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Cambridge, Somerville officials pledge more money towards Green Line Extension
By adamg on Thu, 05/05/2016 - 11:19pm
The Cambridge Civic Journal has the statement from Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone and Cambridge City Manager Richard Rossi for a pledge of $75 million - $50 million from Somerville and $25 million from Cambridge - toward the cost of building the Green Line Extension from Lechmere towards Medford:
Despite the fact that our cities bear no responsibility for the cost overruns that brought the GLX to this moment of crisis, we will seek to support the Commonwealth by expanding our cost-sharing role. The Green Line is that important to our communities, our region, and our state.
The Cambridge share would include money committed by the developers of the North Point project. The new sums would be in addition to the millions already spent by Somerville and the North Point developers.
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Comments
That'll buy what, 100' of
That'll buy what, 100' of track?
Depends on how gouge happy
Depends on how gouge happy the contractors are on a given day.
or how gauge happy
*wink*
or
PR and goodwill - that the T certainly doesn't have these days. Somerville and Cambridge are stepping up a bit - maybe the T should as well.
Marketing 101.
Spitballin' here
They could send out a team of red-light enforcement cops a couple times a week and raise a ton of money.
Somerville will just double
Somerville will just double down on parking enforcement.
Exactly. Or they could really
Exactly. Or they could really turn on the taps by hitting up local universities with big endowments to pitch in.
Universities?
Or university, since there's only one near the route?
To be fair, the biggest of the big-name universities, yes, the Big H itself, has already committed to paying a third of the cost of the West Station the Patrick administration promised in Allston (part of the problem being that BU doesn't want to make a similar contribution unless the state agrees to keep cars from driving by or through its campus).
Will Baker extort all cities
Will Baker extort all cities for continuing transportation projects? I dont remember Hingham having to fork over extra money when their commuter rail went over budget. Will Fall River and New Bedford be extorted to keep that project going?
Leverage difference
Somerville and Cambridge want this to be built. At the time, it looked like the annoying people of Hingham wanted the Greenbush to stop before it started, so trying to get money from the town would have meant the end of the line, so to speak.
Yeah, this will help pay for
Yeah, this will help pay for the BILLION DOLLAR overrun.
If you read the fine print, you'll find that included in that overrun were things like bike paths and gold plated stations.
Not bike paths. An elevated
Not bike paths. An elevated bicycle freeway, which not only cost way too much, but also ensured that it provided no access to adjacent destinations.
Community path with ALOT of access
It's a path for everyone to walk, run, or bike. The elevated section is over a huge train track switching area, and is the most direct route for safe passage. Also, it's a part of the design of the whole project, and has been since the beginning. So many people want this, and would benfit from it in the future, it's an absence of logic and conscience to do away with it. The quality of life of our city will be improved by having a method to commute and get exercise thats safely away from cars and trucks. People are riding bikes more and more every single year, and we need something to accomodate that.
These consultants have no idea how to build a safe bike path for a larger community. The budget estimate methods are completely illogical, the revised plan was unsafe, crossing many streets, and the construction ideas were shortsighted and immature.
Look at the friends of the community path plan. It's 50% cheaper than the revised plan, and gets the safe, straight, accessible path that we need as a modern active city.
It's uses modern prefab construction techniques, and doesn't need a bespoke bridge.
We should all remember that the construction and concrete businesses are just the legal side of the old fashioned organized crime syndicate.
Why else would the "estimate" go from 2 billion to 3 billion before barely any work was done? Because i1 billion was in the contract for overages, so the construction companies applied for it. It's legal blackmail. "Pay us or you don't get a project"
Why is the big dig concrete falling apart 10 years later? Charge for the good stuff, use the cheap stuff, pocket the rest.
There cannot be accountability for the financing unless the budget is controlled from the top, with the the general contractor being the state, and inside agencies running the work. Too bad there's no staff to do that, and they're all working at the edge of their knowledge.