Photo: David Porter / EyeEm / EyeEm / Getty Images
BOSTON (State House News Service) - Miles of tracks that are too narrow across the Green Line Extension could be fixed by mid-November following up to two weeks of evening closures, MBTA General Manager Phil Eng said Tuesday.
Days after he revealed that most of the nearly brand-new rails on the extension need to be widened, Eng told agency overseers the contractors responsible for the project have proposed tackling the problems in 10 to 14 nights of work starting around Nov. 1.
Green Line Extension Constructors, the joint venture that built the 4.4-mile expansion, suggested shutting down service on the rails from 9 p.m. each night until 5 a.m. the following morning during that span, Eng said. Regular service would resume each day following the overnight work.
Eng said his team is still reviewing the proposal and has not yet committed to it.
"This is not going to be something that continues on for months and months, or even longer. It is something that can be addressed in a matter of weeks," Eng told the MBTA's Board of Directors.
An MBTA spokesperson said there's no estimate available yet for how much the repair work will cost. Both Eng and Gov. Maura Healey signaled last week they want the contractors to foot the bill.
The work would involve removing bolts that hold down one side of the rail, filling those holes with a substance like epoxy, measuring and drilling new holes about a quarter-inch away from the initial hole, and then resecuring the rails, ties and tie plates at a proper width.
Some board members voiced concerns that redrilling holes into the wooden ties that run perpendicular to the rails or into the ground itself could trigger other infrastructure issues.
"We have got to get this fixed, right? Like, there's no room for error here," said Mary Skelton Roberts, the city of Boston's designee on the board. "So are we sure that with the adjustment, this is not going to create an unstable track or create a bigger problem down the road?"
Eng said the proposed regauging is "typical industry practice." Asked if the process might shorten the lifespan of the ties, Eng replied, "We are reviewing that."
"If this is the proposal that we accept, that will be part of the decision and review of how we ensure that the public investment is properly protected," he said.
Issues with the Green Line Extension infrastructure suddenly upended travel last month. The MBTA slashed travel speeds on about a mile of the system to 3 mph, warning the rails were too close together -- less than 56 and one-eighth inches apart, the threshold below which slow zones are necessary -- to support normal operations.
Crews widened the rails in those affected areas, and Eng announced last week that after a deeper review of the project's history, his team now believes rails are too close together on about 50 percent of the Union Square branch and 80 percent of the Medford/Tufts branch.
Those rails are more than 56 and one-eighth inches apart, so not quite narrow enough to warrant speed restrictions, but they are still tighter than the project standard of 56 and a half inches, Eng said.
The construction standard gave a tiny bit of wiggle room, allowing the rails to be one-sixteenth of an inch wider or narrower than the target, which Eng said is a "very tight tolerance."
"A lot of times, you'll see in these types of contracts plus or minus an eighth [of an inch]," Eng told the board. "But this was one plus or minus one-sixteenth."
"Which is nothing, right?" asked board member Bob Butler.
"If you were to take a credit card and look at a credit card, it's probably a good visual," Eng replied. "It shows you how minute the tolerance is."
Although Eng said he only learned of the Green Line Extension problems "recently," he said some MBTA officials knew before either branch opened to riders that some of the pre-built materials delivered to the agency for installation would be too narrow.
An inspection report dated April 2021 warned that rail ties and pre-installed tie plates had too tight a gauge. Eng said Tuesday that MBTA officials at the time addressed "those localized situations," but did not broaden their scope to look for similar issues elsewhere.
"That's where I believe that the prior management should have reviewed, [done a] deeper dive -- do we have a bigger issue than just at one location? Is this something that we have with delivery, is this something that we have with installation?" Eng said. "It should have really been at that point where we paused, took a look to see if we need to reject the ties."
Without mentioning former Gov. Charlie Baker by name, both Healey and Eng have pointed the finger at his administration. Jim Conroy, a spokesperson for Baker, told WCVB last week that the Republican governor's office "was never informed of the gauging issues with GLX.
"The Green Line Extension project was on track to never get built when the Baker-Polito Administration first took office and while these setbacks are massively inconvenient for riders, the project itself will deliver enormous benefits for the greater Boston area for decades to come," Conroy told WCVB.
TTwo MBTA employees who had senior roles on the Green Line Extension project departed the agency last week, according to a T spokesman, who declined to name the individuals.
Eng said Tuesday he made "organizational changes" to the Green Line Extension's hierarchy because he "did not believe that the prior team and some of the folks that were still on that team took the appropriate action at the appropriate time."
He tapped Maureen McDonough, the T's chief of capital program support, to take over as acting Green Line Extension program manager. Eng said McDonough has experience managing "large-scale projects" and a background in construction, adding that she would help not only fix the Green Line Extension's tracks but identify "how we can improve our processes moving forward."
"We have many projects, and we have to deliver these projects in a different manner," Eng said. "Projects always have issues that arise. It's a matter of tackling them when you identify them, and tackling them in a timely manner so we don't end up having to do this after service is running and after the public is already enjoying that service."
Written By Chris Lisinski/SHNS
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