Dive Brief:
- Massachusetts Department of Transportation officials have promised "brutal" cutbacks to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s Green Line rail extension project, The Boston Globe reported, in an effort to trim costs on the now-$3 billion project.
- MassDOT has directed consultants to redesign the project, with an eye toward austerity, in an effort to chip away at the $1 billion in cost overruns.
- Making a commitment, MassDOT says, to fiscal responsibility, the transportation board said it will cancel the project unless its new design is less expensive and the MBTA goes after additional funding sources.
Dive Insight:
Suggestions like eliminating stops and redesigning stations are all being tossed around as ways to lighten the budget, but there is no doubt that project management is at the top of the list of things to fix. In fact, John Englander, general counsel for MassDOT and the MBTA, said that White-Skanska-Kiewit would most likely not be allowed to bid on the redesigned Green Line project.
WSK has taken a lot of the heat for what went wrong on the project, as they were in charge of subcontract negotiations and procurement. However, Boston.com recently obtained a report that shows mismanagement on the MBTA's side might be worse than previously thought.
Boston.com discovered that the MBTA withheld a Berkeley Research Group report, which found that the MBTA and Stanton Constructability Services, its independent cost consultant, failed to address a huge disparity between cost estimates from WSK and HDR/Gilbane.
