Workers on Tuesday will begin putting down stripes on Charles River Dam Road in preparation for bus-only lanes for the buses that will replace the Green Line between North Station and Lechmere for a year while parts of the current Lechmere Viaduct is torn down and then moved as part of the Green Line Extension into Somerville. Read more.
The MBTA announced this morning it's cancelled meetings tonight on the Better Bus Project at the Bolling Building in Roxbury, the Green Line Extension at the Multicultural Arts Center in Cambridge and a "public engagement" meeting at the Framingham Public Library, "out of an abundance of caution" over, well, you can guess what.
Tim Murphy got a bird's eye view of the work on the Green Line Extension at Lechmere:
Lechmere Station taking shape. In this “Dissected” style view, you can see what will become the center island platform with the eastbound track to the right and the westbound on the left.
Ted took some photos of progress on the Green Line Extension past Lechmere, including construction of the flyover for the branch to and from Union Square in Somerville. Read more.
An equipment malfunction at a Green Line Extension project in Somerville has forced the T to cancel all service on the Lowell Line between Anderson/Woburn and North Station today, MassDOT reports. Read more.
Jay K shows us the remains of what had been the last standing parts of the Homans Building, knocked over this morning to make way for construciton of the Gilman Square station on the new addition to the Green Line and an adjacent power substation. Read more.
Roving UHub photographer Rachel Mello watched workers carefully remove a concrete lion from the old Homans Building in Somerville, which is being torn down to make way for the Gilman Square station on the Green Line Extension. Read more.
But this time they really, really mean it, and before you know it, people will be riding the Green Line hard from Union Square and other points west of Lechmere, they say.
State transportation planners working on the long delayed plans to extend the Green Line past Lechmere will recommend next week that the MBTA hire a consortium of companies to do the work, at a potential cost of no more than $1.1 billion - on top of what the state's already spent on the work. Read more.
The Globe reports the $1 billion in federal funding is safe.
What decade is it supposed to be running again?
Of course, he doesn't come cheap, but at least maybe now the feds will stop fretting about they were thinking of throwing our way for the project.
US Rep. Mike Capuano reports the Federal Transit Administration has given tentative OK to the state's plans for cheaper stations and other reductions along the proposed Green Line extension from Lechmere into Somerville and Medford - but with a caveat that has to be addressed by year's end, or $1 billion in federal money could disappear and get spent in some other state: Read more.
WBUR reports a federal muckymuck says simpler, less expensive plans for the Green Line Extension seem OK with her.
Federal approval is vital since without it, we'll lose roughly $1 billion in money for the extension. Of course, the state is still playing the Dread Pirate Roberts role - "Good night, Green Line Extension, good work, sleep well, I'll most likely kill you in the morning."
Ball Square proposal, then and now. See it larger.
MBTA and MassDOT staff today presented plans for a $2.3-billion Green Line Extension that would keep the originally planned seven stations but would eliminate amenities such as fully enclosed waiting rooms, escalators and, at several stations, elevators and stairs. Read more.
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: Read more.
Meme created by Kristin MacDougall.
Wicked Local Somerville reports the city of Somerville is planning on spending $25,000 to $35,000 to hire a PR company to push back against the nay-saying nellies at the state:
As state officials consider cutting the Green Line Extension, Somerville is hiring a PR firm to promote the project via placed interviews and op-eds, Reddit Ask Me Anything forums and "memes."
CommonWealth reports on the report, which says T officials should have known in 2013 the costs for the stalled project were out of control:
The transit agency had no in-house expertise to rein in the out-of-control costs and relied too heavily on an inexperienced private sector project manager for estimates that were constantly and significantly below the contractor’s estimates.
We only get one Big Dig, state declares: MassDOT and the board that now runs the T agreed today that they're not going to pay any more for the Green Line Extension than the state's already committed to, so if the project's costs can't be shrunk by a billion dollars or so, it's dead, unless "other sources" come up with the extra money, and by "other sources" they mean cities that really want the thing (both of them), landowners and developers that would benefit from being right on the proposed line.
The state announced today it's canceling all its contracts with the major contractors on the Green Line Extension through Somerville and Medford and will try to re-bid the project.
The project is not completely dead yet, however: Some construction work will continue and the emergency board that now runs the T is appointing an interim project manager to try to pick up the pieces and get the Green Line to somehow run north of Lechmere one of these years. Read more.
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