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Cosmetic construction criterion creates consequences
Who exactly was the brilliant mind that wanted to recreate the bridge down to the last rivet again? There's a reason we don't rivet things anymore: it's labor-intensive, which means it takes longer and costs more.
I'm glad the historical commission or whoever came up with this feels comfortable blowing through our money and wasting our time, but there are ways to get a good-looking bridge without using century-old construction techniques in the parts of the bridge that you don't even see unless you're canoeing under it.
No surprise
Use of historical elements was in the original RFP, and should have been included in the bid schedule and estimate....
An adamg-esque alliteration!
nicely done!
But the Olympics would have been done on time and on budget!
I actually thought it was very crafty of John Fish to say his company wouldn't work on the Olympic venues. It is a win/win for him. He isn't responsible for the inevitable overruns and there might even be a chance he is hired at the end, at great cost, to be the 'savior' to come in and fix big projects that are behind schedule.
If he really believed in the project he would have said up front, "I will build it, I will be responsible, and you have my word it will be done on time and on budget or it will come out of my pocket"
But the Olympics would have
Good news is, there's now absolutely no way that you or anyone would know if this is true one way or another. So now we're going to go through the next few years of infrastructure breaking down (the only thing 100% guaranteed to happen), and one side will crow "AND THEY SAID THEY'D FIX IT BEFORE THE OLYMPICS!" and the other side will crow "GOOD THING WE DIDN'T USE THE OLYMPICS TO FIX THIS /S" and we can all enjoy another pointless fight about unknowable things while accomplishing nothing as our infrastructure crumbles around us. This should be fun, so thanks for getting it started, Kevin.
But all that Olympic
But all that Olympic construction totally would have come in on time and under budget.
With all the time and money
With all the time and money going into restoring this landmark bridge properly after nearly three quarters of a century of neglect one hopes that the state WILL MAINTAIN IT THIS TIME!
You Must Be New Here
That's not how we do things in the Commonwealth.
FTFY
That's not how we do things in
the CommonwealthAmerica.Damn, you beat me to that!
That said, I am expecting to hear from one of our regulars about whether Oregon has managed to implement lifecycle budgeting for infrastructure projects.
Well? (This is not snark - I am interested to hear whether Oregon or another state has a good program for this.)
Impressive
The fact the bridge survived for the past 110 years with little maintenance and with carrying millions (billions?) of people across on the Red Line is a real testament to it's initial construction. Seeing as how "new" bridges are now built with 30-40 year life spans it would seem the Commonwealth got it's money's worth on the Longfellow.
Yup !
Not to mention the high amount(s) of car/truck traffic that the Longfellow Bridge carries daily, especially during the weekday morning and the late-afternoon/evening rush hours.
It'll be ready in time for the...
Olympics.
mic drop
Wrong by 3 years and $500 million more
It will take 5 more years than expected. and $500 million more dollars stolen from us. They just haven't told us yet. I used to joke about this as a trolley tour guide as I crossed the bridge a year and a half ago. I knew the future from knowing the past.
Looking forward to learning that the Government Center Station contractors to say they need another 2 years and millions of dollars to finish that project too.
They should be penalized for taking longer. instead its a open checkbook. F this S
Citation Please
Please quote your source. The T is already advertising that it will open Spring 2016, on target as initially said.
It Might Open By That Date, But It Won't Be Actually Finished
Nothing by the Ⓣ is ever completely finished; there's always something left undone.
actually
they are ahead of schedule.. :)
Liquidated Damages
They're not always talked about but liquidated damages are in fact included in the contract documents. In particular they are in the specifications so that when a contractor bids on the project, they are, or should be if they read thoroughly, aware of these costs. The real action is when that date arrives and if the client chooses to act upon them: they don't have to.
But in the meantime, as in all public projects in MA, there is paper pushing, posturing, and blame-gaming. Ultimately the numbers get shaken out near the end and the final payment requisition is put in. The DCAM rating of contractors plays a part, too.
Museum of Science Bridge Detour. Charles River Dam Road.
The Detour indicated by the Department of Transportation in newsletters/releases/updates could also use the term "Museum of Science Bridge Detour" or "Boston Museum of Science Bridge Detour", a term people know better than "Charles River Dam Road". It's common terminology of local folks.
or Craigie Bridge
which is the dam bridge's official name.
Prolonged detour on the Longfellow Bridge:
The fact that the construction on the Longfellow Bridge has taken so long is pathetic...and disgusting.
Look a few miles west of the Longfellow Bridge...
I'm guessing you haven't heard of the bridge project that is REALLY delayed, Anderson Memorial Bridge, which was supposed to be completed in Fall 2014.
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/allston_brighton/2012/05/anderson_br...
http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/charlesriverbridges/AndersonMemorialBridg...
Payment penalty
I recall the contractor was going to be incentivized by payment penalty. And the penalty was by the day over a certain date. Obviously they are going to be missing the date by 100s of days. I wonder what the lawyers did to weasel out of the penalties.
A quick search didn't come up with much in reference to the penalties other than the governor patting himself on the back here .
http://www.mass.gov/bb/h1/fy14h1/exec_14/hresults.htm
The Contract
has not been completed, so they're not necessarily out of paying those penalties yet.
Patience, young grasshopper.
Olympic Backers
I won't go into to the Olympic construction comparisons, because we've had our fill above and the bid is dead.
What I hope is not dead, however, are Olympic backers' alleged desires to fix our city's infrastructure and show the world that we're "world class" (that term is as overused as "literally" and "innovative"). Imagine what they could do if they had that $4.7 Billion budget and could put it all into fixing our roads and transit? I know a lot of the private funding was supposed to come from broadcast deals and national sponsors, but if they could get local sponsors to put even half of the Olympic budget into infrastructure it'd be a win for everyone.
Boston 2024 brought in David Ortiz to try to hype the games, and according to Baseball Reference, his career earnings are $143,512,500. Fish is allegedly worth $425 million. That doesn't even get into these guys' organizations and companies, or all of the other companies that were ready to throw money at this.
They all talked a big game, and it's time for these people to put up or shut up.
It is worth the wait for what you get.
I don't want to live in a city where everything is newly built. Once of the main reasons Boston is so loved is the charm of the old world blended into the new world. The Longfellow is an icon for the cities it connects. Yes, it's an inconvenience and yes, it's costly. It's also a major rebuilding which is adding lanes to a historic piece of architecture without ruining it. It reminds me of when they rebuilt the Statue of Liberty. Restorers had to learn old techniques that had fallen out of usage since the original skin was made. It was costly and time consuming but it was the right thing to do. Using the correct process and materials is the right thing to do for the Longfellow as well and ensure it will still be here long after we are not.
Not "adding lanes"
The bridge will be the same width it always was. It will have two travel lanes inbound, one outbound (reduced from two), bike lanes in both directions, and wider sidewalks.
There's No Need For More Than One Travel Lane For Cars
The current closure has proven that there's no need for more than one lane for cars in either direction. The bridge crossing itself is not a bottleneck; it's the intersection at Charles Circle that restricts the flow of traffic.
What's the point of allocating two lanes for exclusive use by motor vehicles, just so they can sit and wait? The bridge would be safer, more functional, and more pleasant to use with more room for pedestrians and bicyclists.
The same applies to the Harvard Bridge. Four lanes for cars is too much. At heavy traffic times, backups form because of the intersections at Beacon Street and/or Memorial Drive; not the width of the bridge. When there's light traffic, cars go much too fast and frequently cause terrible accidents on the bridge.
With clogged intersections creating restrictions on either side, the bridges could be 20 lanes wide, and traffic would still backup on them. So, there's really no advantage of having any more than one travel lane in either direction.
As I understood
It was my understanding the two lanes inbound was to make it easier for emergency vehicles to pass traffic heading toward the hospitals. That's what I remember from the public hearing. It was a long time ago though. I thought the bike lanes were also new. I've run across that bridge so many times and I guess I didn't realize there were bike lanes.
Well Actually, That's Another Argument For Only One Lane
Two lanes filled with cars doesn't help emergency vehicles get by. A single lane, with wider shoulders would better allow other vehicles to get out of the way.
The ramp coming from Storrow Drive westbound to Charles Circle should be changed to such a configuration. Ambulances en route to MGH have a terrible time getting through because both lanes are typically clogged with cars.
Appeal to Tradition Fallacy
There are lots of old things that are gone because the old techniques were the best for their time but have long since been superseded by much better techniques that will last much longer and with less upkeep.
I understand a desire to maintain historic character and that it comes with some cost, however with something like the rivets, I have no comprehension why we're paying/waiting for people to learn how to do it and taking forever to accomplish it when there are modern welding techniques that would both hold the metal together better and be more maintainable.
It's entirely possible to FAKE rivets and look really good doing it while still bolting and welding the actual structure together. There's NO reason other than a strict adherence to accuracy to rivet this bridge together and nothing is gained by bragging that we have a riveted bridge.
I get that we may not have known about leaded sand in the tower bases prior to deconstructing everything. But why were we not able to previously detect arches being misaligned due to age and shifting before work started? Borrow a laser from MIT already.
I feel like this restoration was done without having an accurate or complete set of requirements gathered and that nobody stepped back and sanity checked some of the less functional ones. The Fast 14 went so well, did we just give too much leeway to MassDOT not to screw this one up too?
Outrageous and unnecessary waste of $
HAVE A NEW BRIDGE BUILT ELSEWHERE....bring it here on barges when it's completed. Have the army corp of engineers build a temporary bridge (can be completed very quickly). Tear down the decrepit old bridge, replace with the new bridge. This would be a better option than what they're doing. I'm sure the old bridge's original designers and constructors would be amused by all the trouble, time and expense for renovating it, rather than replacing with a modern bridge.
And if the bridge is designated an historical landmark, or if some group in opposition to it's removal should try to make it so, the federal government should pick up most of the tab.
How would you keep the Red Line running during that process?
One constraint that makes this project much more expensive and difficult than it would be otherwise: the Red Line can't be shut down for more than two days at a time (and those have to be weekend days).
Also, the Old Charles River Dam (Craigie) drawbridge pretty seriously restricts the width of barges that can be brought to this site. Not to mention the active "new" dam and locks further downstream.
My answer is shut it down
between Alewife and Kendall, substitute buses, until the new bridge is ready. That, or also have temporary pontoon type bridge for the trains built by the army corp of engineers. These can be sturdy and built very quickly (weeks). The Longfellow is important, I agree, for traffic, at least as far as the redline is concerned (it's possible to divert auto traffic elsewhere). But it's not nearly as vital a bridge as the Tobin or even Zakim. That's ridiculous so much $ would be spent for what is essentially being billed as 'quaint' and a tourist attraction.
Same with the renovation of Government Center station. That's a lot of $ for one station that really isn't rhat vital. It's mostly being done for cosmetic reasons and to adapt to ADA compliance. But no wonder there's little $ available for genuine, non-sexy updates and renovations such as signals and tracks to get trains actually moving faster than a donkey.
The Red Line carries 90,000
The Red Line carries 90,000 people over the Charles River every day and 250,000 trips overall, so I would most definitely put it up there with the Tobin and Zakim as one of the essential bridges. Maybe even more so than those two.
Do you live anywhere around here?
I'm guessing not, or you would never make such a ludicrous suggestion as this
(also, didn't you mean "between Alewife and Charles" ?)
bridge
Why don't you go ask them and report back to us?
What is missing from the article:
The most obvious question is neither asked nor answered:
What are the conditions that were unforeseen or unforeseeable at the time the contract was let, that have led to this delay?