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Oops: Looks like that new T stop needs some waterproofing
By adamg on Tue, 09/02/2014 - 5:22pm
Sky reflected in flood outside Assembly station. Photo by Adam Castiglioni.
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Comments
S&R Construction Co. built it
S&R Construction Co. built it, design by AECOM which was hired by Federal Realty.
Boo
Well then, I figuratively give the first two a vigorous Booooooooooooooooooo, and the last a reproachful look with pursed lips.
FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just wait until freezing temperatures!
Station is open but not yet finished
I hope this is one of the still-unfinished punch-list items.
re-do
Not sure re-pouring the deck so it slopes outward is exactly a punch-list item ;-)
You can kinda do surface tricks.
...like layering on a concrete skim coat to adjust grade, but it's a huge pain in the ass and kind of a shoddy fix.
Or there is always the option of doing a drain basin of some kind. I wonder if soil mechanics were an issue with subtle settling once the things weight began pressing on an old swamp zone?
The Ashland Station job has drain grade issues and major corrosion from winter salt as if that somehow wasn't factored in.
They are just over the border from Haverhill, so they chow MA tax bucks for half assed work while having a tax dodge location.
I wonder how they got a foot in the door in 1998? Who decided?
Most likely a
combination of low bid and lax prequalification standards.
Gives a whole new meaning...
...to "infill station."
LOL
Just LOL
(and yes I am laughing out loud!)
Can't pitch it towards the
Can't pitch it towards the tracks, lest you be sending wheelchairs and strollers overboard. Can't groove it, people will trip. That's an interesting civil engineering problem. Looks like you'll have to pitch it away from the tracks and run a drain plate a few feet back. Hopefully it's on the punch list. My guess would be one of Deval's friends will be hired for $120000K/yr to stop in once a storm and shop vac it. Since it doesn't rain much around here, they'll have enough accumulated time off to call-in sick on storm days. Of course they won't even bother to call in because noone checks, so at retirement time there will be one big taxpayer funded, T debt adding, payout.
Ahhh, I feel better now. Oh, and he or she will probably be working police details during storms.
"$120000K"?
K=1,000. So:
1K=1,000
10K=10,000
100K=100,000
...
120,000K=120,000,000 (aka: 120 million)
$120 million/year seems a bit much for a government salary, no matter how corrupt a given administration may be.
Are you sure you didn't mean "120K"? (Or, alternately: "120,000" (No "K").)
From Plaistow, no less.
They built the Ashland Commuter Rail station which is a triumph of crap design rusting away.
http://srconstructionent.com/projects
Looks like they've been at it since 1998 or so. I wonder how the who-ya-know panned out?
Good architecture has two
Good architecture has two natural enemies:
Water
Stupid men
And wind.
Oh, and sunbeams! (Lookin' at you, Gehry, lookin' at you)
Who knew building an open to
Who knew building an open to the elements station on a windswept plain would lead to things like this. Just wait until January.
Signage
Maybe off topic but I'll bring it up here anyway:
Why is MBTA signage,specifically exterior station signage, so piss poor? Major station exterior signage such as South Station, and especially North Station, is bad. North Station's interior is beautiful, it's exterior is awful, someone not intimately familiar with it can find it's exact location, the entrance and exits, highly confusing. Signage and lighting is much too subtle. This is true of various other stations also.
Another thing:
What the hell is going on with the green line from North Station to Lechmere? Why aren't Science Park and that pit Lechmere modernized? And of course it should have been extended into East Cambridge and Somerville a LONG time ago, but at least update Science Park and Lechmere, and give it reliable service. Pathetic how most trains stop at Park, then a few go to North Station, and fewer still go onto Lechmere.
Yet $250,000,000 is being spent on just one station, Government Center, mostly just to make it ADA compliant. Pathetic.
Science Park / Lechmere
When were you last at Science Park? It was just renovated a few years ago.
Lechmere is due to be replaced in three years. I assume you're aware of the Green Line Extension thats (somewhat) underway....
Science Park was renovated in 2011
or "Science Park/West End" as the signs now say.
I agree the North Station signage is bad. So many people looking for the commuter rail end up there and can't figure out where to go next. And not enough trains go beyond Park St.
$250mil is incorrect...
Your signage rant makes a lot of sense. I can agree with a signage problem...
The $250mil figure is grossly incorrect. $90million is expected to be spent on government center.
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/downtown/2012/11/mbta_government_cen...
Oh, come on
You just let verifiable facts get in the way of a perfectly good rant! (Though, yes, I do agree that exterior signage needs to be improved at many stations. Even if it's just putting a lollipop sign outside, which many seem to lack these days)
Yes indeedy regarding the poor signage.
I would add that in high tourist traffic areas, we also could use some directions "Subway this way" signs in the blocks around the entrance.
And most importantly, a clear explanation inside the station of which train goes where; "inbound" and "outbound" are meaningless to anyone who doesn't have a correct mental map of Boston.
No Station at No. Station?
I thought the lack of grand entrance/signage to North Station had something to do with the planned private development that was supposed to take place in front of it. Meaning they didn't bother because they thought a big development was going to be plopped in there and they would put up some sort of grand entrance for the "Station at Shit-Show North" or whatever the thing would be sitting in front of it.
Not sure if I'm just hallucinating that or not, but I'm sure someone will set me straight. At any rate, they could still put up a sign or at least the T lollipop in the interim (like interim decade or so).
How's that rock?
Science Park was just reconstructed.
Lechmere will be moved across the street into a brand new station as part of the GLX.
South Station?
You mean the train station? I think if you are in front of South Station and do not know what it is, you are not trying hard enough. The three entrances outside to the Red/Sliver Lines seem pretty blatant, too.
I deal with giving people directions all the time. Why can't people find big huge things in front of them? If you can't figure out that the huge stone building in Dewey Square is South Station, or that the glass structures jutting out from the sidewalks across the streets from said building are subway entrances, well, I don't know what to say, how did you find the internet?
And to think, the grief I've given Saklad over the years about the Leverett Connector. Now his thing seems sensible compared to this.
spoken like a true backward Bostonian
Please. Spare us - these areas have many huge monumental buildings. You shouldn't have to have stayed in the same tiny world all your life to get around.
Okay
I am not at South Station that often, but don't those glass things that come out of the ground have nice red signs that say "SOUTH STATION" (not for effect, they are all caps) in addition to the lollypop T diagonally opposite the station.
As for the station proper, would you then also go across the country saying that it is impossible to figure out where Grand Central Station and Penn Station in New York, 30th Street Station in Philly, Union Station DC and of course Union Station Chicago are because they don't have giant signs in front of them announcing what they are? Backward Bostonian indeed.
So, you've been to Dewey Square and haven't been able to figure out which building had the train station in it? Perhaps things are different in Nebraska or wherever you are from, but big city folk can figure out which large building is the train station.
North Station, on the other hand, I will concede.
Excuse me, can you tell me where the South Station T is?
I just can't seem to find it.
Yes, but where's the train station?
I didn't even notice the lollipop T on the other side of the street, either.
Of course, when the poor anon went to Stockholm, they were all mad. They heard that there was this great subway system, but couldn't find them. There were these stairwells down from the street with giant square T signs by them, but that couldn't have been the subway.
They don't trust their eyes
..and need a fellow monkey to reassure.
Maybe it's all the service pandering we see. You can't just navigate and think for yourself, that's for fools, you simply must bug another monkey.
Good
Good one Chris
Good thing
It doesn't rain very often in Boston.
Seriously though, how does the MBTA have any surplus, regardless of how small, when things like this happen? Every time I travel to another city with a significant transit system, I just shake my head when I come home.
Amateur hour.