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Feds to give MBTA $66 million for Symphony upgrade
By adamg on Wed, 12/21/2022 - 11:43am
The MBTA reports the Federal Transit Administration will pay $66 million towards bringing Symphony on the Green Line into the 21st century.
This discretionary federal funding will allow for the construction of four new elevators, step-free pathways, accessible single-stall bathrooms, improved wayfinding and lighting elements, upgraded safety features, and raised platforms for easier boarding of trains.
Although the T will begin relocating utility lines next year in preparation for the overhaul, the main upgrade work will start in 2024.
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Comments
Hynes please?
Much busier than Symphony, and flagrantly inaccessible.
Parcel 13 project will do
Parcel 13 project will do that
https://www.mbta.com/projects
https://www.mbta.com/projects/hynes-station-accessibility-improvements
Not Parcel 12?
I could have sworn the renders included a headhouse in that little plaza area between the 2 buildings... but I'm not sure if it'd be accessible. Would be stupid to not have included that.
Parcel 12 Head House
It will connect to a long closed tunnel under Mass Ave, which in turn connects to the Hynes mezzanine. But the mezzanine itself does not have an accessible route to the platform level. My understanding of current and recent parcel 13 proposals is that they will be able to create an accessible entrance directly to the platform level, as part of the building will be above that area. But there is no timeline for this.
2028 or 2029?
With the inevitable construction delays, I predict a 2028/2029 project completion date.
You're an optimist
2028/2029 sounds optimistic
Eye popping amount
One station. 4 Elevators and a few other things. (Although raising platform sounds big). Seventy MILLION dollars. $70,000,000.
I don’t have the energy to break it out per capita or vs tax revenue, but generally it seems another reason we’re doomed as a society when renovating one subway station is nearly $100,000,000.
Exactly
Others have done comparisons of the cost to add/renovate public transit internationally and the US is vastly more expensive than our Western peers.
There are multitudes of reasons, but it really shouldn't cost these astronautical sums. I'm particularly critical of government (every level) procurement policies that keep tacking on well-meaning but costly stipulations.
One could argue the money is worth it if the projects built lasted 50-100 years. But everything the MBTA builds ends up falling apart within 20 years.
Seriously! Almost $200,000
Seriously! Almost $200,000,000?! I can't believe they're spending nearly a BILLION dollars on this! One T station and it costs close to $1,000,000,000,000??!?
Project page
is here: https://www.mbta.com/projects/symphony-station-accessibility-improvements
What should it cost for this scope of work?
This is the Green Line
You can't have raised platforms on the Green Line. All Green Line cars require low platforms.
In San Francisco in the early 1980s, MUNI was running a version of Boeing's LRV that had moveable steps, so they could use high platforms in the Market Street subway.
But no MBTA Green Line car has ever had such a feature. They all require low platforms.
If you watch the video in the
If you watch the video in the link that brianjdamico posted above, it's a little more clear. These aren't raised platforms like at a commuter rail stop. They're just raising the floor a few inches to make it level with the doors of the cars, so you don't have to step up to get on.
Yes, I see now.
Not high platforms, but something more like the platforms at Park Street,
Yes - they've been updating
Yes - they've been updating station platforms (gradually) for years.
So...
They're going to skip over the 20th century altogether and bring it right into the 21st? :-)
Yup!
I think it's money well spent. I wish the T could afford to update every station. Boylston Station on the Green Line definitely needs an upgrade.
There's an extra few feet of
There's an extra few feet of tape wrapped around that.
If I recall correctly and I'm not mixing stories (a big IF), Boylston was one of the two Green Line stations always mentioned in the context of historic landmark status and extra regulatory issues. I forget if was Boylston & Arlington or Boylston & Copley - maybe Arlington. People would ask and ask "why only stairs?" and the answer was that the historic station couldn't be altered, etc...
They finally got somewhere with one station by adding elevator(s) away from the existing street entrances & staircases and only needing comparatively minor changes underground to connect the elevator to the token booth area or platform.
Boylston would probably be more of a challenge due to even more limited space - the island platforms have track on both sides and an access path from an elevator off to the side would have issues (not insurmountable) crossing to the platform, or dropping an elevator to existing platform would be a major strike against preservation of the existing structure.