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Maybe they can drill some holes in the floor
By adamg on Sun, 09/07/2014 - 8:22pm
It poured, man it poured, in Somerville yesterday and once again, the new Assembly Orange Line station flooded. Or as Michael Femia, who captured the station apres deluge put it:
This is what a brand new multi million dollar MBTA stop looks like.
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Union Construction at its finest!
Don't worry everyone, I'm sure it was built for a fair price.
Except that they are from New Hampshire.
As another anonamid noted at the top of the last thread about this.
http://srconstructionent.com/projects
New Hampshire is a 'right to work' state and they first began their career here in 1998.
What administration was deciding these things then?
NH is not RtW
New Hampshire is not a right to work state. They have tried repeatedly to pass the bill here but it fails each time.
You're right.
The thing did pass in 2011 but Lynch the Gov vetoed it and they couldn't muster an over ride.
Thanks.
Now we need to get rid of all those useless up votes I ended up with. The mediocrity of the contractor will await some other explanation, not that mine was any prize.
Because Massachusetts
You're welcome.
Hahahahaha!
Nice shorthand.
calling sokolove law firm
In another couple of months the platform will freeze and the lawsuits will commence when passengers slip on the icy platforms
I'm surprised it's the T
Usually it is the wealthy private sector who are the "job creators" so it's nice to see a public entity creating jobs for the suffering squeegee sector.
How was this flaw not noticed
How was this flaw not noticed during the many rainstorms over the course of the station's construction?
They'd melt
You think they actually worked when it was raining?
What makes you think it wasn't noticed then?
Main difference is that there was no public access, or reporting during construction.
Water flows downhill. A 2%
Water flows downhill. A 2% slope, how tough is that?
Whose stamp is on those drawings?
Sort of
There is designing, detailing, and stamping of drawings.
Then there is actual construction (there are some legal paperwork things to get this ball rolling, too, including permitting), including Observation. Then there is punchlisting. Then there is Certificate of Substantial Completion. Then there is issuance of the Final Affidavit. Contractual language defines who provides this latter paperwork.
Sometimes the Client takes things out of the Design Team's hands. And if the Designer was smart there are exceptions to the Final Affidavit, including but not limited to slope of concrete work if necessary.
It's possible the concrete work was crap, the Design Team noticed but was overridden in the interest of getting the project completed on time. Who knows?
As you can see, there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes that not everyone is privy to.
Not just the T
Whenever I see shiny new roads and sidewalks these days, I see surfaces that aren't designed or constructed properly to drain.
It is as if those who build things around here have lost their ability to understand DRAINAGE.
Not just this platform - everywhere! It isn't rocket science!
So true. City of Somerville
So true. City of Somerville contractors put in new ADA approved sidewalks in front of my house a year ago. After one winter, the concrete is already pitting and crumbling. A few of the neighbors complained to the city but got no traction in getting the work re-done.
DRAINAGE!
Send them to Seattle
..for a tutorial.
Drain subtleties tend to be a fairly minor thought element here, but inept drain field work out there can cause destructive landslides.
This looks like some kind of contraction problem with the concrete curing to make a concave basin where a convex rise was wanted.
I suppose they could make some notches as a drain channel, but still.
As a civil engineer who does
As a civil engineer who does design work for roadway reconstruction projects around eastern Mass, I have to argue with you on that. Our priorities in design are: 1) accessibility, 2) drainage.
Design is done with a 3D surface, and every element is designed with drainage in mind (I.e. ensuring every surface, including all sidewalks and ramps, slopes toward a catch basin). Multiple people check to ensure things drain properly.
We most certainly do understand drainage. The issue is either shoddy construction or things in the field changing over time. Sidewalks settle, tree roots shift them, utility companies tear them up and then hastily redo them, etc.
Don't blame the design.
I'm not excusing Assembly though. That really does seem to be a design flaw.
Um, Derp?
I think you need to re-read
I think you need to re-read the post I was replying to. He was complaining that sidewalks aren't designed to drain properly, to which I countered yes they are, don't blame the design.
The two sentences you quoted from my comment were referring to different things. I guess I should have been more explicit, but I thought that was a given based on reading the rest of my comment. You probably didn't do that though.
If the design didn't take
If the design didn't take into account the possibility of sidewalks settling or tree roots growing, isn't that a design flaw?
No, because it does take them
No, because it does take them into account, but you can only do so much about that. We can't get rid of all the trees adjacent to the sidewalk, and so tree roots are inevitably going to affect the sidewalk. Concrete is concrete. You can't make it indestructible.
I'm really curious how you would prevent sidewalk elements from settling unevenly and tree roots from impacting them, because that's a problem engineers have struggled with for decades, and if you have it solved I'm sure the entire profession would love to hear!
Actually, when I re-read the
Actually, when I re-read the post you were replying to, I note that the original poster was referring to drainage issues on "shiny new" sidewalks. So that's a different issue than building a sidewalk and having a tree root burst through 10 or 20 years later. Same with settling. If there are drainage issues while the installation still appears "shiny" and "new" to a layman observer, that suggests that the problems are not simply age-related. And if the settling occurs while the sidewalk is still brand-new, that does, indeed, suggest to me (as a layman) that something was not taken into account that should have been.
On the other hand, if you want to argue that the design was appropriate but the execution was incompetent, I'd find that extremely easy to believe, but it really doesn't make much difference to the end user.
But the problem with the
But the problem with the sidewalks I've seen and had to walk through is that they're graded slightly to dump water into the side of the road and the road is also graded to dump water to its sides, so water collects on the side of the road -- but there's almost never any drains or the storm pipes are always at capacity and so the result is invariably a massive puddle of water or ice slick where the Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnibenevolent Traffic Engineer expects pedestrians to cross the street.
Perhaps if the environmental mafia
weren't so increasingly paranoid about "Water runoff? OMG, we can't have that - because the ground woud actually get wet.", then we'd actually have real storm drains and piping systems that work.
I suspect such "environmental concerns" are the reason that the new Assembly Station has already proven to be such a fail in rainstorms.
I think you are the one who needs to reread that comment, DTP
Design and construction are both clearly mentioned.
Get over yourself.
Yes, because the people
..who designed this http://youtu.be/M3bDftstN2Q should never, ever have to face criticism from the public stuck with using it.
More engineers in orange brassieres.
My parents street in
My parents street in Cambridge was redone a few years ago (utilities, then total repaving of street and sidewalk, with raised crosswalks), and it seemed like every driveway on their side had a pool in it when it rained. The raised sidewalk at the corner was installed with one side ending up six inches higher than the curb it was meeting. My mother called the city incessantly until the crew redid it. I was shocked that a crew could finish that mess and leave it without feeling like total garbage about their work.
Help in the UHub ads
I get a basement waterproofing ad when reading this item.
Oh?
I'm getting life insurance ads. I can earn $500,000 just by dying.
Maybe the Internet gods are telling me that I'd better stay away from the Assembly Square station when it's cold enough for ice to form.
im srry
Im srry but thats not what a brand new multi million dollar MBTA stop looks like.....thats pretty and bad pretty bad
Give them a break
Who could have predicted that it might rain in Boston, especially in fall?
WORLD CLASS, BABY!!
Bring on the Olympics!
If this is indicative of the kind of municipal construction that goes on in the Boston area (and I think it is), we are definitely the right place for the Olympics.
Imagine the fun and excitement of events that have to be postponed resulting from bad construction. I'm sure that the people who fly in from all over the world to see the games would love that.
Par For The Course
Actually after the last Olympics and World Cup I think people would feel right at home dealing with the results of bad construction.
Here is an example of their early work.
Ashland Station https://flic.kr/p/p8g3DM is like a conversion of crap. The materials specs involve steel that corrodes readily while the drain grades are only too eager to convey the saline slurry of winter slush through the system.
And the concrete work is no prize. I'll probably be out there Wednesday and will come back with mess details.
Framingham Station. https://flic.kr/p/p8ehXh has steel that is better at resisting corrosion and is generally holding up better.
Oddly, that work was handled by a different outfit.
Kenmore bus depot
I haven't had to use it for a few years but I remember thinking "who the hell designed this?" Kind of a cool look but in terms of actually sheltering anyone from wind, rain or snow it was pretty much a zero. Sometimes you just wonder how these things happen.
Simple
Because the people overseeing the design of projects like the Kenmore Bus Shelter are more concerned with aesthetics than they are with functionality.
This post, and the comments
This post, and the comments that have ensued, are totally U-Hub. I love it!
Don't kill the job!
Don't kill the job boyos! Keep slapping that concrete into forms and level it off with a Dunkin Donuts cup.