector between the Red and Blue lines of the subway system and adding 1,000 park-and-ride spaces for commuter rail passengers ? all part of the attempt to diminish the effects of automobile traffic.

Separately from the Big Dig mandates, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is now completing a series of legally required improvements that will make the transit system more accessible. The MBTA is the agency within MassDOT that runs the subway, buses, trolleys, and commuter rail in Boston and almost 200 surrounding towns. The improvements, to be made at some of the stations along every subway and trolley line, include new or longer platforms for wheelchair access, new elevators and escalators, and new lighting and communication systems. The MTBA is also buying low-floor rail cars and buses for some of its lines.

During the past decade as well, the agency has been following the national trend of promoting transit-oriented development. Now it is working with private developers, municipalities, and community groups to create multiuse projects on property adjacent to stations. Some 16 projects are now under way, about half of them in Boston. The agency sees TOD as a way to increase ridership while at the same time promoting the principles of smart growth.

A Green Line public meeting in Somerville

The biggest project

The largest and most costly of the new transit lines is a four-mile addition to the eastern end of the Green Line trolley. This extension to the inner-ring suburbs of Somerville and Medford is also expected to change development patterns and, many hope, to boost the area's economic fortunes. But "at its base, this is an air quality project," says Katherine Fichter, MassDOT's Green Line project manager.

The Green Line trolleys now run between downtown Boston and the Lechmere station in east Cambridge. At the downtown terminus the line splits into four branches heading south and west. The new project will extend the line east through Cambridge and Somerville to College Avenue in Medford. A spur line will branch off to the west to Somerville's Union Square.

Green Line plans received state environmental approval last July and preliminary engineering is well under way. Massachusetts is applying for federal New Starts transportation funding to help with the cost of the $953.7 million project. MassDOT has already announced that it won't be able to meet the original December 31, 2014, completion deadline, which means that it will have to provide environmental offsets to compensate for the delay in improved air quality. Similar provisions ? running additional buses, for instance ? are in place for completion of the Fairmount Line.

For those living along the proposed Green Line route, the issue of air quality is tangible. The extension will run on an existing MBTA right-of-way that now carries diesel-powered commuter trains between downtown Boston and Lowell. In addition, both Medford and Somerville are crisscrossed by several major highways. The commonwealth has designated sections of both cities as "environmental justice communities."

"These communities have shouldered the burden of the downside of transit," says Rafael Mares, a lawyer for the Conservation Law Foundation, the Boston-based regional advocacy group that forced the commonwealth to fulfill its Big Dig transit obligations. Since 1990, CLF and other stakeholders have pursued a series of legal actions in both state and federal courts to ensure that the promised urban public transit commitments are fulfilled. A 2006 renewal of those commitments included, among other projects, the Union Square spur of the Green Line.

From a transit planning standpoint, the existence of the right-of-way solves a multitude of problems, chief among them the issue of property takings. "Because we own the right-of-way, we're not taking homes," Fichter says, although the project requires the commonwealth to acquire a number of commercial properties and vacant land for tracks, stations, and a maintenance facility.

Because the extension is designed to serve local residents of Medford and Somerville, there will be no provisions for commuter parking. "These will primarily be stations that people walk and bike to," Fichter says. "This is an extremely low-impact project."

Tale of two cities

The light-rail car, shown here at the Park Street station, is a Type 7 LRV, manufactured for MBTA by Kinki-SharyoGenerally, there has been little controversy about the Green Line extension ? surprising, given its size and scope. Somerville in particular has wholeheartedly embraced the project. "We have so many activists and community groups, elected officials and city officials. We may not always get along, but one thing we all agree on is that the Green Line needs to come in," says Jennifer Lawrence, executive director of Groundwork Somerville, an environmental organization that's part of a coalition called Community Corridor Planning.

"I don't know anywhere else that's so pro-rapid transit," says Rob May, Somerville's director of economic development. "And these are not professional policy people. These are our neighbors who are participating in the process." Talk to anyone who's been following the project, and you'll hear how 300 folks turned out for a Green Line meeting at the high school on the evening of October 27, 2004 ? when virtually every other soul in New England was watching the Red Sox win their first World Series in 86 years.

You'll get a more mixed response in neighboring Medford. An earlier proposal had called for the Green Line to continue past College Avenue, ending a mile farther north, at Route 16. That routing would have brought the line within reach of more riders, but MassDOT, citing cost, moved construction of the station into a projected second phase. The proposed Route 16 station bothers some people; others are concerned about the routing of the line itself.

Twelve-term mayor Michael McGlynn is on record in support of the entire project. Some residents, however, are uneasy about the prospect of tracks running alongside their backyards and fearful about additional traffic on Boston Avenue, the main thoroughfare of the Medford Hillside area. Two separate community groups have formed in response to the station itself. The Medford Green Line Neighborhood Alliance is a strong advocate of the Route 16 location. Another group, the Green Line Alliance for Medford, flatly opposes continuing the line beyond College Avenue.

These attitudes illustrate not only differences in the demographics, geography, and history of the adjoining cities, but differences in how they see themselves. "Somerville has embraced its urbanity," says Fichter. "The people in Medford understand their community as more suburban."

Indeed, Somerville is the state's most densely populated city, with a population of 77,000 jammed into four square miles. It has a median household income of $46,000, and its residents run the socioeconomic gamut. The public schools send home materials in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole; 22 percent of its population is African American. Its housing stock is mostly multifamily.

Harder sell

Medford has 55,000 residents in an area that is twice as big as Somerville ? with lots of ranch houses and open space. Its median income is higher, $52,000, and the community is far less diverse, with a 12 percent minority population. "There is more of a wide range of opinions and attitudes about this project here, and about public transit in general," says Ken Krause of MGNA, the Medford group that favors the Green Line.

It's the prospect of higher density redevelopment that has some residents of the heavily residential Medford Hillside section especially riled up. They don't want to see transit-related development in their community, says Lauren DiLorenzo, Medford's director of community development. "And we're really not looking to change the character of a nice neighborhood, filled with people who have lived there for years." DiLorenzo notes that housing pressures caused by the proximity of Tufts University, which is adjacent to Medford Hillside, have already inflated prices in the area. The fear is that the Green Line will raise the prices even higher.

Fichter agrees that the routing of the extension is more problematic for Medford than Somerville. In part, that's because the right-of-way is narrower in Medford than it is in Somerville, so the tracks will be closer to homes. But because of the existing MBTA right-of-way and the language of the legal mandate, she says, there is little choice. "If you look at a map of Medford and think where you'd put a rail line, it would not necessarily be where this one is," says Fichter. "But that's what we have to deal with."

To some extent, the Green Line has been an easier sell in Somerville because a larger percentage of its population will benefit directly. Eighty-five percent of Somerville residents will be within walking distance of a transit station (the T) once the Green Line is completed. In Medford, the majority will not live within walking distance of a transit stop.

Somerville residents will also benefit from the fact that the transit line will lessen the traffic burden on the area's heavily traveled highways. According to the Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership, local residents breathe in more commuter-generated emissions per capita than in any other Massachusetts city. From 1989 to 2003, Somerville had almost 300 more lung cancer and heart attack deaths than would be expected given statewide rates, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

Economic development is another attraction. Local development officials say the Green Line will be a boon for the city's dormant industrial sections. In October, Somerville received $1.8 million from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to help with planning around new stations, and plans have been floated for an improvement district around the Union Square station.

"This city was built around rail," says Monica Lamboy, Somerville's executive director of planning and community development. "In the years when we were most productive, there was both rail service and trolley service. With this new capital investment, we hope to be able to revive our economy."

Both Lamboy and May, the city's economic development director, say the city needs to plan for both residential and commercial growth. "One thing we've learned over time is that areas with mono-use are not very successful," Lamboy says. "We're clearly looking to have a mix of uses, including housing."

The map shows the Green Line extension as a green dashed line. The existing line is solid green

Object lesson

Somerville has had its own experience with spinoff development around a transit station. In 1985, the Red Line subway was extended to Davis Square, leading to an explosion of commercial rents and housing prices. That makes Davis both a success story and a cautionary tale, depending on whom you ask.

In the view of Jennifer Lawrence of Groundwork Somerville, "the Red Line really transformed the community, although there were some detrimental impacts, including gentrification, which pushed out some home owners and local businesses."

Lauren DiLorenzo, Medford's planning director, agrees that Davis Square is a vibrant place. "But at what cost?" she asks. "We'd hate to see people pushed out like that," adds Carolyn Rosen of GLAM (the Green Line Alliance for Medford). "We wonder what economic development means for the elderly and for moderate-income people living along the line."

The same mistakes won't be made today, responds Somerville's Monica Lamboy. "When the Davis Square station was being built, the city didn't spend as much time planning for growth. We have more tools now," she says, referring to the city's inclusionary housing ordinance and the requirement that commercial developers must contribute to an affordable housing trust fund. The housing ordinance stipulates that 12.5 percent of the homes in any project with eight units or more must be affordable.

The other big difference between then and now is an immense uptick in community involvement, says Ellin Reisner, president of STEP, the Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership. STEP is one of the four partners in the Community Corridor Planning coalition, which represents organizations devoted to transportation, the environment, public health, and affordable housing. Three workshops dealing with station design last spring drew 120 residents from Somerville, Medford, and Cambridge.

Katherine Fichter of MassDOT says that the state and regional agencies involved with the Green Line project owe a major debt of gratitude to the volunteer groups that are leading the civic engagement process.

As to the criticism from Medford residents that their side has been shortchanged, Fichter says MassDOT is doing what it can to mitigate the effects of the project. "A project like this takes a long time to evolve," and that can cause anxiety for residents. "But we do our best to balance regional needs against the very local burdens, and to inform people along the way," she says.

The lure of TOD

In addition to the new rail lines that will reach underserved areas, MBTA is working to bring more people to places already well-served by transit. Over the past five years, the agency has sold or leased rights for 54 transit-oriented developments. The TODs cluster housing as well as shops and offices near transit stations, sometimes on surplus MBTA property.

The current economic climate has slowed the pace of TOD construction, says Mark Boyle, AICP, the agency's assistant general manager for development, but there are still some good examples. One is Arborpoint at the Green Line's Woodland station in suburban Newton. Twenty-five percent of this building's 180 rental apartments meet affordable housing guidelines. The developers' prepayment of the $4.3 million, 85-year ground lease helped the MBTA to pay for station improvements.

The Avenir project, completed in 2009, made use of surplus MBTA land in the Bulfinch Triangle near Boston's North Station. The property became available when a subway line replaced a portion of the elevated Green Line. The site also makes use of adjacent vacant land resulting from the Big Dig. "We did a simultaneous offering, making the site more attractive for development," says Boyle. The Avenir has 241 rental apartments, including 17 affordable units; 30,000 square feet of retail space; and a 121-space parking garage.

Boyle, a former municipal planner, stresses that the MBTA consults with local planning agencies and nearby residents before issuing a request for proposals for a transit-oriented development. "That way developers know exactly what the local community will permit," he adds. While the MBTA is exempt from local zoning, private developers making improvements on publicly owned property are not, Boyle says. That makes it particularly important to garner community support.

Recently, the MBTA has been working on plans for a TOD in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood. The collaborators ? several community urban development organizations, the city planning department, and the Boston Redevelopment Authority ? all have a stake in the proposed mixed use project at Jackson Square near the Orange Line subway station. "There's been a good one to two years of community planning efforts for that development," says Boyle.

"From the MBTA's perspective," he says, "TODs fulfill several needs." They generate additional ridership and non-fare revenue from ground leases. And they also provide much-needed housing, jobs, and local tax revenue.

As a planner, Boyle adds, he likes TODs "from an environmental and health perspective. They fulfill the principles of smart growth."

Helene Ragovin is a freelance writer in the Boston area.

[GW2500]

Not the hotest news, not devastating either: Mytowns section of Globe for Somerville

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/somerville/2011/02

/halting_progress_for_green_lin.html?p1=HP_Well_You rTown_links
Plodding progress for Green Line extension funding
E-mail | Print | Comments (1) Posted by Marcia Dick February 9, 2011 10:05 AM


Sending your articleYour article has been sent. By Danielle Dreilinger, Globe correspondent


It might be too soon to believe Somerville real estate ads: The Green Line extension is continuing to plod, not speed.

On Monday, the MBTA board of directors authorized almost $22 million of funding for the project, far short of the full five-year, $95 million package the project team requested. The reason? Uneasiness, board members said, over federal funding.

"The board decided they would rather do this incrementally," said MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo.

The funds will allow new consultants Gilbane and HDR to bring the extension to the 30 percent design level over the coming year. The project is currently 10 percent designed.

"We are going through the process of applying for federal funding" from the New Starts program, said MBTA Green Line project manager Kate Fichter. Though the program is very competitive, "we've been working with them for two years" to move the project forward. A decision should come through by the summer.

Pesaturo looked on the sunny side: "Every member of the board expressed 100 percent support for this project."

Ken Krause of the Medford Green Line Neighborhood Alliance was frustrated because "the $95 million is already basically there ... This wouldn't add to the T debt load at all."

He noted that the entire project has been stalled since August 2010. At that time, the MBTA board chose to put the first year's worth of work out to bid instead of giving the job to existing consultants VHB.

However, Krause said everyone was used to the slow pace of progress on the Green Line extension. "Historically MBTA projects take longer to finish than originally scheduled," he said, noting that the initial agreement from the early 1990s set the finish date for 2011.

The Metropolitan Area Planning Council is hosting a community meeting Feb. 16 to discuss a potential Route 16 Green Line stop that isn't part of the MBTA's current plan.

Meanwhile, the MBTA announced Green Line service will be interrupted through today because of the Science Park/West End station elevator project. A bus shuttle will replace Green Line train service between North Station and Lechmere.

[palindrome]

I don't see this as a big problem in withholding design funds as long as it doesn't slow down the actual speed that it takes to design the project. Give them $22m now, and then at 30% check the progress and efficiency the firms have made, and then continue funding if the work is on budget and acceptable.

I just don't want it to be cause for another delay though, and I don't want them to withhold money because they are afraid they won't get federal funds. I would rather spend all $95m and have the project ready to break ground whenever funds do come in, rather than wait for the funds and then continue the design work.

Just get the thing built already!!!!!!

[Shepard]

This sounds like an important development.

From Adam at Uhub:

State: Land deal clears way for Green Line extension, new commuter-rail service, massive development
By adamg - 3/3/11 - 11:33 am
MassDOT today announced an agreement to swap land at Lechmere with land by North Station that will lead to a new rail service north and west of Boston - and actual development of the long stalled North Point development.

Under the deal, the state will give Pan Am Railways the land used for the current Lechmere Green Line station in exchange for the former Pan Am rail yard, which is across the Charles River from Massachusetts General Hospital, and rights to use other Pan Am tracks in the area.

The move means the state can begin work to bring some Worcester Line commuter-rail trains into North Station via tracks in Cambridge and a bridge over the Charles River by Boston University.

A related agreement for use of Pan Am tracks between Boston and New Hampshire paves the way for new commuter-rail service to that state, MassDOT says. The state is also kicking in $12.5 million - about $5 million less than it had originally thought track rights would cost, MassDOT says.

The Lechmere land swap, meanwhile, is part of a deal in which the state will move the current Lechmere station to a new location on the east side of O'Brien Highway as part of the extension of the Green Line into Somerville and Medford.

Pan Am and the HYM Investment Group will use the Lechmere land as part of their planned mixed-use development of 2,800 residential units, more than 2 million square feet of office space and 185,000 square feet of retail.

[BostonUrbEx]

WTF is Pan Am going to do with that corner where Lechmere currently is? Sell it? Well then why not just sell the land being swapped and cut out all the bullshit in between?

[found5dollar]

^ the parcel is being added to the northpoint land which Pan Am owns.

from http://mbta.com/about_the_mbta/news_events/?id=21232&month=&year=

MassDOT Board Approves Agreement to Build New Lechmere Station, Crucial to Green Line Extension
Land Exchange with Pan Am Railways Advances NorthPoint Project

Start Date: 3/3/2011
Email: jpesaturo@mbta.com

Thursday, March 3, 2011 - The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) today announced that a land exchange agreement has been approved to facilitate extending the Green Line north of Lechmere Station to Somerville and Medford, while also advancing the NorthPoint mixed-use development project. The agreement between the MBTA and Pan Am Railways, approved by the MassDOT Board of Directors, allows for construction of a new Lechmere Station on the east side of O?Brien Highway in East Cambridge across from the current station location. The project will lead to new jobs and economic development for the area.

?This landmark agreement represents an important next step in the Green Line Extension project that will help create jobs in both the short- and long-term,? said MassDOT Secretary Jeffrey Mullan. ?At the same time, we have secured the use of important rights of way that are critical to our longer-term rail vision and are important for the Commonwealth?s transportation and economic future.?

The MBTA is also obtaining crucial track and property rights necessary for MassDOT and the MBTA to build and operate the Green Line Extension, among other projects. In exchange for granting those rights to the MBTA, Pan Am is acquiring the property on which the existing Lechmere Station is located.

"The successful relocation of Lechmere Station is key to the extension of the Green Line and to the long-term growth of the Lechmere Square area, and we look forward to working with the developers of the NorthPoint project to make the station and the surrounding area attractive, vibrant, and convenient for our customers, both current and future," ?said MassDOT Rail and Transit Division Administrator and MBTA General Manager Richard Davey.

?We are happy to have worked with the state and concluded a forward-looking agreement that recognizes the changing needs of the MBTA and its riders, and for our part making it possible for us to move soon on NorthPoint, a vibrant new East Cambridge neighborhood,? said Thomas N. O?Brien, managing director of The HYM Investment Group, LLC.

Pan Am and development partners HYM Investment Group are moving forward with the adjacent NorthPoint project, a mixed-use development of 2,800 residential units, more than two million square feet of office space, and 185,000 square feet of retail. HYM and Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds joined with Atlas Capital Group last year to develop the 44-acre property, the largest remaining parcel of open land in Cambridge. The former Pan Am rail yard is located across the Charles River from Massachusetts General Hospital and within walking distance of Kendall Square.

"This is a welcome step towards the completion of the Green Line project,? said Rep. Carl M. Sciortino, Jr. ?Continued development around Lechmere Station opens new opportunities for growth and will help to facilitate more extensive, accessible transportation options."

"I applaud the efforts made to move forward on the Green Line Extension without further delay," said Rep. Denise Provost.

?The new Lechmere Station will benefit Cambridge residents by increasing the public transportation options available to them and enable the city of Cambridge to redevelop an important land parcel that will improve the overall vitality of the neighborhood,? said Cambridge Mayor David Maher. ?We are encouraged by the MBTA?s investment in East Cambridge by moving forward with Lechmere Station. This is an important step in completing the NorthPoint area so it can meet its full potential as a place to live and to work.?

?These are exciting times for those of us who have been eagerly awaiting the Green Line Extension,? said Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone. ?In just the past month, the MBTA has approved this land exchange agreement for the new Lechmere Station, awarded the Preliminary Engineering contract for the Extension itself, and put out an RFP for new trains to operate along that Extension in the future. Governor Patrick and Secretary Mullan once again are demonstrating their commitment to using mass transit as an economic driver for this entire region while also enhancing the quality of life for the residents of cities like Somerville.?

The Board?s action comes in the form of an amendment to a previously-approved Development and Land Exchange Agreement between the MBTA and Pan Am. Due to changing economic and real estate market conditions, the NorthPoint project was initially delayed, but now the development and the Green Line Extension are both ready to move forward.

Among the key elements of the newly-approved agreement:
The MBTA and MassDOT will receive:

* All of the trackage and property rights necessary to build and operate the Green Line Extension, which have a combined value of $12.5 million. In addition to this real value, these rights provide a $5.5 million savings for MassDOT and the MBTA, which had expected to pay $18 million for these rights.
* Trackage rights off the Worcester Main Line to allow potential future passenger service from Worcester to Ayer. This will provide a connection between the Worcester and Fitchburg Commuter Rail Lines, and a potential future connection to North Station.
* Trackage rights to provide future passenger service to New Hampshire. This would allow for the extension of MBTA Commuter Rail service from Lowell to Concord, NH through Nashua and Manchester. That project would ultimately be sponsored and funded by the State of New Hampshire, similar to current Commuter Rail service to Rhode Island.
* While not part of the Land Exchange Agreement, Pan Am has agreed to assume costs associated with the required street and sidewalk improvements in the Lechmere area. The Green Line Extension project and the Commonwealth were planning to absorb this $9 million expense, which may now be deducted from the project?s total cost.

The trackage rights have a combined value of $30.7 million. As consideration for receiving these rights from Pan Am, MassDOT and the MBTA will convey the site of the existing Lechmere Station to Pan Am, following the completion of the new Lechmere Station. In 2006, at the height of the real estate market, the Lechmere parcels had an appraised value of $32 million. While the value has undoubtedly dropped since the appraisal, Pan Am has agreed to contribute that amount for the property.

For more information on the Green Line Extension project, visit the website at www.mass.gov/greenlineextension.

MassDOT is the unified transportation organization created in 2009 under the historic reform legislation passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Governor Patrick. MassDOT's four divisions are focused on delivering safe and efficient transportation services across the Commonwealth.

For transportation news and updates, visit the MassDOT website at www.mass.gov/massdot, the MassDOT blog at www.mass.gov/blog/transportation or follow MassDOT on twitter at www.twitter.com/massdot.


I am most excited for the New hampshire track rights... maybe NH passenger rail is not dead in the water....

[F-Line to Dudley]

^ the parcel is being added to the northpoint land which Pan Am owns.

from http://mbta.com/about_the_mbta/news_events/?id=21232&month=&year=


I am most excited for the New hampshire track rights... maybe NH passenger rail is not dead in the water....

Lowell Line extension isn't joined at the hip with the whole Capitol Corridor to Concord plan that the teabaggers in the NH Legislature so vehemently want to kill. MBTA to South Nashua/Route 3 has long been in the Boston MPO transit plan. They support Fed funding for the Capitol Corridor because it's obviously in their self-interest to push that initiative, but it's no skin off their back what NH wants to do across its border because any service beyond MA is subsidized in-full by the other state. If NH doesn't want to do it, the T can extend to the state line and poke a half-mile across like they're aiming to do in Plaistow on the Haverhill Line. Diverting car traffic just as it's crossing the border is very much an in-district public service, and in the Lowell extension's case it'll add intermediate stops in North Chelmsford and Tyngsboro serving a lot of purely in-state riders. NH's fiscal commitment to projects that barely skirt their territory is a pocket-change $10 mil or so one-time charge for their share of station construction, and then an operating subsidy of few hundred grand per year. Too miniscule to argue over politically, since they'll also be milking some tix revenue out of the stops. The trackage rights were required for anything, however, since Pan Am track ownership starts at the literal border. Whether the T goes it alone to South Nashua or NH gets its head out of its ass about making a big push to Concord, either way they've got the passenger rights locked up for a song.


Good deal. They end up saving a boatload of money packaging all this other stuff together in the deal vs. just pursuing the Lechmere swap alone. And they got Pan Am to agree to pay for streetscape and sidewalk improvements at Lechmere that would otherwise get tagged onto the Green Line budget. They likely did that to try to pump up the Northpoint land value a little against the flagging development. If any of those niceties make a difference it'll be worth more to them in return than what they're paying out to do the streetscape work, but the T gets to reap free charity from it.

[Digital_Islandboy]

I believe Lesley University owns those and has some plans to build there, but I don't know the current status. Anyone know what used to be there?

I think I remember a couple of big vintage houses being there. Like ones you see going up Avon Hill Rd. I think it was flat-bedded away somewhere. Harvard has flat-bedded away many houses along that corridor between Hvd. Sq. and Porter. Its crazy....

[PaulC]

So far there is no funding for this project so I would bet it won't start in 2011. I believe there are options in place so that the state can skip it's 'iron-clad' agreement to start this year.

[found5dollar]

I just stumbled across all the documents from the May 3rd public meeting here ( http://www.greenlineextension.org/docs_meetings.html#MeetGreet ) a few cool things to point out...

* They are working on getting the design to 30%, with an eye on the line opening in October 2015

* Best bet is that the whole line will open at once, not each station as it is completed.

* The D line will extend to Medford, while the E line will go to Union Square.

* Build will take place in 3 phases; Relocate Commuter Rail tracks, Rebuild Commuter Rail Line, Construct Green Line Stations.

* There are a few new sketchup models to show basic massing

* A fun little "fly through" of the basic massing of the Ball Square station ( but confusingly the maps on the walls do not have the green line extension added in hehehe)

* I think new basic station layouts have been added

Have fun and discuss!

[F-Line to Dudley]

I don't see why they can't build the Union Sq. branch first and get that running. Less than a mile, less in the way of commuter rail track impacts, only bridge work is widening the Medford St. overpass by 1 track and doing the flyover ramps at the branch and yard tracks junction. They can operate it before construction on the storage yard is complete, simply scattering the few extra trains that would've used to be stored at Lechmere yard in other places like North Station yard, midday at the other loop at Heath Street, on the unused inbound track between Government Center and Haymarket (past the loop), etc.


I'm quite disappointed with the Union design not having storage tail tracks on it, unless the diagrams just don't depict those. You're still gonna need do have some space behind the platforms to idle 1-2 out-of-service trains even with proximity to the yard. And not doing so would preclude the dead-obvious further extension to Porter Sq. They've gotten question after question about this on previous meetings, and Cambridge and Somerville do not want to let them off the hook for failing to provision. STEP's got it right there on their project talking points page: http://www.somervillestep.org/2009/11/steps_speaking.html. I'd like to see some confirmation that they're heeding those design concerns and not trying to slip an "Oops...darn, guess it's impossible now!" fast one past the towns.

[BostonUrbEx]

Any idea when they'll be rehabbing the Cobble Hill track for freight? I know it has been said a few times, but haven't seen a thing to when that would even occur.

[datadyne007]

I don't get why they are planning out two elevators for all the stations if they're using a center platform. It just seems foolishly excessive.

I also find it interesting that every rendering and the video shows 3-car trainsets!

[jass]

I don't get why they are planning out two elevators for all the stations if they're using a center platform. It just seems foolishly excessive.

I also find it interesting that every rendering and the video shows 3-car trainsets!

ADA.

If you have only one elevator, and it's broken, you MUST provide on demand shuttle bus service for people that require it. In the longer run, its cheaper (and more customer friendly) to provide redundant elevator service.

[datadyne007]

ADA.

If you have only one elevator, and it's broken, you MUST provide on demand shuttle bus service for people that require it. In the longer run, its cheaper (and more customer friendly) to provide redundant elevator service.

Makes sense. They're not really invasive either. It's interesting how this has become a relatively new concept even though it's been an issue for years. Just not used to the MBTA actually making forward-looking decisions that cost more upfront, but pay themselves off in due course.

[belmont square]

And not doing so would preclude the dead-obvious further extension to Porter Sq.

I know I've made this point before on the board, but why is an extension to Porter dead obvious?

1) Porter already has a rapid transit connection to downtown

2) Anyone potentially connecting to the Green Line at Porter from the Red Line has the option of doing so 12 minutes later at Park Street, and is likely to access any Green Line station between Riverside and Science Park quicker via that route

3) Anyone in Porter or Davis trying to access Union Square or Lechmere can already do so via a bus connection (87 and 87/88, respectively). Since neither of these buses are among the T's busiest, a reasonable first step would seem to be to increase frequency on the 87/88 before investing millions in a rail extension.

I know, I know. People won't use the bus b/c they prefer rail. Maybe the legions of travelers thumbing their noses at the 87 should inform the people on the 1, 111, 66, 28, 23, etc about that rule.

[jass]

I know I've made this point before on the board, but why is an extension to Porter dead obvious?

1) Porter already has a rapid transit connection to downtown


More options = more reliable system = more customers.

Dead red line train at Harvard? No problem, take the green line.

Want to get from the blue line to alewife? Might be faster via green line at porter.

It would be great to have our system be like paris, where you're always minutes away from a stop, and you can take multiple paths to your destination. Instead of our current hub system, where one thing goes wrong and you're screwed.

People always say things like "cars are too convenient to give up" but if our transit system allowed you to go everywhere from everywhere, that final convenience of point-to-point travel is out the window.


Thats also why I support a SL3 project (but not the original plan). Having a second downtown subway would be great for the city.

[F-Line to Dudley]

I know I've made this point before on the board, but why is an extension to Porter dead obvious?

1) Porter already has a rapid transit connection to downtown

2) Anyone potentially connecting to the Green Line at Porter from the Red Line has the option of doing so 12 minutes later at Park Street, and is likely to access any Green Line station between Riverside and Science Park quicker via that route

3) Anyone in Porter or Davis trying to access Union Square or Lechmere can already do so via a bus connection (87 and 87/88, respectively). Since neither of these buses are among the T's busiest, a reasonable first step would seem to be to increase frequency on the 87/88 before investing millions in a rail extension.

I know, I know. People won't use the bus b/c they prefer rail. Maybe the legions of travelers thumbing their noses at the 87 should inform the people on the 1, 111, 66, 28, 23, etc about that rule.

The Red Line is extremely overloaded. Ridership going to downtown is already outpacing capacity and causing dwell times at Park, DTX, and SS that make it hard to keep schedules at rush hour (even when crap isn't breaking down). Currently carries as much as Orange + Blue combined, about 110K more daily than the entire commuter rail system, every T expansion project on the table ends up piling thousands more riders onto it, and its natural growth curve as-is just keeps going up and up and up. They have to spread transfer ridership away from those downtown stations or we're going to have B-line level scheduling problems on it in another decade. The deadest-obvious solution of course is the overdue Red-Blue connector peeling all the Blue transfers to under-utilized Charles instead of double-switching at Park or DTX. I still don't think that's going to be totally enough, though. Ridership growth is eventually going to re-saturate it without more radial connections.

Green-Porter has these advantages:
1) Pulls Cambridge commuters who need to get to the North Station/Haymarket area or switch to Orange Line NS-Oak Grove from needing to go well out of the way downtown to switch.

2) Opens up much easier downtown access to 77 and Alewife bus route riders from Arlington and other suburbs. They've got it painful if they have to get northbound from Park/DTX and can only do so by boomeranging downtown on an overstuffed RL after sitting on a bus in overstuffed traffic.

3) Harvard riders can avoid the crush to/from downtown, where they never get a seat, with a 1-stop reverse commute move to transfer. Seats available, minimal dwell times, low stress...and they're transferring at the terminal of a branch with much lower ridership as opposed to getting another sardines trip on Green or Orange downtown. If you're gonna have to ride 2 lines anyway, wouldn't you pick the faster one that has few people on it at rush? All that contra-flow traffic really helps at rush hour between Harvard-DTX on Red.

4) The 87 is not a fun bus...at all. Navigating Somerville Ave. to Lechmere is an exercise in pain threshold because of the huge multi- light cycle backups at the Union Sq. intersection. The Union-Porter corridor is so dense it needs the transit help just as badly as getting the branch to Union in the first place. The only reason the branch was not designed from Day 1 to go all the way and target Somerville Ave. relief is that the original plans for the Green Line extension had 1 branch only covering Union and Medford with a subway zigzag through Union connecting the two. That proved too expensive to engineer, and since serving Union was a Big Dig transit mitigation requirement for the extension they split it into two branches in the final design. Porter couldn't be accommodated in that final design because doing Union on its own branch at all was an unplanned compromise. Cambridge and Somerville via STEP recognize that this ROW only came available when the project was in late design stage, but that's why they want an independent later phase provisioned.

5) Porter redevelopment. Cambridge/Somerville have independently sketched out via public meetings future visions for Porter and upper Somerville Ave. to give the area more of an identity. One big part of that is tackling the giant Fitchburg Line canyon that separates the two. They've proposed air rights cover-over of the commuter rail from Beacon St. to the station, Somerville Ave. driveway from Exchange Mall, linear park and some sort of air rights development on top, and reconnecting more of the severed street grid in the Wilson Sq. area like Sacramento St. To do that construction work with all the rebuilding of retaining walls and whatnot to support air rights cover they're probably gonna have to ride the coattails of a transit project. This is it.

6) Easy to do. The ROW will fit it as-is on its property lines up to Beacon St. Park St. Somerville grade crossing at Conway Park is ideal location for an intermediate stop. From Beacon to Porter where the probable air rights cover is they'd likely peel out under the Fitchburg tracks in a box tunnel. Box tunnel is the cheapest and lowest-impact means of tunnel construction (it's how the Fields Corner-Ashmont subway was constructed over a former open-air cut). Regular under-street subways are much more involved because they require sewer and utility relocation and a 20-25 feet buffer between street and tunnel roof to sandwich all those utilities. A box tunnel needs no such buffer space, and the bare tunnel roof would in effect become the new Fitchburg trackbed with the tunnel walls becoming the new surface retaining walls supporting the air rights cover. And would have no impacts to Somerville Ave. because the 700 or so feet of tunnel is entirely under the Fitchburg ROW's footprint. Station would punch through the fare lobby wall underneath the commuter rail doors...short ramp upstairs for the CR, short ramp downstairs for the Green Line. Not inexpensive by any means, but put it this way: GL extension as 2 branches + the extra later tack-on Porter leg would price in-total significantly less than the original plan of 1-branch + Union subway + 1 extra stop further to West Medford. Bang-for-buck wise this is a lot better than what we started with.

[found5dollar]

http://www.greenlineextension.org/documents/about/FactSheets/GLX_FactSheet_May2011.pdf

new Fact Sheet... nothing really new in it.

[Boston02124]

http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/af104/ric02124/029-8.jpg

[vanshnookenraggen]

This is the new Science Park station?

[Boston02124]

yes^ any renderings of what the finnish station will look like?

[found5dollar]

^ From the MBTA website

http://mbta.com/uploadedimages/About_the_T/T_Projects/T_Projects_List/IB-elevator-photoedit5.jpg

[Arborway]

Just great, the historic structure is being transformed into an Alucobox.

[found5dollar]

So there is a metric ton of new renderings of the stations for the extension. They are burried in power point presentations which can be found here: http://greenlineextension.com/docs_meetings.html#StaWrkshps2011 . They are under Station Design Workshops. each power point is the same until about slide 14, then the renderings and plans commence!

[Boston02124]

yes^ any renderings of what the finnish station will look like? sorry I asked! You think they at least try to blend it in with the old station's cast Iron, this sucks!

[GW2500]

I believe this some how costs 30 million dollars as well.

[F-Line to Dudley]

I don't see the reconstructed Leverett Circle overpasses they promised the hospitals, schools, Museum of Science, residents, etc. in writing that they'd rebuild.

Must be "temporarily suspended" service.

[jass]

Come on guys, the old station wasnt exactly pretty. It looked like a 100 year old shack....which is what it was.

[BostonUrbEx]

The elevator additions have more square footage than the entire rest of the station.

[Ron Newman]

The station isn't 100 years old, even though the viaduct is. It opened around 1955. Just a few years after that, there was no longer any neighborhood for the station to serve ;-(

[blade_bltz]

Uhh...you guys should redirect your ire towards the potential defilement of 102-110 Broad. Or anything but this.

[metasyntactic]

Saw this on Universal Hub (vhttp://www.universalhub.com/2011/green-line-extension-now-pushed-out-2018):

From State Rep Denise Provost:

Early today, I was extremely disheartened to learn from MassDOT that the expected completion of the Green Line Extension has been delayed again – this time until at least 2018. While I appreciate MassDOT’s efforts in appropriate mitigation and community input, I am extremely disappointed that this vital project is, yet again, being postponed. ...

MassDOT's annual status report to DEP on its SIP commitments - which was due July 1 - was submitted today, estimating a 2018-2020 completion date for the Green Line Extension.

MassDOT statement:

Over the past four months, the Green Line Extension project team performed a cost and schedule analysis that thoroughly examined all aspects of the project and the actions required to move it forward expeditiously. As a result of this analysis, the projections for the Green Line Extension project have been refined. Under the revised timeframe, passenger service would begin no earlier than the fall of 2018 and no later than the summer of 2020. The schedule is contingent on the MBTA taking full ownership of property required for construction. Benefitting from lessons learned on the Greenbush Commuter Rail project, in which the MBTA did not take ownership of needed properties until after the Design/Build process began, the Green Line project team aims to prevent the issues that cost the MBTA both time and money.

Seeking to accelerate the timeline where possible, MassDOT and the MBTA are actively considering strategies that could mitigate schedule impacts and improve upon the dates for passenger service on the Green Line Extension. The strategies under consideration include the development of a 'phasing' scenario that would allow for some stations to open for public use while others are still being constructed.

[blade_bltz]

lulz. At least this will give me a few extra minutes each week when I'm not naively checking the Green line STEP and MGNA websites for nonexistent new updates...

[Lurker]

I'm sure this will eventually be completed along with the Blue Line to Lynn. Probably after another half billion dollar commuter rail extension.

[Arborway]

This is pathetic. Just make it happen. It blows my mind that anything could fail so completely over and over again while nonsensical projects get pushed ahead.

I'm sure this will eventually be completed along with the Blue Line to Lynn. Probably after another half billion dollar commuter rail extension.

We can't let those 50 people in South Saugfordshire go without their 12 mile CR extension!

(And for the record, the Fall River project is going to cost close to 2 billion for 1,000ish daily riders. THAT. IS. CRAZY.)

[datadyne007]

This is horrific news. Honestly, this ruined my night.

Apparently MassDOT also wants to nail the RL/BL connector in its coffin too. Just sickening. I suppose it's nothing new though because residents in JP have been waiting for the court-ordered restoration of the E-Line since 1986.

[F-Line to Dudley]

This is horrific news. Honestly, this ruined my night.

Apparently MassDOT also wants to nail the RL/BL connector in its coffin too. Just sickening. I suppose it's nothing new though because residents in JP have been waiting for the court-ordered restoration of the E-Line since 1986.

They don't only want to kill it...they've filed official public notice of their intent to file an amendment to the Implementation Plan to kill it. Just as they did other law-mandated transit commitments Arborway restoration, Silver Line completion, Urban Ring, and Blue-Lynn. And scaled back or delayed everything else except Greenbush...including easy ones like expanding commuter rail parking and a slew of bus improvements.

And yet the South Coast Rail drags its corpse along undaunted. Pathetic. Why should anybody ever again trust a single thing that comes out of the state's or T's mouth when they pull the Charlie Brown/football routine yet again and don't enforce the law? And way to bury the lede on the day Washington finishes boning over the bottom 90% in incomes, although the state-level message is pretty symbiotic, no?


Note the wiggle room to 2020 in the Green Line extension, and unspecific plans to further segment the phases from the current plan that had Route 16 as a dubious tack-on. Start placing bets on whether there's any service whatsoever save for Union Square and relocated Lechmere. Also, I hope you're prepared to double your Red Line commute time with absolutely zero load relief for the choked downtown dwell times. That was >60% of the advantage of the Red-Blue Connector: throttling down RL load so it could handle the current projected growth curve without choking to death. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic. Laws and court orders are not laws or court orders for those who have the power to choose not to follow them.

[omaja]

There are no words for how incredibly pathetic this news is.

[EdFindlay]

Color me shocked that the biggest extention of the T in 30 years fell by the wayside yet again...guess they are going to have to dredge up the Fall River/New Bedford extention again to take focus away from this failure until they actually get their eggs in order and/or are forced by lawsuit by someone with the gutts to see it enforced under penalty of law...

[HenryAlan]

Every set back like this, and then I note all the rail RT construction elsewhere throughout the country, and I can only say WTF?

[Arborway]

Every set back like this, and then I note all the rail RT construction elsewhere throughout the country, and I can only say WTF?

LA (!!!) is currently making a fool out of Boston, and the state of Massachusetts. The MBTA couldn't dream of getting a single shovel moving on anything in the 30/10 plan (http://www.metro.net/projects/30-10/).

Hell, we can't even get the traffic light at D St. reprogrammed after over half a decade of waiting.

Total leadership failure.

[HenryAlan]

LA (!!!) is currently making a fool out of Boston, and the state of Massachusetts. The MBTA couldn't dream of getting a single shovel moving on anything in the [url= plan[/url].



This is the most staggering example, but there are plenty of others. There are clearly some resources available for competent transit agencies to grab.

[F-Line to Dudley]

Keep in mind, in 1945 when the GL-Medford extension AND the cruelly teased Blue-Lynn extension were both proposed as fast-track projects, it was supposed to go to WOBURN CENTER: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3575/3304445209_3943d9ef68_o.jpg. Originally on the old Woburn Branch that was a commuter rail line until 1981, but in modern analogies it would pretty much be a one-seat ride to Anderson RTC and I-93 taking over all the Lowell Line stops and freeing up the RR tracks for exclusively outside-128 service.

WOBURN. SEVEN DECADES AGO. And now we don't even know if it's truly possible to move Lechmere across the street.

[datadyne007]

Keep in mind, in 1945 when the GL-Medford extension AND the cruelly teased Blue-Lynn extension were both proposed as fast-track projects, it was supposed to go to WOBURN CENTER: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3575/3304445209_3943d9ef68_o.jpg. Originally on the old Woburn Branch that was a commuter rail line until 1981, but in modern analogies it would pretty much be a one-seat ride to Anderson RTC and I-93 taking over all the Lowell Line stops and freeing up the RR tracks for exclusively outside-128 service.

WOBURN. SEVEN DECADES AGO. And now we don't even know if it's truly possible to move Lechmere across the street.

That map is amazing! Talk about forward-looking vision! None of that actually even fully happened, only the RL and BL partially.

[jass]

LA (!!!) is currently making a fool out of Boston, and the state of Massachusetts. The MBTA couldn't dream of getting a single shovel moving on anything in the 30/10 plan (http://www.metro.net/projects/30-10/).


LA is about to become the 2nd most ridden light rail system in the country.

If the GL extension doesnt open soon...theyre going to pass us.

[ant8904]

Man, this is depressing. Boston transit moves in lifetimes. Do we have to die of old age before we see a new extension to badly needed areas? Other cities all over the world are building new lines in only a few years, they'll get to see it and use it for a reasonable amount of their lives. But not Boston.


Is there anyone up there thinking what we are thinking? Do they see how insane they are misappropriating the money?

[BostonUrbEx]

In other news, South Coast Rail marches forward, a moderately overpriced extension to Wachusett proceeds, and the Greenbush continues to compete with ferries. Meanwhile, plans for Big Dig 2.0 will begin design drafting tomorrow, in order to "prepare us for the 22nd century" says Sec. Mullan alongside Lt. Gov. Murray.


This state truly sucks balls. If the extension doesn't happen, I will spray paint stencils, glue laminated signs, etc, anything at all to express outrage because clearly asking nicely doesn't work, so what the hell does? This is just so fucked up. The people of Somerville are begging for this! Easton doesn't even fucking want SCR coming through their town!

[F-Line to Dudley]

That map is amazing! Talk about forward-looking vision! None of that actually even fully happened, only the RL and BL partially.

The most depressing thing is that every single one of those extensions is still a rated MPO project except for Allston/Newton, which is impossible now because the Pike Extension cannibalized former Tracks 3 & 4 of the Worcester Line that the extension was going to use.

-- Riverside was built, but it was built cheap and ahead of schedule before the MBTA came into existence. Coincidence?
-- Braintree was built, but initial construction was underway at the time the T was created by legislative fiat. All they did was keep the contracts the MTA inked going. And finish the Quincy-Braintree leg 10 years late. Coincidence?
-- Red to Alewife ended up taking the Mass Ave. and Fitchburg Cutoff RR routing instead of the Mt. Auburn St. subway and Watertown Branch, but Arlington Ctr. and Lexington still beckon after being cut back at the last minute.
-- Blue-Lynn is STILL a max-priority project.
-- Rozzie and West Roxbury are STILL shut out of the rapid-transit system. To add insult to injury, when it was decided that the Orange Line was going to relocate the loss of the El in Roxbury was supposed to be counterbalanced by this extension bringing Rozzie and West Rox into the city. Nope...they did the same exact weasel move and cut it at just the Forest Hills relocation.
-- That never-used Orange Line express track from Community College to Wellington was supposed to be for the Reading extension, and Wellington Yard had almost twice the tracks it does now because they built the Haymarket-north extension in anticipation of Reading. Nope...T folded like a chair and canceled the whole thing when Melrose NIMBY's started saber-rattling. As opposed to Greenbush and South Coast Rail where NIMBY's are there to be coddled and given limitless power of ransom.
-- Needham still keeps a lonely vigil for its extension, holding community meetings every year and passing resolutions emphatically in support of the extension and further discussions with the T. The last one just a few months ago, and citywide support's on a very strong upswing. Because they're above their pain threshold with Highland Ave. congestion, the overloaded bus this route would replace, and the Needham Line's perennially limited service due to meager track capacity from the south. And continue to pass resolutions they will...even when the resolutions say "Hey, T! You realize this is the cheapest of the never-builts to do?"


I think the state needs to sheer off the commuter rail into its own sub-agency. The buses, subway, and ferries all serve an exclusively Metro Boston district inside of 128. The CR almost exclusively serves an outside Metro Boston district, and the only inside-128 local commuters it does pick up are the ones the T broke rapid-transit promises for. BERy and the MTA had their district and their priorities square on the district. The MBTA doesn't know what it wants to be, other than it can serve no one well trying to be a statewide transit agency. Nothing more starkly illustrates that than South Coast Rail.

It had to take on certain necessary compromises at its founding because of the bankrupt private RR's and doubts that ANY kind of commuter rail would survive without subsidy. So it wasn't the case of the MBTA being doomed from the start. Far from it. But with the DOT reorganization busting up some of the gov't fiefdoms maybe it's time for a more logical mission statement and division of labor: a MassPort for ports, an MBTA for strictly Metro Boston transit, a MassHighway for highways, and a MassRail to manage the passenger and freight RR networks. Make them live in their own budgets in their own realms designed for purpose. It's physically impossible for the MBTA to manage itself with such contradictory missions, and subway vs. CR would get right-sized attention if they weren't co-mingled with one mode being a disproportionate parasite off the other. Don't forget, the Red Line carries more passengers than the ENTIRE commuter rail network. It's lunacy to starve it to death by cutting the Red-Blue connector while continuing to push sinkholes with one-tenth the ridership out in the suburbs. The number of fare-paying commuters is not even on the same planet to make this an objective debate.

The T's fiscal, maintenance, and project paralysis are the end-stage atrophy of having such a muddled district. These 1945 plans weren't pie-in-the-sky Tomorrowland/Jetsons ideals. BERy and the subsidized street railways (bus lines) were just consolidated into the MTA metro district with a 10-mile/128-like radius around downtown, and this was go-time for how they were going to charge ahead into the car and post-RR era. Get rid of the streetcar lines, supplant all the inner-suburb commuter rail the RR's can't swing anymore, and throw max vigor at a real rapid-transit system. It's basically the Washington Metro grafted onto a pre-existing 19th century subway, but pretty much the same district makeup and relationship with outer beltway and highways. We're 60 years late getting with that program, and that's a structural and leadership deficiency not a fiscal one. Anything is fiscally or temporally impossible if you're incapable of managing it or messaging it. That's where we are today: we can't f***ing move dilapidated shack Lechmere across the street.

[Beton Brut]

F-Line, your astute analysis belongs on the Editorial Page of the Globe.

[KentXie]

And now the Green Line extension isn't set to commence until 2018, and by then they will have to do another environment report that will probably push it another couple of years back.

[ant8904]

You know, the funny thing is one would like to think this project had the best chance. After all, it seems the few projects that are not the South Coast Rail that made any real projects are projects that the universities weight in. It seems not even Tufts can make this state do something beneficial within the 128 belt.

And more Environmental Reports... then after that more delays... than another environmental reports.... it's another Blue Line. Won't get built until every person within the 128 belt alive now are in their 90's or dead. Only a new generation long removed from us will see things happen. That's assuming Boston is still a city that have the potential anymore. For us, if we ever want to see a thriving city that wants to see new things built, we have to move.

[Arborway]

LA is about to become the 2nd most ridden light rail system in the country.

If the GL extension doesnt open soon...theyre going to pass us.

While things here in LA (bailed on Boston after film jobs dried up last year) aren't as nice and walkable as Boston, we're spending money on actually building things. Not on thinking about maybe someday possibly you know, considering what it would take to make that happen. Only to do nothing and then pay someone tens of millions of dollars a few years later to answer the same question.

And the biggest complaints now are that a new line they've juuuuuuuust started working on won't open until... 2015! The horror!

The city blew a lot of chances to save what it had and build things back in the '80s and early '90s when it would have been cheaper. Despite that, things are moving forward.

Boston just can't get things done anymore, and the leadership simply doesn't care about how utterly ineffective it has become, as the needs of transit-using urban commuters simply don't register as being remotely important. At all.

[blade_bltz]

Who wants to bet on which is completed first:

1) Green Line to Tufts, or
2) Westside heavy rail to UCLA

?

[omaja]

The LA project hands down.

This is such an utter embarrassment for Boston. Cities in Europe like Berlin, Madrid and Barcelona have similar metropolitan area populations and half the GDP that Boston has. Yet their public transportation systems dwarf the MBTA in size, scope and quality. Where the hell are our priorities?

[Arborway]

Who wants to bet on which is completed first:

1) Green Line to Tufts, or
2) Westside heavy rail to UCLA

?

I'll bring a copy of the unchanged MBTA transit map on my first subway trip to the LACMA.

[KentXie]

If anybody is interested, there's an online petition with over 750 signatures already protesting the delay. Here's the link:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/greenline/

[datadyne007]

Signed it.

My bottom line with this is that it's time for the people making the laws to stop breaking their own laws.

How can we get this petition to Adam at UniversalHub?

[HenryAlan]

How can we get this petition to Adam at UniversalHub?

You can post things yourself on UniversalHub, but I've already taken care of it.

[BostonUrbEx]

There's now over 1000 signatures. (1030+)

[datadyne007]

Ive shared it w all my friends on Facebook and some community chats I use.

[belmont square]

The LA project hands down.

This is such an utter embarrassment for Boston. Cities in Europe like Berlin, Madrid and Barcelona have similar metropolitan area populations and half the GDP that Boston has. Yet their public transportation systems dwarf the MBTA in size, scope and quality. Where the hell are our priorities?

How are European subway expansions funded? To the extent they are funded by national governments, my guess is the governments of Germany and Spain are not as dominated by representatives of regions for whom transit service is a foreign concept. How many members of the US Congress represent districts where transit is a viable option?

And isn't LA 3 or 4 times the size of Boston, but has only 1/3 the subway ridership of Boston?

It seems like Boston's system fares pretty well in comparison with the only metro areas it is fair to compare it with: Similiar sized metro areas relying at least in part on US government funding of public transit expansion : Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Miami, SF, DC.

[manrush]

I compare the Green Line situation to Ontario's transit plans.

Canada happens to be a country where the Federal government barely provides funding for transit. Most of the funding is borne by the Provinces and municipalities.

Kitchener-Waterloo expects to open its light rail service in 2017, but it isn't beginning construction until 2014.

Ottawa plans to complete its light rail between 2017 and 2019, with construction beginning in 2013.

In Toronto, the Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown light rail line is in a bit of a mess due to local politics, but it's still slated to be completed in 2020, with construction beginning this summer.

Meanwhile, Boston is only extending a single branch of the Green line to Medford, something that has been planned since 2006.

[belmont square]

Canada happens to be a country where the Federal government barely provides funding for transit. Most of the funding is borne by the Provinces and municipalities.

Still not a fair comparison. Ontario charges the equivalent of a 55 cents/gallon gas tax. The high Ontario gas tax serves to 1) encourage more people to use public transportation by making driving more expensive, and 2) generates revenue that the province can use to expand public transportation in places like Ottawa, Kitchener and Toronto.

A recent proposal in Massachusetts to raise its state gas tax from 21 to 40 cents was dead on arrival.

As for municipal funding, is the argument that the city of Somerville should be footing the bill for the Green Line extension? Good luck with that one.

[omaja]

And isn't LA 3 or 4 times the size of Boston, but has only 1/3 the subway ridership of Boston?

It seems like Boston's system fares pretty well in comparison with the only metro areas it is fair to compare it with: Similiar sized metro areas relying at least in part on US government funding of public transit expansion : Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Miami, SF, DC.

That's exactly the point--these metropolitan areas are getting significantly more funding and have rapidly expanding networks while Boston's proven network is left to die because of inferior and failing infrastructure. For example, Dallas has a light rail network that is 5 percent larger than Boston's entire rapid transit network (with 60 percent less traffic) and DC's Metro is 40 percent larger (with only marginally more passengers per day).

[whighlander]

Only reason for South Coast rail project is to try to save the overly endowed buttocks of Mr. Frank -- as the South Coast is where is his gerymandered district that begins inside Rt-128 ends

But I don't think any of this matters -- in the next few decades cities, states and private enterprise will have to fund their own projects --the era of asking Uncle Sugar is Histoire!!

Best best is to share costs for mutually beneficial projcts (e.g. TF Green and possibly the Downeaster) with our natural partnerrs in New Engalnd, NY State and the bordering Canadian Provinces -- the rest will have to come from private investors

[HenryAlan]

You really think is choice of words is a coincidence?

I saw it as neither coincidence nor related to his sexual orientation. Most politicians have either literal or figurative fat asses. In Mr. Frank's case, I'd say it's only literal, and I also disagree that SE Coastal rail has much to do with him, whereas it has everything to do with the Governor.

[JohnAKeith]

I've seen Barney Frank on the streets of Provincetown with his shirt off. Whighlander was being too kind ...

[whighlander]

You really think is choice of words is a coincidence?

Paul -- a bit off topic -- I used to make the same kind of comments about our bloated and oftern inebrieated former senior senator -- however he's achieved room termperature and his conduct and positions are no longer an issue (other than the offensive monument being planned for construction adjacent to his brother's Presidential Library)

Unfortuantely, we are "Represented" by some of the worst, least cognizant of the issues folks in the Congress -- to a certain extent rather than having 10 fighting for 9 remaining districts -- it would better for the public if 10 were fighting for 1 district and we could pick from scratch 8 others

Bill Buckley once said he'd rather be governed by the first 400 names in the Boston phone directory than the Haaaaaahvd faculty -- today I'd pick 9 names at random rather than Mssrs Frank, Markey, Capuano, etc

back on topic -- Governor Patrick is not running for re-election and the South Coast Rail Project is not likely to produce anything other than paper before he leaves office -- so who else benefits -- my assessment is the congressman whose district encompases much of the route -- that would be Mr Frank

[Justin7]

I was hoping someone would turn this into a political discussion!

Is Frank actually in trouble of losing his seat? Is he in need of saving?

[HenryAlan]

I was hoping someone would turn this into a political discussion!

Is Frank actually in trouble of losing his seat? Is he in need of saving?

No, he's in good shape (in that regard, at least).

[EdFindlay]

No, he's in good shape (in that regard, at least).

Actually, he may be in trouble...he and Keating are frequently coming up as being districted into someone else's district due to the loss of one of the seats, his being so far away from the bulk of the district barely attatched leaves his city open to being absorbed by the 7th or the 8th district.

[vanshnookenraggen]

Let's keep it civil guys.

[whighlander]

Keeping with an architectural theme -- here's my definition of a congressional district:

Districts shall be constructed to minimize their perimeters (anti gerymander) conistent with:

1) being simply connected -- no unconnected satellites

2) when-ever possible districts should follow existing city/town boundaries

3) Whenever possible distrincts should fully encompass traditional geographic / societal features --e.g. Berkshires, Cape Cod


Anyone want to discuss this as time is approaching for the Legistlatiure to act based on the new census data

[Justin7]

Keeping with an architectural theme -- here's my definition of a congressional district:

Districts shall be constructed to minimize their perimeters (anti gerymander) conistent with:

1) being simply connected -- no unconnected satellites

2) when-ever possible districts should follow existing city/town boundaries

3) Whenever possible distrincts should fully encompass traditional geographic / societal features --e.g. Berkshires, Cape Cod


Anyone want to discuss this as time is approaching for the Legistlatiure to act based on the new census data

Unfortunately this will never happen without a crazy scenario in which the controlling party would not lose any seats by remapping the districts as described

[metasyntactic]

Looks like there might be more legal action over the Green Line.

From http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/08/26/somerville_blasts_green_line_delay/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Local+news


Somerville blasts Green Line delay
Aldermen call for questioning of state officials
By Matt Byrne
Globe Correspondent / August 26, 2011

SOMERVILLE - The Board of Aldermen passed a resolution last night calling for top state transportation officials to appear before it to answer for the recent delay of the Green Line extension project and urged the city’s mayor to explore renewing legal action against the Commonwealth.

“I want them to come before [the board] and tell us what their plan is because I don’t see one here,’’ said Alderman Robert C. Trane, one of the sponsors of the resolution. “If they’re not going to fund this, what are they going to fund? I think there is a little bit of a shell game going on here.’’

The resolution is the latest maneuver from a municipality that has embraced the extension as a cornerstone of a development plan that, if brought to fruition, would in time remake large, underdeveloped swaths of East Somerville. Aldermen said that area is underserved by public transit and plagued by noise and air pollution from adjacent Interstate 93.

But those development plans looked to be partially derailed last month, when the state announced in an annual report that trolley service to the extension would likely start no sooner than 2018 and as late as 2020. They attributed the delay to concerns over the acquisition of 19 parcels of real estate required to build the line, previously slated for completion by 2014.

Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone of Somerville, an outspoken proponent of the extension who promised last month to hold the state accountable, has been in talks with the Conservation Law Foundation, a nonprofit that in 2006 sued the state to legally require the extension to be built to offset increased pollution caused by the Big Dig.

Curtatone may now renew that legal fight, city officials confirmed yesterday.

No state officials attended last night’s meeting.

The nonbinding resolution, which will be sent to Governor Deval Patrick, incoming State Transportation Secretary Richard Davey, and state environmental authorities, is largely symbolic but contains some of the strongest calls yet for action.

“Our only hope to be self-sustaining was this Green Line,’’ said Alderman at Large William A. White Jr. “They’ve basically given us the middle finger.’’

White, who also sponsored the resolution, effectively accused the state of stringing along residents who live in East Somerville nearest I-93 and who have been forced to bear the brunt of air and noise pollution from the busy roadway.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless man-hours have been expended planning for the line, said board president Rebekah Gewirtz. Under the pretense of propelling transit-oriented development, the city also underwent a lengthy process to rezone the Union Square area, which would receive a station under the extension, said Maryann Heuston, a board member.

Matt Byrne can be reached at mbyrne.globe@gmail.com

[whighlander]

If they really are sincere -- why don't they find a private partner who would benefit from TOD and acquire the parcels and then lease the ROW to the T -- the Sommerville Alderman is exibiting the worst kind of entitelment thinking -- which is rapidly becomming an anachronism

Why do the rest of the people in the Commonwealth and indeed some poor folks in Idaho (since there is a Urban Mass Transi administration funding component) have to make good Sommervilles' plans for rezoning Union Square

[manrush]

If they really are sincere -- why don't they find a private partner who would benefit from TOD and acquire the parcels and then lease the ROW to the T -- the Sommerville Alderman is exibiting the worst kind of entitelment thinking -- which is rapidly becomming an anachronism

Why do the rest of the people in the Commonwealth and indeed some poor folks in Idaho (since there is a Urban Mass Transi administration funding component) have to make good Sommervilles' plans for rezoning Union Square
Why do the people in Greater Boston have to fund roads out in the Berkshires and in the Midwest?

Relying on private funding alone is idiocy, due to there being a dearth of private contractors who wish to get involved with public transit.

[omaja]

If they really are sincere -- why don't they find a private partner who would benefit from TOD and acquire the parcels and then lease the ROW to the T -- the Sommerville Alderman is exibiting the worst kind of entitelment thinking -- which is rapidly becomming an anachronism

Why do the rest of the people in the Commonwealth and indeed some poor folks in Idaho (since there is a Urban Mass Transi administration funding component) have to make good Sommervilles' plans for rezoning Union Square

Greater Boston puts far, far more into funding for the rest of the Commonwealth and places like Idaho than the other way around. If that ratio were more fairly and equitably distributed toward populated areas, we wouldn't be having this discussion at all; the Green Line extension would have been long since completed.

[Charlie_mta]

It's odd that the proposed Washington Street (Brickbottom) station is on the south side of the street rather than the north. It would better serve the dense residential neighborhood to the north if located on the north side of Washington Street. Maybe they're expecting a massive amount of TOD south of Washington Street, but I doubt it.

[whighlander]

Why do the people in Greater Boston have to fund roads out in the Berkshires and in the Midwest?

Relying on private funding alone is idiocy, due to there being a dearth of private contractors who wish to get involved with public transit.

If I remember corectly, private money from Boston built the Union Pacific Railroad -- of corse some of the prople who did the fumding did quite well by their investment in the rest of the courntry

[BostonUrbEx]

If I remember corectly, private money from Boston built the Union Pacific Railroad -- of corse some of the prople who did the fumding did quite well by their investment in the rest of the courntry

That was before government subsidized interstate highways. Private rail can't compete against public roads. Private roads, perhaps so.

[vanshnookenraggen]

That was before government subsidized interstate highways. Private rail can't compete against public roads. Private roads, perhaps so.

Read your history. The federal government subsidized the railroads all over the place by basically handing them the land for net to nothing and "clearing" the lands of existing populations.

[Lurker]

The government subsidized the construction of railroads and later highways. The difference has been that the government has continued to pick up the tab for highway maintenance, where rail roads were expected to do their own maintenance. If we were to privatize highways into entities similar to successful freight railroads the result would likely be better highways for trucking and a drastic change to land use and commuting habits.

[statler]

Where would the profit come from in privatized roads? Tolls?

[vanshnookenraggen]

Where would the profit come from in privatized roads? Tolls?

Tolls but mostly selling the land that the new roads opened up (this is how streetcars were financed).

[whighlander]

Tolls but mostly selling the land that the new roads opened up (this is how streetcars were financed).

In the 1800's the Feds had no cash -- so how did they subsidize / support the construction of the transcontinental railroad --- they had land and so they traded land for railroad

Today no government has any money yet we want infrastructure -- so to subsidize / support the construction of roads, transit and perhaps highspeed rail -- the various gov'ts should offer a no tax on real estate nor on income derrived from the land for the first 25 years and throe-in relaxed regulations on use

Kind of TOD writ Large

[GW2500]

Phased construction could speed Green Line's extension to Medford, Somerville
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/medford/2011/09/phased_green_line_construction_1.html?p1=HP_Well_Y ourTown_links



Governor Deval Patrick and Transportation Secretary Richard A. Davey met Wednesday with state legislators and local officials to discuss a plan to build in phases the extension of the Green Line to Medford and Somerville, which could kick-start construction, officials confirmed today.

The phase appproach would likely allow early station construction to begin while planners finalize the design of stops farther down the line.

The meeting follows the announcement last month that service on the billion-dollar extension project would start no sooner than 2018 and as late as 2020 so the state could acquire more than a dozen parcels of land along the proposed railway.

"We were happy to hear that the governor is still committed to moving forward," said Senator Patricia Jehlen of Somerville, who was joined by Senator Sal DiDomenico, and representatives Denise Provist, Timothy J. Toomey, Carl Sciortino, and Sean Garballey. Also present were officials from Medford, Somerville, and US Congressman Michael E. Capuano's office.

"We want to see shovels in the ground," Jehlen said.

The delay drew anger and frustration from many in the two communities north of Boston, which have awaited the line's arrival for close to a decade. News of the deal also prompted the City of Somerville to petition the state and Patrick to honor a commitment to break ground before the governor leaves office in 2012. So far, nearly 2,800 have signed the petition online.

"This is a project we have to do," said Cyndi Roy, spokeswoman for MassDOT. "The governor and Secretary Davey want to see that timeline sped up."

The state is bound to complete the extension project after it lost a lawsuit filed by the Conservation Law Foundation that sought to mitigate air pollution caused by the Big Dig. After the environmental group emerged victorious, the onus was on the Commonwealth to complete transit projects that would take cars off the road and improve air quality for cities impacted by the traffic of Interstate 93 and other roadways.

But despite the legal mandate, funding woes and planning delays have dogged the extension, with the state repeatedly pushing back projected start dates. If built as currently planned, the line would extend to Route 16 in Medford, and would service a swathe of the region previously accessible only by bus or commuter rail.

The project has been central to city plans to redevelop parts of formerly industrial Somerville, a city whose public transportation needs have grown. Now, as Somerville remakes its image as a desirable destination, Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone has increased pressure on state lawmakers to speed the process so that economic development may follow.

"We are leaving a whole lot more money on the table if we don't get started on this project," said Curtatone, referring to the boon he and others predict will spring from areas previously less accessible by public transit, such as Union Square and the Inner Belt.

While a phasing process would in the short-term favor Somerville as the community to receive service first, Jehlen stressed that the local delegates agreed that the line must be extended to Medford to be considered a success.

"Everybody in the meeting said that you need to go west," said Jehlen, who was reached by phone.

Still unaddressed, though, are concerns about how the state will pay for it all. Estimates peg the cost at more than $1 billion.

"That's what we're going to roll our sleeves up and work out now," said Curtatone, who acknowledged that the state, with approximately $19 billion in deferred transportation liability, is not in the strongest position to fund a massive capital project.

"What people in the Commonwealth need to understand is that if you want a 21st century economy you need a 21st century transportation system," Curtatone added.

How the state will pay for the extension remains unclear, he said.

"The Commonwealth doesn't have a billion dollars to spend today. I know the governor, and he's trying to be creative," said Curtatone. "We can't continue to kick the can down the road."

[Arborway]

As anyone with a decent amount of experience in real estate knows, "Coming in Phase 2" means it will never, ever, ever happen.

[BostonUrbEx]

This isn't a Phase I and Phase 2 type deal, though.

This is opening each station as it is finished. All would assumably be under construction at the same time. The only real Phase 2 here is between Tufts and Medford, which isn't even mentioned, and which you're right about, won't happen.

[datadyne007]

The couple RLX's were done this way.

Termini at Quincy Center, Porter, Davis, etc.

[F-Line to Dudley]

The couple RLX's were done this way.

Termini at Quincy Center, Porter, Davis, etc.

Sort of. There was a very long delay in finishing the Braintree extension because of community infighting over the placement of the last two stops. Quincy Adams was a compromise choice over the originally planned North Braintree & South Braintree stops. And that's why the extension, which opened in 1971 to QC, didn't reach Braintree until 1980 and QA, being chosen late as 2nd choice, had trains skip it until 1983 when it was belatedly finished.

The Alewife extension did open sequentially: Harvard in '83, Porter & Davis on the same day in '84, Alewife in '85. But trains actually deadheaded from Harvard to crossovers at Davis to switch ends. So technically it was only 2 phases for running trains and the tracks to Davis were in use from the day new Harvard opened. Alewife station was actually sitting waiting and finished a year earlier, but the tunnel under the Fitchburg Cutoff wasn't quite ready. They did, after all, have to cut-and-cover under a lot of wetlands on the approach to the station and past it where the underground yard is. The tunnel actually curves under the Minuteman and extends 1000 feet, crosses the Arlington town line, and ends roughly midfield at Thorndike Field to support the 3-track yard and align it on the right trajectory for the canceled Lexington extension.


I'm very skeptical that this GLX phasing is anything but placeholder spin until they actually say what the phasing is going to be. You can't just open it station-by-station because not every station is going to have turnback crossovers. It'll have to be in larger chunks than that. They also haven't answered the most obvious question: why have they not committed to building the Union Sq. extension first. That is by far the easiest one because they just do the Lechmere relocation, construction of the flyover overpass where the branches split, install a 4th deck on the Medford St. overpass (abutment's already there for it), and build retaining walls and station. Less than one mile of track work, the Fitchburg Line does not require commuter rail track shifting like the Lowell Line does, and with tail tracks at the station they can operate this branch well ahead of construction of the new maintenance facility (any lost storage capacity can be offset at North Station yard or on the unused 2nd track between the Gov't Center loop peel-out and Haymarket outbound). And can operate without purchase of new cars.

That one is very doable even if the rest utterly collapses. The fact that they are not saying anything about Union as a path-of-least-resistance way to get shovels in ground quickly and get Lechmere across the street is VERY conspicuous by omission. The longer they talk about phasing without specifics like that the more everyone's got good reason to doubt their intentions.

[whighlander]

This isn't a Phase I and Phase 2 type deal, though.

This is opening each station as it is finished. All would assumably be under construction at the same time. The only real Phase 2 here is between Tufts and Medford, which isn't even mentioned, and which you're right about, won't happen.

Urb.....I think that if you do your homework you will find historic models of such phased infrastructure developement -- how:
1) the Commonwealth paid for filling the Back Bay -- block at a time selling the lots as they went
2) the Transcontinental railroads -- each increment of track that was completed allowed the railroad doing the building to essentially stake a claim on gov't land adjacent to the line -- which enabled the mostly Boston money men (e.g. Jack Gardner) to become much richer

I presume that the creative financing is based on opportunity for TOD in the vicinity of each station

The totality of the extension still might not be opperating any sooner than it would if the T was trying to build it all at once -- but this way construction can start soon

I'm guessing that most probably Union Sq. will be the first target since I believe no land taking is involved for the ROW -- the construction might be able to start as soon as a developer ir lined up to do the station and the TOD as a package

The modern model for this approach is also in Sommerville at Assembly Sq. on the Orange Line where the mall is being redeveloped in TOD around the new Orange Line Assembly Sq. Station

[northpoint24]

Hopefully this means something will happen sooner rather than later.

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/somerville/2011/09/planners_approve_476m_for_gree.html?camp=obinsite

[whighlander]

Hopefully this means something will happen sooner rather than later.

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/somerville/2011/09/planners_approve_476m_for_gree.html?camp=obinsite

From the boston.com article:

The Sept. 22 vote by the Metropolitan Planning Organization coincides with the start of the Federal budget year on Oct. 1, and will finance design, planning, vehicle procurement, and early construction, said Joe Pesaturo, MBTA spokesman, in an e-mail.

The cash will be delivered in increasing amounts each year, Pesaturo said, starting with $66.2 million in funding for fiscal year 2012. Funding increases the following years to $79.3 million in 2013 and $94 million in 2014, before the bulk -- $235.8 million -- is disbursed in 2015.

Best bet would be to build the branch to Union Sq. cutting a deal with some developer to do the Station and TOD -- meanwhile the planning, land acquisition and construction can proceed on the branch to Tufts

A major advantage is that the Union Sq. branch can probably begin operations using exiting rolling stock while the new equipment is being fabbed

[F-Line to Dudley]

From the boston.com article:

The Sept. 22 vote by the Metropolitan Planning Organization coincides with the start of the Federal budget year on Oct. 1, and will finance design, planning, vehicle procurement, and early construction, said Joe Pesaturo, MBTA spokesman, in an e-mail.

The cash will be delivered in increasing amounts each year, Pesaturo said, starting with $66.2 million in funding for fiscal year 2012. Funding increases the following years to $79.3 million in 2013 and $94 million in 2014, before the bulk -- $235.8 million -- is disbursed in 2015.

Best bet would be to build the branch to Union Sq. cutting a deal with some developer to do the Station and TOD -- meanwhile the planning, land acquisition and construction can proceed on the branch to Tufts

A major advantage is that the Union Sq. branch can probably begin operations using exiting rolling stock while the new equipment is being fabbed

Absolutely. Union's advantages are:

1) Minimal retaining wall construction.
2) Don't have to shift the commuter rail tracks at all like they do with the Lowell Line.
3) Only major non-station ROW construction is the flyover ramp at the line split.
4) Medford St. bridge is already built to support install of a 4th deck. Literally just bring the steel beams on a rail car, throw it down, and it's complete.
5) Only existing-ops impacts are the Grand Junction's crossovers to the Valley Tracks getting reconfigured, and Pan Am giving up its storage track (they have other unused space to offset). The freight movements around BET aren't affected until they build the maintenance facility.
6) They can comfortably run the branch without the maintenance facility, on the existing car fleet.
7) They can safely lose the Lechmere yard if Union Sq. has tail tracks with space for 2 idle trainsets on each track behind the station (i.e. couple dozen feet longer than the 2 Heath St. loops). North Station and the second inbound track between Gov. Center loop and Haymarket can store all the other Lechmere extras.
8) Can be done without any power upgrades other than a new circuit break. New draw not required until the maint facility gets built.
9) They can open new Lechmere station first before Union is finished because there'll be plenty of tail track space behind that station to turn things. Meaning Northpoint and the remake of Lechmere Sq. can draw some more immediate benefits.
10) They better do something ASAP to placate Somerville and keep the CLF from suing them over blowing the law-mandated schedule to hell. Getting one of the branches complete is a (weak) victory at meeting a real deadline that comes off a little less quarter-assed than building Lechmere, Brickbottom, and maybe Gilman Sq. then saying "Uhhhh...we promise we'll get the rest of you guys later. Maybe."

[PaulC]

The original developer of North Point was going to build the new Lechmere Station. Could the state get the new owner to build the station in return for allowing a denser development? I think part of the project is on Somerville and Boston land so maybe that's were some additional height could be added.

[Tango]

We are having a Northpoint meeting on October 5th. The new developers are going to speak about the plans for Northpoint. I am curious to see if they have made any plans with the MBTA.

[Charlie_mta]

Absolutely. Union's advantages are:

1) Minimal retaining wall construction.
2) Don't have to shift the commuter rail tracks at all like they do with the Lowell Line.
3) Only major non-station ROW construction is the flyover ramp at the line split.
4) Medford St. bridge is already built to support install of a 4th deck. Literally just bring the steel beams on a rail car, throw it down, and it's complete.
5) Only existing-ops impacts are the Grand Junction's crossovers to the Valley Tracks getting reconfigured, and Pan Am giving up its storage track (they have other unused space to offset). The freight movements around BET aren't affected until they build the maintenance facility.
6) They can comfortably run the branch without the maintenance facility, on the existing car fleet.
7) They can safely lose the Lechmere yard if Union Sq. has tail tracks with space for 2 idle trainsets on each track behind the station (i.e. couple dozen feet longer than the 2 Heath St. loops). North Station and the second inbound track between Gov. Center loop and Haymarket can store all the other Lechmere extras.
8) Can be done without any power upgrades other than a new circuit break. New draw not required until the maint facility gets built.
9) They can open new Lechmere station first before Union is finished because there'll be plenty of tail track space behind that station to turn things. Meaning Northpoint and the remake of Lechmere Sq. can draw some more immediate benefits.
10) They better do something ASAP to placate Somerville and keep the CLF from suing them over blowing the law-mandated schedule to hell. Getting one of the branches complete is a (weak) victory at meeting a real deadline that comes off a little less quarter-assed than building Lechmere, Brickbottom, and maybe Gilman Sq. then saying "Uhhhh...we promise we'll get the rest of you guys later. Maybe."

Another advanatage is they could keep the existing Lechmere station for now, and not build the new Lechmere station until the branch to Medford is built later. Commuters don't need a Green Line Ride from Union Sq to Lechmere, so a new Lechmere station is not essential if only the Union Sqaure branch is built.

[F-Line to Dudley]

Another advanatage is they could keep the existing Lechmere station for now, and not build the new Lechmere station until the branch to Medford is built later. Commuters don't need a Green Line Ride from Union Sq to Lechmere, so a new Lechmere station is not essential if only the Union Sqaure branch is built.

New Lechmere is going to be an elevated station because the tracks coming off the viaduct don't return back to ground level until after the station site, so that really wouldn't work. The new station structure has to be built first to connect to any tracks going further north, so it wouldn't make sense to keep duplicate routings. Might as well get on with the relocation. The Cambridge St./O'Brien Hwy. intersection's going to be a lot easier to navigate when that narrow overpass is demolished.

That part of the project is pretty easy. I suspect if Northpoint weren't the clusterfuck it's become New Lechmere would've been close to shovel-ready by now and under construction well before the rest of the extension. It's really not too dependent on the rest of the project because there's such generous tail track space behind. The junction and flyover ramp for the Union branch are a good 1500 feet away from where the viaduct extension touches back down at grade. It's a station they could open in total isolation, and the relocation was probably a lock to happen even if the rest of the project collapsed in total.

[mass88]

I have been reading all of the great, detailed posts.

But here a single question: if any of you were betting men/women, would you say the extension will happen? And another side bet, if it does happen, will it be completed by 2021?

[BostonUrbEx]

I have been reading all of the great, detailed posts.

But here a single question: if any of you were betting men/women, would you say the extension will happen? And another side bet, if it does happen, will it be completed by 2021?

It will definitely happen, we're moving towards a mass transit way of life. With the pressure currently being applied, there seems to be a scramble to get things moving, so it might be done before than.

[whighlander]

It will definitely happen, we're moving towards a mass transit way of life. With the pressure currently being applied, there seems to be a scramble to get things moving, so it might be done before than.

I'm willing to bet that the Union Sq. branch can open within this decade because of the potential of transit oriented development in Union Sq.

I'm not sure that the rest will happen within the next 10 years as there is no money.

[F-Line to Dudley]

I'm willing to bet that the Union Sq. branch can open within this decade because of the potential of transit oriented development in Union Sq.

I'm not sure that the rest will happen within the next 10 years as there is no money.

Union Sq., if they stop dicking around, can probably open by 2015. Relocated Lechmere by the original 2014 deadline. And that mainly depends on station design. The ROW construction itself is simple and contained enough to 1/2 mile of only one side of the Fitchburg Line ROW, without much utility or culvert work outside of the station itself. The construction on the Lowell Line by contrast is pretty complicated because of fitting in the GL and Community Path on the same ROW as commuter rail. Commuter rail tracks have to be shifted over a few feet and signals replaced, the retaining walls and embankments almost the whole length have to be redone, lots of utility work. On just the ROW, not the stations. It's engineering-doable, but to Medford it's essentially creating a northbound version of the Southwest Corridor CR/Orange Line/path without the "Roxbury Little Dig" part (tracks aren't changing grade here like they did when the NEC was depressed in the 80's). It's very involved work to arrange everything inside the Lowell Line cut into a full tri-modal transit highway.

[found5dollar]

http://greenlineextension.com/documents/ev_Assess/oct11PubMtg/Pres20003Comp_102011.pdf

nifty little slide show showing the timeline of the extension from some meeting there was on the 20th of October. Tentative opening July 2018, with a "Risk Contingency" until about July 2020.

[Charlie_mta]

Given the lack of Federal funding, completion by 2020 is optimistic. I'd say 2040 is more like it.

[armpitsOFmight]

Is the T going to make passengers pay at the gate or on the trolley? I really hope it's at the gate.

[BostonUrbEx]

Is the T going to make passengers pay at the gate or on the trolley? I really hope it's at the gate.

I'm pretty sure there will be fare gates. If not, they deserve a really hard slap across the face.

[PaulC]

http://greenlineextension.com/documents/ev_Assess/oct11PubMtg/Pres20003Comp_102011.pdf

nifty little slide show showing the timeline of the extension from some meeting there was on the 20th of October. Tentative opening July 2018, with a "Risk Contingency" until about July 2020.

2 questions, what happened to the bike path and will two tracks be enough for the commuter rail and Amtrak in the future?

[HenryAlan]

I'm not too familiar with the area this goes through, can anybody say what location is depicted on the cover graphic? I didn't think there was going to be an elevated section other than the crossing of McGrath/O'Brien Highway, which this doesn't resemble.

[BostonUrbEx]

2 questions, what happened to the bike path and will two tracks be enough for the commuter rail and Amtrak in the future?

Not just commuter rail, but the Lowell AND Haverhill lines combined (it's inevitable, IMO) plus future Amtrak options. The majority of the Providence Line is like that, and it kind of works... [for now]...

[vanshnookenraggen]

Edit: Nevermind

[Ron Newman]

The bike path will run alongside the Green Line from Lowell Street in Somerville to Lechmere; that's a large part of the route.

Amtrak's Downeaster uses the Lowell Line from Boston to Wilmington, where it splits off onto the Wildcat Branch to join the Haverhill Line. (A few MBTA commuter rail trains also use this hybrid route.)

Responding to an earlier post -- yes, there will be fare gates at all of the new stations.

[PaulC]

I was wondering why the bike path wasn't part of the slides. I've seen it in earlier slides.

[F-Line to Dudley]

I was wondering why the bike path wasn't part of the slides. I've seen it in earlier slides.

It's a separate funding appropriation and separate design contract. The Green Line contractors can't really conceptualize it because they're not involved in designing it, so it's not on any of the presentations except for some of the maps that indicate where it's positioned relative to the tracks.

They will, however, create the room for it on the reconfigured ROW when they shift the Lowell tracks around. Lowell Line is a huuuge ROW, formerly 4 tracks to Wilmington and 5 or more in parts south of Somerville Junction where the Community Path will join. Plus most of the stations proposed were former station sites in the steam RR days. This was basically your NEC-North trunkline when the Boston & Maine network was still at max size, there were many more branchlines, the B&M rail yards at Northpoint, BET, and the innerbelt were of massive scale, and they eliminated every grade crossing but the 2 right at West Medford early on to handle that massive traffic load. It's envisioned to be just that in the future when the N-S Rail Link is completed and it's electrified at HSR speeds to feed both Maine/Downeaster and Concord/Montreal service via Wilmington. What's being utilized now on 2 tracks for Lowell, Downeaster, and (small minority) Haverhill service is only a small trickle of the capacity the ROW has built-in space for. This extension was originally supposed to go to Woburn when it was first drawn up in 1945. Someday in the distant future extending it to Anderson/Woburn as a rapid transit line to 128 replacing the inner commuter rail stops may be in the cards.


These stations will get a lot more utilization than the D Line, which is why they'll have full prepayment areas. It's also a provision for future conversion of the line to heavy rail if that Woburn extension happens and the ridership load becomes something you'd rather have served by 6- or 8-car subway trains instead of 3-car trolleys. The line was formally proposed in the 90's as an either/or choice of Blue or Green Line extension, whichever was path of least resistance. It tipped to Green when they couldn't fit Union Sq. into it as a single branch (expensive subway) and needed to fork it as a second branch. For a little while they even conceptualized it as a potential Orange branch spurring off the North Station tunnel portal and following the Lowell Line across BET. Options like that are still easily in play down the line if capacity issues merit swapping the branch over to one of the heavy rail lines. The stations (except Union) are supposed to be designed with heavy rail clearances in mind so they can raise the platforms and be done, and the electrical feed laid such that they can unplug the overhead and plug in third rail (or not...Blue Line overhead is exactly the same as Green's and Orange cars can run internally unmodified if you slap a pantograph on the roof).

[BostonUrbEx]

It's also a provision for future conversion of the line to heavy rail if that Woburn extension happens and the ridership load becomes something you'd rather have served by 6- or 8-car subway trains instead of 3-car trolleys.

...

The stations (except Union) are supposed to be designed with heavy rail clearances in mind so they can raise the platforms and be done, and the electrical feed laid such that they can unplug the overhead and plug in third rail (or not...Blue Line overhead is exactly the same as Green's and Orange cars can run internally unmodified if you slap a pantograph on the roof).

I've asked people on the project about this a couple times, nobody says they're planning for a future conversion to heavy rail. In fact, I think one time someone said not only were they not provisioning for it, but that it wouldn't happen! It's a bit worrisome.

[F-Line to Dudley]

I've asked people on the project about this a couple times, nobody says they're planning for a future conversion to heavy rail. In fact, I think one time someone said not only were they not provisioning for it, but that it wouldn't happen! It's a bit worrisome.

They've also had to have their arms twisted to pain threshold and been badgered relentlessly by STEP to give expressed written commitment that Union Sq. station won't block future extension to Porter, too. Which the latest staged-opening stopgap plan says won't, because the tail track space behind the station poking out a few feet in the Porter direction is now operationally required if they're gonna open the branch a couple years before the maintenance yard is built. But, boy, they did not want to give an answer on even that simple-ass question for eons. Was only brought up at every community meeting for the last 3 years. And they wonder why STEP, the CLF, and City of Somerville got all lawyered up at the latest delay.

Of course they'll say anything to lower the expectations. They don't want to build anything ever inside 128 and will look for any excuse to throw water on it. We're talking some future generation of leadership when absolutely no one currently holding down an upper-level management position--or their like-minded supplicants--is still left at the agency. And are replaced by a culture that cuts out the endemic passive-aggression towards urban core transit and starts thinking like...oh...couple dozen other U.S. cities that are finding full-hearted embrace of it a better option. Ditto for the Governor's cronies and anti-transit City Hall monarchy. A lot can change in 25 years, but yeah...the current crop of "leaders" is what it is and will be for as long as they're occupying space.


I don't think the design particulars on things like power conduits and little technical details have been hashed out because that's very small-level stuff. One of the things they're supposed to do is consolidate all the cables in a trough under the fence between the Lowell Line and GL and leave lots of empty space in the conduits for future electrification of the LL (required if the N-S Link were ever built, and possibly before). Amtrak will bite someone's head off if they find out--whoops!--they'd have to blow 8 figures diging a whole new trench in 25 years to run the Downeaster on electric because somebody "forgot" and blew 8 figures building incompatible conduits. Another provision thing was to use thicker NEC-style catenary supports on only the center fence side of the track, again to provision for the LL so they could just attach a crossarm on the RR side and use one support to hold up both overheads. We'll see if they get amnesia about that one and chuck up something too small requiring total replacement if/when.

Thankfully STEP is going to be paranoid about this stuff, read all the fine print, and call them out on anything that looks fishy or contradictory.


Track clearances aren't really a big deal for provisioning heavy-rail. Every above-ground station on the system has the clearances to handle something as big as a Red Line car around the platforms. It's only the superficial height and jut of the platform itself that needs adjustment, and platform edges on new construction are usually prefab even on mini-highs like the GL. Nothing about the conceptual designs of the stations seemingly throws any quirks into the mix, and track spacing is standard across the system. Ditto all subway tunnels built after the Red Line was completed...everything, including trolley tunnel extensions, used the Red Line spec for default dimensions and clearances. I don't even think they're allowed to engineer new construction at less than those clearances because of how non-grandfathered quirks affect vehicle order bids.

Whether it could potentially be converted X decades from now has little to do with what administrative will exists today than them not making life difficult by shooting themselves in the foot on wiring plant or doing something bizarre to the station designs that serves no purpose but to willfully inhibit future considerations (see Union tail tracks). Again, Amtrak will tear the T a new one if they mess up infrastructure--and by extension political capital--on a federally designated HSR corridor.

[jass]

They should build all the extension stations with high platforms.

Then, buy Type 9 vehicles like the ones san francisco uses, which are high level underground, and then above ground stairs magically appear when needed.

Convert lechmere, science park and half of north station to high platform as well.

[datadyne007]

Then, buy Type 9 vehicles like the ones san francisco uses, which are high level underground, and then above ground stairs magically appear when needed.
Wouldn't that complicate or eliminate handicap accessibility at above-ground stations? The whole point of the Type 8 Bredas was that they had a low floor, which meant a ramp (ADA-pitched) could extend and retract automatically to grade with the "low" platform. (quotes because former platforms were raised to a new low height)

[DominusNovus]

Its nice and all to see an actual timeline that explains what related things need to be done, in an easy to digest fashion for the laymen (first we need to rebuild the bridges, then build retaining walls, etc. etc.). However, I can't help but look at that timeline they have on every other page and wonder 'why the 3 year gap of no real work at the beginning?'

Its just frustrating.

[jass]

Wouldn't that complicate or eliminate handicap accessibility at above-ground stations? The whole point of the Type 8 Bredas was that they had a low floor, which meant a ramp (ADA-pitched) could extend and retract automatically to grade with the "low" platform. (quotes because former platforms were raised to a new low height)

Run the type 9s on the brattle loop only.

New stations + lechmere, science park completely high level, NS, haymarket and GV have enough room for highs and lows.

[whighlander]

I'm not too familiar with the area this goes through, can anybody say what location is depicted on the cover graphic? I didn't think there was going to be an elevated section other than the crossing of McGrath/O'Brien Highway, which this doesn't resemble.

Henry -- that has got to be the new Leachmere in the distance -- presumably the foreground is NothPoint

Having looked at all the work that needs to be done to clear the ROW for construction and given the actual start is jan 2014 -- I'm going to be really surprised if anythig is running in 10 years

[vanshnookenraggen]

Yeah that is the new Lechmere station which is the only elevated part of the extension.

[HenryAlan]

The elevated depiction looks cool, and I think the project staff agree. Why else put it on the cover? Boston should consider this option in other places.

[found5dollar]

oh hey. look. new design plans for the New Lechemere station and surrounding streets....

http://greenlineextension.com/documents/PubMtgs/StaWrkshps2011/Lechmere_Workshop_Presentation121411.pdf

my favorite is the change in name of "Monsignor O'Brien Highway" to "Monsignor O'Brien Boulevard" because changing the name of a road enhances the pedestrian experience.</scarcasm>

[Charlie_mta]

They still need to include a pedestrian overpass over O'Brien Highway. If not, then at least have the crosswalks as raised beds, like they have at some airport roads at pedestrian entrances to terminals. That would force traffic on O'Brien Hwy to slow down at least.

[datadyne007]

They still need to include a pedestrian overpass over O'Brien Highway. If not, then at least have the crosswalks as raised beds, like they have at some airport roads at pedestrian entrances to terminals. That would force traffic on O'Brien Hwy to slow down at least.

Official name is a "speed table." When they redid the Dartmouth Mall, they used them all around the perimeter.

[vanshnookenraggen]

I like the redesign of Northpoint to create a central square off the new station. It reminds me of Forest Hills in Queens (http://g.co/maps/qfqqw).

The enclosed bike parking is great. We need so much more at other stations.

I wonder if they will really put wind turbines on the station; seems like the first to go when the costs rise.

[F-Line to Dudley]

my favorite is the change in name of "Monsignor O'Brien Highway" to "Monsignor O'Brien Boulevard" because changing the name of a road enhances the pedestrian experience.</scarcasm>

That's not fair. I feel completely at peace with the world whenever I'm driving on the Southeast Lane through Braintree Terrace.

[HenryAlan]

This looks very good. Both the station and viaduct design demonstrate how nice an el. can look. Even in a crowded space, elevated rail should be an option, and I'm glad to see the 'T using it, even if only for a small section.

[Charlie_mta]

I agree. To expand the Boston area transit system, tunneling is cost prohibitive, given today's tight fiscal climate. There are many locations and routes in Boston and the metro area that would accomodate an elevated line with minimal aesthetic impacts. Vancouver BC has demonstrated that very well.

[vanshnookenraggen]

The problem is when people thing of an elevated train they think of the loud, dark, and dirty trains of yore. Educating the public will take more effort than just building a subway (I'm half serious there).

Regardless of the technology what is really needed is leadership. You have to commend the pols from Somerville for never giving up the fight for this. Why doesn't Boston have the Green Line down Washington St? Because Menino didn't want it. We need new blood for the 21st century in this city.

[MBTAddict]

I agree. To expand the Boston area transit system, tunneling is cost prohibitive, given today's tight fiscal climate. There are many locations and routes in Boston and the metro area that would accomodate an elevated line with minimal aesthetic impacts. Vancouver BC has demonstrated that very well.

+1 I think the B line after Kenmore would be a perfect candidate

The problem is when people thing of an elevated train they think of the loud, dark, and dirty trains of yore. Educating the public will take more effort than just building a subway (I'm half serious there).

Regardless of the technology what is really needed is leadership. You have to commend the pols from Somerville for never giving up the fight for this. Why doesn't Boston have the Green Line down Washington St? Because Menino didn't want it. We need new blood for the 21st century in this city.

+1 I'd love to see someone run for Mayor on the grounds that he's going to go to bat with the state about making improvements to the transit system within Boston. Given how riled up everyone has been about the T's proposals I could see that being a great way to at least get a campaign off the ground.

[F-Line to Dudley]

It's not ironclad, but with LRT the current powers that be are violently allergic to any rails embedded in pavement. Not total absolute grade separation per se, as recently studied proposals like the original GLX to West Medford station and Urban Ring Phase III still retained some of the former RR grade crossings that couldn't or didn't merit elimination. But Boston's in a very regressive mode when it comes to street-running anything, while most of the new light rail systems being built in the U.S. are increasing their intermixing even vs. 10-15 years ago when grade separation was the only way. Simple truth that not even the most modern laid-out cities have enough grade separated ROW's to fashion into a meaningful system around the urban core, and partial-dedicated ROW/partial-grade crossing/partial-streetcar lines are easiest for maxing the options. Plus they quickly learned there's no traffic apocalypse or outdated old-timey anachronism to running in the street, so cities are a lot less gun-shy about that than a decade ago.

Look no further than anti-transit City Hall for this regressiveness. We'd be celebrating 20 years of restored A-line service to Oak Square if it weren't for Hizzoner making icky-poo faces at it while he was Council Prez. opposing the restoration lawsuit on behalf of a couple politically connected Brighton Ave. businesses that wanted tracks and wires ripped out. And he had his fingerprints all over the Silver Line by stubbornly pushing for no overhead wires on city streets. Like van said, Somerville getting this far with it is a testament to how long they were willing to slug it out in the ring and outlast the institutional resistance out of sheer will. Of course the T is going to take a de facto "ban" of light rail on non- picture perfect grade separation if the most influential power brokers telegraph their distaste for that from a mile away.

Leaderships: we needs new ones.


Heavy rail lines...yes, grade crossings there are if not ironclad then certainly taboo on any new construction. Only legacy systems like Chicago L still have grade crossing outliers (including w/3rd rail), but those have been reduced to the barest minimum outliers after aggressive eliminations. We'll never see a proposal like the original 1970's Orange Line Reading extension which retained many of the grade crossings by switching from 3rd rail to overhead at Oak Grove so the cost of 100% elimination could be spread over many subsequent decades.

[Digital_Islandboy]

That's an interesting concept. As a variation, how about extending the proposed Union Sq. Green Line branch out to Porter Sq on the Fitchburg RR line, but then head southwesterly along the Watertown Branch railroad, going by Fresh Pond and the Arsenal Mall to Watertown Square, using the Watertown Branch railroad right-of-way.

This would almost be like the Urban Ring, but just a bit farther out.

I wrote to the City of Cambridge's Community Development Division and they've told me the Watertown Branch is earmarked for trail development with no ETA. A possible pedestrian bridge would also span the Fitchburg Line and land on the opposite side with a connection to the Somerville and Arlington Minuteman bike-trail routes. Personally I thought recessing the Fitchbeurg Line completely in N. Cambridge makes more sense than creating another aerial bridge over that track like Alewife Brook Pkwy.

[F-Line to Dudley]

I wrote to the City of Cambridge's Community Development Division and they've told me the Watertown Branch is earmarked for trail development with no ETA. A possible pedestrian bridge would also span the Fitchburg Line and land on the opposite side with a connection to the Somerville and Arlington Minuteman bike-trail routes. Personally I thought recessing the Fitchbeurg Line completely in N. Cambridge makes more sense than creating another aerial bridge over that track like Alewife Brook Pkwy.

Watertown Branch also doesn't reach Watertown Sq. before it gets encroached by adjacent buildings, so it's nearly useless as a potential transit line. The middle section of it was abandoned in 1960 long before there were landbanking laws, so only the 1996-abandoned section between Grove and School Streets is under lock and key (Cambridge leg will be when Pan Am's ongoing abandonment filing gets approved and they broker a sale to the state). If it were still intact to the Square and the 2000-abandoned Bemis Branch on the other side, the T would've certainly purchased it in 1976 when it bought out nearly all of B&M's northside trackage. But because it was cut the line was one of only 3 or 4 lines that B&M held onto. The *original* 1940's to 1960's Red Line extension proposal ended at East Watertown/Mt. Auburn St. and proposed a Mattapan-like high-speed line running north on the Branch to Alewife and Arlington Heights. Then a later western leg of that trolley line to Watertown Carhouse and A-line transfer sometime later when it was safe to displace the freight on the then-intact Branch out of Waltham.

There's a big honking new BMW dealership blocking the ROW at School Street on the midsection that reverted back to private property. Rest of it is intact (even with 50-years-abandoned rails poking through some gravel lots) but very tight. Watertown is embarking on a very novel and ambitious plan to slowly reclaim the ROW all the way to the Square by gaining narrow easements on the industrial back lots for the trail (and snaking around the BMW dealership), then slowly flipping the industrial property over course of pressure and time for mixed-use redevelopment the length of Arsenal St. with more pedestrian-friendly storefronts. As property gets redeveloped they'll seek to widen and/or buy their easements to piece back together as much of the ROW's original double-track width and buffer as possible (and it is pretty hella wide if you walk the existing trail section) until it's been totally reclaimed. That includes eventually flipping the BMW dealership, since car dealerships tend to be pretty transient tenants that don't stay in one place for more than 20 years.

Only then...and we're literally talking 2050-ish waaaay out of range of anything predictable or knowable about how Peak Oil is going to evolve...is that going to be ripe for a possible transit line. And wide enough to maybe squeeze a rail-with-trail (possible...do walk the trail if you can because it's a lot more spacious than you'd ever think). It's not even possible to hazard a guess.

In the meantime, that's going to be a VERY GOOD trail when it connects to the Alewife/Minuteman/Somerville network. Probably similar daily usage as the Minuteman out to Arlington Ctr. because of the density, Malls, and lack of direct bus connections from Alewife to Watertown Sq. This is absolutely hands-down one of the best additions to the urban trail system save for the GLX Somerville path extension. Practically a bipedal transit line. I just hope they do finally punch a better connection through from Fresh Pond to Danehy Park and Alewife and build that footbridge because it's a frustrating and somewhat dangerous gap.



Porter...you betcha that's a much higher priority for a Green Line transfer. It would be on the docket right now if the decision to split GLX into two branches instead of one that hit Union and Medford wasn't one reached within just the last 4 years when the feasibility study ruled it impossible. By that point the project scope area was set in stone and it couldn't be tacked on. But it is the next logical addition to the Green Line in the early/mid-2020's when we turn the page on some different and hopefully well-reformed fiscal era. Easy to do. The Fitchburg Line is former 4-track width all the way to Beacon St. with exception of the newer Prospect St. bridge at Union which would need an extra hole punched underneath it. Intermediate stop at Park St./Conway Park at the grade crossing.

And at Porter it can duck under in a shallow tunnel underneath the Fitchburg tracks and platform with the roof becoming the new commuter rail trackbed. GL stub platform at the commuter rail doorway in the lobby with a slight ramp down. Then lower the CR trackbed a couple feet when the tunnel undercuts it then construct new retaining walls so it can be covered up with air rights (already studied) development out to Beacon to close that canyon gash between the two cities. Linear park, buildings, Somerville Ave. driveway to Porter Exchange, etc.

It's needed. The Red Line's growth curve demands better radial relief, ultimately more than even Red-Blue alone. The ability to go in reverse-commute direction from Harvard to transfer to Green downtown saves a ton of congestion that would otherwise be slamming the gut at Park. Arlington needs much better commute options, and being able to hop 77 to Green for those destinations enhances their access and commute time a lot. It does a ton for the Somerville Ave. corridor and diverts most people off the 83 and 87. And it links a then- fully developed Northpoint to the rest of Cambridge. File this link under inevitable. Just not till the T's successfully shaken off its immediate predicament.

[whighlander]

F-Line as usual you've "got the goods" on the technical side -- I think you are optimistic on the time frame

Assuming we have a continuing recovery transitioning into traditional levels of real growth of the economy in the next 5 years -- then there will be some funds available for expansion

However -- long before there is any consideration on the kind of projects you are describing -- I think that we will see an operating Blue Line with stations in Lynn and Salem

With the current Green Line project taking up this decade to complete -- and there being no money before at least 2016 -- and there still being the remote possibility of the South Coast CR construction starting by 2020 -- I'd put the Blue Line extension into the 2030+ time frame.

That would tend to suggest that anything in North Cambridge would be into another universe (e.g. 2050+)

[F-Line to Dudley]

F-Line as usual you've "got the goods" on the technical side -- I think you are optimistic on the time frame

Assuming we have a continuing recovery transitioning into traditional levels of real growth of the economy in the next 5 years -- then there will be some funds available for expansion

However -- long before there is any consideration on the kind of projects you are describing -- I think that we will see an operating Blue Line with stations in Lynn and Salem

With the current Green Line project taking up this decade to complete -- and there being no money before at least 2016 -- and there still being the remote possibility of the South Coast CR construction starting by 2020 -- I'd put the Blue Line extension into the 2030+ time frame.

That would tend to suggest that anything in North Cambridge would be into another universe (e.g. 2050+)

Well, considering the whole system will be one giant ghost tunnel if the powers that be don't take immediate corrective action to halt the slide it kind of is a dual choice: either they're reformed, catching up on the backlog, and paying down the debt at enough comfort level to resume system expansion in 15 years...or we don't have a system at all. The rest is just fine print to that choice. I mean, it's not like the T is the only thing that's in danger of devolving into Mad Max-land in this state's public sector if we don't get some real leadership motivated by real public interests. I'm not a total enough fatalist to think the bums won't get thrown out within that multi-decade span with all that's at stake. It's too far past the people's boiling point.


They do have to follow through on their law-mandated commitments first. GL Porter would be the first logical one to tackle after the two Blue projects because of the engineering and cost ease, because of the rigorous study history for the Porter air rights, and because STEP has been advocating this as a future consideration and demanding as ironclad requirement that Union be designed to permit later extension. These towns already have the most organized urban-core transit lobby of 'em all. They've gotten results by wanting it badder than anyone else and outlasting the indifference. STEP's not going to disband itself when these GLX segments start opening.

Hell, if Hizzoner-next is nothing but an inbred spawn of the House of Menino I'd rate their chances better than Boston's at arm-twisting a later encore.

[whighlander]

F-Line -- let's see how Sommerville fairs after the Assembly Sq. and Union Sq. projects have been running for a few years

Those are the real test cases for the concept of Transit Oriented Development:
1) Union Sq. because its an existing urban core previously served by rail with quite a bit of re-development potential
2) Assembly Sq. -- because its in effect a clean-sheet design

If those work out well -- then we'll see what can be done at Porter which is still a mostly wide place in Mass Ave north of Haaaaaahvd

[found5dollar]

http://www.medfordgreenline.org/?p=460

notes from a meeting about Phase 1. most excitign part is:

"The goal is to award a Phase I construction contract in summer, with work starting in the fall. It is estimated that the Phase I work will take 18 months to complete."

[Shepard]

Phase I includes the reconstruction of the rail bridge over Harvard Street in Medford and the rail bridge over Medford Street in Somerville, and the demolition of an MBTA building at 21 Water St. in Cambridge near the site of the new Lechmere Station.

18 months to complete two bridges?? I recall something else recently happening in the area ... oh right:

Each bridge [14 total] is slated to be closed, demolished, rebuilt, and ready for traffic in a single 55-hour span, a choreographed sprint involving 100 construction workers and a battery of heavy equipment.

Priorities, priorities, priorities...

[BostonObserver]

I wish they could fast track this and get construction started this summer.

[nico]

What will happen to the elevated portion that runs over the highway to the current Lechmere station? I remember when the elevated came down at NS. The whole area immediately looked dead. I like the look/character of the current green steel - could this section be used for pedestrians/cyclists?

[BostonUrbEx]

What will happen to the elevated portion that runs over the highway to the current Lechmere station? I remember when the elevated came down at NS. The whole area immediately looked dead. I like the look/character of the current green steel - could this section be used for pedestrians/cyclists?

The only thing that's coming down is the part that crosses over the road. They're actually lengthening the elevated.

[F-Line to Dudley]

18 months to complete two bridges?? I recall something else recently happening in the area ... oh right:



Priorities, priorities, priorities...

Especially 2 bridges that have abutments pre-built for 4-track decks. This is literally slapping on the overhead steel on both and doing mop-up work. If they prep the abutments ahead of time, they could knock each off in 2 weekends. This is comparatively simpler than the Fairmount Line deck replacements that were done 2 months ago over a weekend because the existing decks on each do not need replacement.

The drainage, retaining wall, and track-shifting work around Harvard St. is understandable. But they do that stuff on the commuter rail all the time on culverts. Plenty of that type of construction work ongoing right now with the Fitchburg and Haverhill improvements.

I agree...I don't get it why this initial prep work is an 18-month deal when it's confined to 2 small locations not needing total rebuild and so many other similarly mundane projects beat the pants off this timetable.


One thing that may help out here is the Obama Admin's recent order for expediting EIS approvals on rail projects, specifically the NEC movable bridge replacements in NY, NJ, and CT. In addition to speeding things up quite a bit, that has potential to significantly defray the costs of some of the daunting NEC projects like the Portal Bridge in NJ, Connecticut River bridge, etc. If the test cases work out smoothly, then this program can be expanded to include other rail projects and highway projects on the expedited bridge fund backlog. Eyes-on-prize reason they're doing it is so EIS's on megaprojects like the Baltimore tunnel replacement and the Gateway Tunnel to NYC can corral the cost on their $B's price tag and be just a little less controversially fundable. But it dovetails with the whole infrastructure renewal effort Obama is promoting (if not exactly funding), so it's the repair list where it'll ultimately hit biggest paydirt...rail and road. The bureaucracy has simply gotten too out-of-hand on ROW's where construction fully on the footprint of a roadbed that's been there for 100+ years takes almost as maddening an approval process as if they mowing down fresh wetlands.

If it takes off it'll significantly help some MBTA projects like the Merrimack River Bridge in the shortest term (that may even make it into the test trials), and the Eastern Route movable bridges that are all deathtraps waiting to keel over at any moment. And most definitely GLX if the program expands. I wouldn't exactly expect the price tag to go down if the expedited review comes to this project--it never does--but they'll be in much better position to hold the line on budget and schedule to not risk nuclear war by delaying it a few more years. So maybe that's behind some of the timidly conservative projections for the early work. I'd watch and see how this plays out on the NEC where it's being trialed, and possibly the Merrimack bridge which may be added to the trial. If it works out well without any major snafus or untenable opposition, the feds will most certainly expand it as far as they can get away with. That might actually give the T some hope of getting more shit done with less endless inflation and mission creep on its repair and obligations list.


(Still think this is overly timid after the dynamite job they did with bridges on 93, the NEC in Hyde Park, and Fairmount within the last 9 months. They can pick up the pace quite a bit more than this.)

[BostonObserver]

Are two tracks enough for future commuter and Amtrak growth?

[vanshnookenraggen]

Yeah. I mean Amtrak service north of the city is so sparse that even with expanded service they will have enough options. If push comes to shove then they can be rerouted via the Wildcat branch.

[Ron Newman]

Amtrak is already routed via the Wildcat branch

[BostonUrbEx]

Are two tracks enough for future commuter and Amtrak growth?

I'd say definitely for a long time. When it comes to routing more (or potentially all) Haverhill trains via the Wildcat and Lowell Line, then triple tracking probably becomes necessary, and/or a North-South rail-link, meaning a big jump in any service the Downeaster alone would ever see. They might be able to stick in some passing sidings, but could probably get away with just tripling between Anderson-Woburn and the Wilmington Junction.

I think that short-term, the only capacity necessary is doubling the Wildcat. I can't imagine needing to triple track the line from BET to Medford for a longggg time, when something major happens.

[F-Line to Dudley]

Are two tracks enough for future commuter and Amtrak growth?

No station stops, freight sidings, or junctions the whole length of where it parallels GLX so everything speeds on through without congestion. It's not like the NEC where there's 2 branchline junctions, a large freight yard, a large MBTA storage yard, and close-spaced transfer stops like Back Bay and Ruggles all before ever exiting City of Boston. That needs 3+ tracks to sort everything out. 2-track's more than enough for a long full-speed straightaway like the Lowell Line en route to the 'burbs.

Presumably if rapid transit is ever extended north of Route 16 on the former 4-track berths like the 1945 proposal to Woburn (http://www.jefftk.com/files/1945_mbta_expansion_diagram.jpg), then it cannibalizes every CR stop it touches and flips them to the rapid-transit side while CR runs straight through and doesn't hit its first stop until the last stop on rapid transit (Anderson/Woburn if rapid transit goes 100% built out to 128).


Pokey current speeds aren't at all indicative of what the Lowell Line can do. Resignaled with Positive Train Control that's an instant 80 MPH line instead of the 60 northbound/50 southbound it currently is. Future-upgraded to full Amtrak NEC branchline standards it can do 90-110 MPH like the Keystone and Empire Corridors, and may have done that fast back in first half of the 20th century when speed limits were less restricted. As recently as 1980 it handled 3 full-time CR branches: Haverhill (all trains went via Wilmington, not Reading), Concord via Lowell, and short-turns to Woburn Center on the old Woburn Branch. Plus a planned 4th branch to Route 213/Methuen via Lawrence that was cut from the budget in 1981 months before it was set to begin. The only traffic bottleneck out to Wilmington is the awful pair of West Medford grade crossings, the last remaining on the line and next-highest priority crossing elimination project in the state after the Framingham and Ashland pairs on the Worcester Line.

It can pretty much handle as many locals or intercity trains as you can throw at it if the signaling and track class matched desired service levels. Especially if there was some plan set in molasses-slow motion to do away with the West Medford grade crossings within 15-20 years (it's one of the last ones so bad it has to have a staffed crossing tender). Only question is whether on 2035-40 time scales the traffic's going to hit critical enough mass to flip those inside-128 stops to rapid transit a la the '45 plan. Be it a light rail extended GLX or a heavy rail swap-out for an Orange Line Branch, Blue Line wraparound via Charles, or new Red Line trunk off Columbia Jct. and the N-S Link. It is 4-track width all the way to Wilmington save for these few more recent bridges that penny-pinched narrower decks. Its capacity will never be as low as it is now because nothing will cannibalize the existing tracks and the absurdly low speed limits and crappy signaling are on the FY2016 unfunded mandates for state-of-good-repair replacement.

[whighlander]

I agree...I don't get it why this initial prep work is an 18-month deal when it's confined to 2 small locations not needing total rebuild and so many other similarly mundane projects beat the pants off this timetable....One thing that may help out here is the Obama Admin's recent order for expediting EIS approvals on rail projects, specifically the NEC movable bridge replacements in NY, NJ, and CT. In addition to speeding things up quite a bit, that has potential to significantly defray the costs of some of the daunting NEC projects like the Portal Bridge in NJ, Connecticut River bridge, etc....The bureaucracy has simply gotten too out-of-hand on ROW's where construction fully on the footprint of a roadbed that's been there for 100+ years takes almost as maddening an approval process as if they mowing down fresh wetlands.... I wouldn't exactly expect the price tag to go down if the expedited review comes to this project--it never does--but they'll be in much better position to hold the line on budget and schedule to not risk nuclear war by delaying it a few more years. So maybe that's behind some of the timidly conservative projections for the early work.....)

F-Line --- the ultimate saving grace is the expected end of Davis-Bacon in the next Congress / Administration -- getting rid of that union sinecure will allow true competitive bidding on construction as firms without all the Union BS can participate

I would also expect severe review of all the EPA and other barriers to efficient and rapid construction -- the trade off will be there a lot less Federal money will be flowing as the Feds really will be cutting not just cutting rate of growth -- so the states and cities will have to find a different approach to building infrastructure -- such as getting a private investor to pay for construction in exchange for air rights or ROW land use