Boston Magazine reports on a meeting today of the MassDOT and MBTA fiscal control boards at which consultants urged officials to toss the current bid, which has ballooned in cost and seek new bids for a system with smaller stations, a more modest trolley-repair facility and a different track alignment.
CommonWealth reports MassDOT claims attorney/client privilege, not because the state is going to sue any contractors, but because the contractors might sue the state.
WBUR breaks it down and explains how the main contractor on the project learned to use the system to maximize its profits. Jon Keller notes that contractor was also involved in our other favorite bloated infrastructure project.
News that the MBTA is canceling contracts for art on the Green Line extension - and on the Fairmount Line - got artist Elisa H. Hamilton to thinking on how art in Red Line stations helped shape her as an artist, and what the loss of the proposed art means:
Public transportation is one of the great equalizers here in the Commonwealth - the artwork created for our MBTA stations is not only meant to beautify, but also to create a sense of place for people in every walk of life. The decisions we make now in renovating and rebuilding our MBTA stations will impact our communities for a very long time. Art in MBTA stations gives an otherwise utilitarian space a sense of soul, a sense of color, culture, and life, a sense of the communities that these stations represent and serve. It fosters a tremendous sense of community ownership - every time T riders see this art, it says to them, "you are home."
The Herald reports state officials now think extending the Green Line through Somerville might cost upwards of $3 billion - and the federal government has only committed to $1 billion of that, and might take that away if state officials can't figure out how to pay for the rest, which apparently they're have trouble doing.
Stephanie forwards this rendering of one of the trolleys the T will buy for the Green Line Extension from CAF, a Spanish company that will assemble the cars in Elmira, NY and which promises "prime performance and first-rate passenger comfort," so presumably they'll be able to get up Comm. Ave. and not fall off the tracks and stuff.
Well, the current estimated cost, at any rate. Boston Magazine reports on the billion-dollar federal commitment.
The Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership provides the good news/bad news update on extending the Green Line through Somerville: The good news is that design work for the Lechmere, Washington Street and Union Square stations is now 90% done. The bad news is that several more months have been added to the schedule for actually running trains to those stations.
To go with the simulation of riding a trolley on the new end of the Green Line, MassDOT has created this simulation of riding a bike (or walking really quickly) along the 2-mile community path it's planning.
Via Somerville Voices.
Hess trains?
The state Department of Transportation today approved an average 5% increase in T fares, starting in July. The Globe has details.
The department also voted to spend $118 million - half to come from the feds - to buy 24 new Green Line cars in anticipation of the opening of the Green Line Extension one of these years.
State officials today announced a 2-mile "community path" from Lechmere to Lowell Street, alongside the Green Line extension, will be fully complete by the time the Green Line extension opens, whenever that is (the latest estimate is 2020).
Construction is already well underway on the segment between Cedar and Lowell streets; state officials say that part of the path should be ready for use this fall.
The final cost of the walking and bicycle path is set at $39 million, half of which will be paid for with federal funds.
Ken Krause videoed a video by a planner for the Green Line Extension project at a community meeting in Medford last night.
H/t Greg Hum.
The Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership has posted this video along with other photos and renderings of the proposed stops along the fabled Green Line extension.
Granted, it was made of paper, but no matter: Local residents and officials held a mock groundbreaking tonight for the Green Line extension, now scheduled to arrive in Somerville sometime over the next century or so. The Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership posts photos.
Similarly to Mayor Joe Curtatone's promise of not taking the news of the Green Line delay "lying down," the Board of Alderman submitted their own resolutions and orders this week surrounding the announcement that has stirred much emotion throughout the city.
Paul McMorrow explains the rock and the hard place: On the one hand, the T is legally required to extend the Green Line to Somerville and Medford, at a cost now approaching $1 billion. On the other hand, shaky finances and any construction delays could jeopardize $760 million in federal funding for the project, leaving the state to figure out how to make up the difference.
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 construction 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 Friends of the Community Path are having their monthly meeting this Thursday evening. Come out if you can! The group is advocating for the proposed multi-use path from Somerville to Lechmere station along the new green line extension right-of-way. The info is below:
Thursday, January 13, 2011 - 7:00 to 9:00 pm
Visiting Nurse Association (VNA)
259 Lowell St., 3rd Floor Community Room
Somerville, MA 02144
Please check out this sight on a better alternative to the GLX proposal and saving $705 Million in the process. The Green Line Revisited.
I've done up a multi-page web site on an alternative to the proposed Green Line extension into Somerville and Medford. I'd like to get some feedback, and/or otherwise promote it. The alternative isn't dissing the use of the Green Line, merely making better use of it than the GLX will do. The current price tag for the GLX is a mind boggling, highly exorbitant expenditure for a short extension of a light rail tram in an already owned rail corridor.
There are no words to describe the size of the ripoff that is the GLX. For $10 billion the Swiss bore TWO tunnels, each 30' wide and 35 miles long, yes, 35 MILES, through the mountains, TWO of em. The price tag actually includes another 24 miles of connecting and support tunnels. The tunnels are sized for HIGH SPEED trains to be traveling at well over 160 miles an hour (which is the minimum in the EU for high speed rail).
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