Groan:
In other developments, transportation officials at the meeting revealed that the completion date of the Green Line extension appears likely to be pushed back again.
Officials do not have an estimate for when the extension could be completed. But state transportation officials acknowledged the project is unlikely to meet its latest timeline, which called for some stations to open by 2017.
via Green Line extension likely to be pushed back yet again – The Boston Globe.
Well, at least MOAR Green Line is kind of a mixed blessing anyway, right? *shows self out*
All recent evidence seems to say that when we have a big project to do, we really have no idea how much it’s going to cost. Look, you can argue your Pacheco Law and nouveau contracting processes and reform-before-whatever … but it’s just hard/impossible to run a transit system, or anything in government, if the real costs of implementation are just that insanely far from original estimates.
Where and from whom did we get the original estimates from? What methodology? Did we get a second opinion then? Did we pay for a blue-ribbon hotshot consultancy report? Great that we get one now — how about back then? Have we done the off-with-their-heads for project management that Jim Aloisi suggested in August? Who replaces them?
And because of this, even an eminently sensible idea like the North-South rail link can take on a disreputable air, once dollar figures are tossed around: $2-4 billion? Who can say that’s what it’ll cost?
Just like with casinos (see below), it’s our own infrastructure Casino Culture. You could be a winner! Or not! You pays your money and you takes your chances. Do you feel lucky?
I think we’re watching Charlie Baker and Bob DeLeo kill the Green Line.
These are the actions of management looking to find a way to kill a project, rather than make it succeed. When there is NO leadership at the top emphasizing why it’s needed, what it needs to accomplish, and when it needs to do so, the project will fail.
Mr. DeLeo has wanted to kill the MBTA all along. He has found an ally in Mr. Baker. What we’re seeing is today’s chapter in how they accomplish the feat.
Cutting off heads seldom accomplishes nearly as much setting high standards and rewarding success. The cited piece by Jim Aloisi joins the deception of Charlie Baker and Bob DeLeo — any time somebody like Mr. Aloisi writes “I don’t want to relitigate the Green Line Extension”, you know that’s exactly what they are about to do. Mr. Aloisi has never been a friend of the MBTA.
With this kind of noise, especially from Mr. Aloisi, I won’t be surprised if the next step is to build “special” buses painted green and call it “Done”.
Not that it matters, but I think you’re totally wrong about Aloisi. He’s the guy who stuck his neck out the farthest in the old “reform vs revenue” battles a few years back, floated a mileage surcharge to pay for roads, etc. I don’t know who you’re thinking of. And keep in mind that Stephanie Pollock was one of the people responsible for the idea of the extension to begin with.
I take Baker and DeLeo at their word: that they don’t want to raise taxes. And if you don’t know how much you’re paying for a project, that unfortunately strengthens their case. We don’t know what we’re doing.
In any event, the extension is required by law and has to happen. The idea of abandoning it is pure bluster.
I, too, take Mr. Baker and Mr. DeLeo at their word regarding taxes. That’s why I see this as another step towards killing the project. Mr. DeLeo opposes both raising fares (so do I!) and increasing MBTA funding. When you don’t raise funding and you block fare increases, the inevitable result is that service continues to degrade.
I have a different recollection of Mr. Aloisi’s history, both before and after being appointed Secretary of Transportation (replacing Daniel Grabauskas in 2009). Governor Patrick had many strengths. In my view, the quality of his appointments is not among them.
I’ve been watching skilled administrators kill projects that were “absolutely required” for decades. In my view, depending on bromides like it’s “required by law” and “has to happen” is a prescription for failure.
In my view, it has been clear for years — if not decades — that Massachusetts government (both Democratic and Republican) have prioritized cutting taxes over providing sustainable public transportation. Both Democrats and Republicans alike have been trying to kill the MBTA for as long as I remember. I remember the “temporary” closing of the E line “for repairs”. I remember all the assurances that it would be reopened. I remember the litany of excuses about “unexpected costs” that made the closing permanent.
I view this as one more step towards that goal.
The problem is another – there are no funds readily available to cover the cost overrun; thus, costs must come down, which means that construction governance needs to be reformed.
Who benefits from high construction costs in the state? The MBTA does not. UMass does no. Schools around the state do not.
An analysis of school construction costs in my town indicates we’ve had an annual construction cost inflation of 8.85% since 1997. That is a stunning figure – average ‘general’ inflation was 3.08-1.86% that period.
We ought to wake up to the reality that construction cost inflation is hurting the state – and is a big problem on the level of medical costs & college costs inflation. Although bringing down construction costs closer to earth should be a much more tractable problem than the other two problems.
No it doesn’t. It means that either
* costs must come down
* revenue must go up
* expenditures on something else must be reduced to increase expenditures on this
I reject your (and, seemingly, Mssrs Baker and DeLeo’s) elimination of options.
Asking for another billion on top of the old two is not a realistic option. There are towns in Europe with vastly larger expanses of light rail, and I am willing to bet it does not cost then $3B to add five-six stations.
You can put as much pressure on Baker and DeLeo, it will not change the fundamentals.
I couldn’t resist the urge to browse what the BMG hive mind said about Mr. Aloisi when he was first appointed.
I note with interest the offering from esteemed co-editor David Kravitz. Not exactly a ringing vote of confidence. I’m pretty sure that was one of the pieces cited by contemporary Boston Globe reports.
I do note that on another contemporary BMG offering by esteemed co-editor Bob Neer, you (charley-on-the-mta) offered this (emphasis mine):
A few months later, it emerged that Mr. Aloisi’s wife held a no-show job with the lege. At that time, you (charley-on-the-mta) wondered if “we got played” on her. In that March 2009 you referenced the “Cirque d’Aloisi’.
I argued, in response to that post, that it didn’t matter:
That was more than six years ago. We did not make any “huge, fundamental, and pervasive changes” at the MBTA. The appointment of Mr. Aloisi not only it did not help, it appears in hindsight that it actually HURT the effort because of the ill-timed scandal involving his wife.
As a result of this afternoon’s
procrastinating from my day-jobresearch, I’m more confident about saying that I’m pretty sure that Jim Aloisi is who I’m thinking of.I’d like to bounce a portion of your comment back at you — are you certain Jim Aloisi is who YOU’RE thinking of?
When I could string a sentence or two together. Thanks for the memories.
I never claimed to be an unreflective fanboy of Aloisi. But read my piece: I never said he was not a supporter of the MBTA, as you claim.
In any event, he’s a commentator at this point. You’re making what is an ad hominem argument – that his ideas now are wrong because he was a Big Dig hack back then.
Sorry I brought his name up!
Indeed, I certainly agree that it’s ad hominem, in the sense that I don’t trust anything he says. On the other hand, isn’t the entire piece an ad hominem? From the thread-starter (emphasis mine):
I apologize for sounding overly argumentative. I’m just disgusted by what we’re collectively allowing to be done. Since last winter’s collapse, we’ve seen a succession of twisted and distorted numbers and “statistics”, more of the same tired management musical chairs, and lots of singing and dancing intended to obscure the reality that our government is intentionally or unintentionally doing everything it can do destroy public transportation in Massachusetts.
I don’t think whats-his-name from the Pioneer Institute should get a pass for his deceptions and distortions, used by Charlie Baker to justify further cuts at the MBTA, just because he participated for awhile here. I don’t think those distortions were accidental. I think Charlie Baker asked for and got exactly the report he wanted, and I think Mr. Baker went to the Pioneer Institute with justifiable and correctly placed confidence that he would get the result he desired.
I’m profoundly uncomfortable about relying on legal requirements to make the Green Line extension actually happen. I think we should remember that the Silver Line was going to be a rail link for most of its planning. We ended up with “special” buses painted silver.
I still think that “special” buses painted Green are where we’ll land with the Green Line extension if this crowd has its way. I suspect that creative bureaucrats will find a way to make the result fulfill the legal requirements well enough to do the deed.
Who knows, maybe that’s what we’ll do with the entire Green Line. We can always rip up ALL the track, pave it all, and use buses instead of trolleys.
GM did that all over the America in the 1950s, and our Massachusetts government seems intent on doing the same now.
One can still disagree with a person’s acts without making it ad-hominem.
The problem comes when one speaks bad about the person, not the acts.
That’s when it becomes ad-hominem.
“ad hominem – 1 (of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.”
I don’t know that they’re trying to kill it, but they’re definitely making it more expensive. The cost of materials and labor will rise.
My take on Aloisi is he was/is pro-MBTA and in favor of the GLX, but the embedded culture inside MassDOT is not. Could be work/accountability avoidance. As long as the current trains/buses run somewhere close to on-time, their lives go fairly smoothly. Could be Big Dig flashbacks (big projects expose their incompetence).
Delay increases cost only if the rate of construction costs inflation exceeds the general rate of inflation.
Sadly, we have no data to judge.
It’s not just materials and labor. There’s inertia. Folks working on this wind down and take time/training to get to something else. Then, those same people (or other people) require time and training to get back up to speed on this. In the mean time, specs change, vendors change, and so forth.
There are real costs associated with start and stop. Adding stops and starts to the process adds cost.
That’s a good reason why start and stop is indeed not very productive.
What has been least productive is how the state has slept through a period of 15 odd years, maybe more, when construction costs have shot up to the point where even a small light rail extension is unaffordable.
Somebody has been asleep at the switch about this. Whose job was it to monitor these construction costs, and the general functioning of the state construction market?
It was Mr. DeLeo’s job. Before that it was Mr. DeMasi’s job. It was Deval Patrick’s job. Before that it was whatever GOP caretaker was sitting in in the corner office while the elected GOP governor was pursuing other ambitions (on the public’s dime).
In this case, I think the buck stops with we voters. Too many of us tell our elected representatives “don’t raise taxes”. Then we whine about the results when they do exactly that.
the Govenor’s Special Panel on the MBTA. Besides taking up almost an entire sentence in its PowerPoint report to dismiss the Pacheco Law, the Special Panel complained (In that same sentence) that the T had no authority to use alternative, fast-track construction methods, such as Construction Management at Risk. But it appears a form of CM-at-Risk is indeed being used to build the Green Line Extension, and, not-too-surprisingly, it isn’t saving the time or money it was projected to save. So, did the Special Panel not know this was happening; and, given the way this project is turning out, isn’t the problem really that the T has too little control over procurement and management of contractors, not too much control, as the Special Panel seemed to imply?
A primer on the various kinds of construction contracting available to the MBTA would be useful to the readership …
nt