The Great Purple Line Thread (Annapolis, North Beach: move to, beach, train)

[hikerMD]

Maryland board approves $3.4 billion contract to finish Purple Line

A Maryland board approved a new contractor Wednesday to complete the long-delayed Purple Line for an additional $1.43 billion — an almost 75 percent cost increase to revive the stalled light-rail project.

Under the new contract, full construction will resume in the spring. That will mean revving up abandoned construction sites along roads that were hastily patched and rail bridges that ended in midair after the original construction team quit in fall 2020.

State officials say the 16-mile line will begin carrying passengers between Montgomery and Prince George’s counties in fall 2026, more than four years behind schedule.
...
State officials attributed much of the cost increase to changes in the project’s “risk profile" and the pandemic’s effects on insurance rates, labor shortages and the supply chain. The state will assume more financial risk under the new contract, including for “any unknown defects” in the work done by the original construction team and any additional pandemic-related problems.
...
Under the new agreement, the concessionaire and state will no longer have an “unconditional right” to terminate the contract for extended delays — the provision the concessionaire successfully cited in court after the first contractor quit. The agreement also will “shorten, clarify and streamline” the dispute resolution process, the state said.

[hikerMD]

Project keeps moving: contract is signed, construction should resume at full speed shortly https://www.washingtonpost.com/trans...nancial-close/

[adelphi_sky]

Rode the lightrail in Nice, France a few weeks ago. It was pretty frickin' awesome. We took it from the train station to the Nice, airport. If our Purple Line is anything like that lightrail, it is not a boondoggle but a necessary and longtime delayed asset to this region.


https://www.railjournal.com/passenge...dazur-airport/


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaE31iboX8k

[hikerMD]

Originally Posted by adelphi_sky

Rode the lightrail in Nice, France a few weeks ago. It was pretty frickin' awesome. We took it from the train station to the Nice, airport. If our Purple Line is anything like that lightrail, it is not a boondoggle but a necessary and longtime delayed asset to this region.


https://www.railjournal.com/passenge...dazur-airport/



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaE31iboX8k

That looks great indeed! The grass around the tracks is beautiful, and not having overhead cables helps too (how are they powered?).


The Purple line will have overhead cables though https://www.purplelinemd.com/about-the-project/overview


I hope they don't look too messy. This rendering of the Purple line going through UMD may be ok

[adelphi_sky]

Originally Posted by hikerMD

That looks great indeed! The grass around the tracks is beautiful, and not having overhead cables helps too (how are they powered?).


The Purple line will have overhead cables though https://www.purplelinemd.com/about-the-project/overview


I hope they don't look too messy. This rendering of the Purple line going through UMD may be ok

Not sure how they are powered. I didn't see a third rail though. And you can walk on the tracks to cross the street. I think they may be self powered by batteries somehow.

Here you go

"Nice tramway was originally to use the ground-level power supply third rail system as used by Bordeaux tramway. However, this was abandoned in favour of the more conventional overhead power supply cables providing 750 V DC, except where the tram crosses the Place Masséna and Place Garibaldi, when it lowers its pantograph and relies on its onboard nickel metal hydride batteries to cross these large open spaces, where overhead wires would be an eyesore.[15]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nice_tramway#Power_supply

[NJ2MDdude]

The Purple line opening has been delayed again. The new expected date has been pushed back to Spring 2027. And the cost overruns will exceed $4 billion.

https://dcist.com/story/23/07/14/pur...ated-for-2027/

[adelphi_sky]

Originally Posted by NJ2MDdude

The Purple line opening has been delayed again. The new expected date has been pushed back to Spring 2027. And the cost overruns will exceed $4 billion.

https://dcist.com/story/23/07/14/pur...ated-for-2027/

Very unfortunate.

so, in this case, PPPs suck. Should the state had just gone it alone and not form the partnership? We all know governments can screw a lot of things up. But I think getting entangled in complex contracts in a partnership can exacerbate challenges in such a large civic project.

I believe this was the first major public private partnership and was supposed to be a porototype for the rest of the country if successful. Looks like MD screwed the pooch on this one.

[bufflove]

Originally Posted by adelphi_sky

Very unfortunate.

so, in this case, PPPs suck. Should the state had just gone it alone and not form the partnership? We all know governments can screw a lot of things up. But I think getting entangled in complex contracts in a partnership can exacerbate challenges in such a large civic project.

I believe this was the first major public private partnership and was supposed to be a porototype for the rest of the country if successful. Looks like MD screwed the pooch on this one.

Hard to say if the PPP format itself was the issue - it certainly didn't mitigate risk as intended, so it proved to be quite worthless in that respect. That said, the preconstruction delays caused primarily by NIMBY lawsuits (given far too much credence by fellow-Chevy Chase NIMBY Judge Leon) and a newly-elected Hogan demanding a Purple Line redesign (to, ironically, attempt to save money), completely f&%^ed the original PPP contract up. Then, when the PPP partners wanted a few hundred million more to not walk away from the contract (which the delays/redesign enabled them to do in the first place) Hogan screwed the pooch again by not OKing the deal Rahn - his own transportation secretary - negotiated. Then Hogan chose to negotiate with a new partner at the height of Covid and eat all the worst projections for extremely high labor and supply chain costs - most of which quickly eased substantially (to the benefit of the new private partner, not taxpayers).

Of course Hogan couldn't have known Covid was coming down the pike when he decided to play hardball with the initial partners, but in hindsight every step Hogan took on the matter either caused, enabled, or exacerbated the cost overruns and delays. I think it's easily the biggest eff up of his tenure and surely the most expensive eff up in the state's history.

[adelphi_sky]

Originally Posted by bufflove

Hard to say if the PPP format itself was the issue - it certainly didn't mitigate risk as intended, so it proved to be quite worthless in that respect. That said, the preconstruction delays caused primarily by NIMBY lawsuits (given far too much credence by fellow-Chevy Chase NIMBY Judge Leon) and a newly-elected Hogan demanding a Purple Line redesign (to, ironically, attempt to save money), completely f&%^ed the original PPP contract up. Then, when the PPP partners wanted a few hundred million more to not walk away from the contract (which the delays/redesign enabled them to do in the first place) Hogan screwed the pooch again by not OKing the deal Rahn - his own transportation secretary - negotiated. Then Hogan chose to negotiate with a new partner at the height of Covid and eat all the worst projections for extremely high labor and supply chain costs - most of which quickly eased substantially (to the benefit of the new private partner, not taxpayers).

Of course Hogan couldn't have known Covid was coming down the pike when he decided to play hardball with the initial partners, but in hindsight every step Hogan took on the matter either caused, enabled, or exacerbated the cost overruns and delays. I think it's easily the biggest eff up of his tenure and surely the most expensive eff up in the state's history.

This aligns with my thoughts on how governments can mess up projects. lol

[NJ2MDdude]

The Purple Line will require another $425M.

Montgomery County Executive Mark Ehrlich wonders if it should be scrapped and turned into a bus system.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv7NyG96jns