Budget inflation: will the Boston MPO continue to be the Goose laying Golden Eggs?

Pictured: CPPC Chair Leino, Vice-Chair Friedman an Nitsch Engineer Michalak going over 25% design plan slides July, 2020. Also present (besides members of the public) CPPC's Phil Lawrence and CPPC and BCF member Vincent Stanton.

Project #609204 aka "Belmont Community Path" was budgeted at $16.7M by the Boston MPO in 2018.  However, observe that in this slide, Michalak has the cost up to $20M.  This was before he added the $4M worth of lighting requested by the CPPC bringing the cost to $24M and before telling the CPPC that the tunnel had been widened to allow for emergency vehicles which in turn necessitated lengthening the tunnel.  He did not mention by how many million dollars those tunnel jacking changes had inflated the budget.

The budget's steady inflation must have made a CPPC member particularly happy.  For several years, I have observed him arrive in several occasions as an anxious messenger conveying that "the budget has to be increased!".  Seeking a budget increase has been surprising in itself but so it has been that none of the other CPPC members questioned his words.

 Why inflate the budget? It has taken me years of research and attending CPPC and lately MPO meetings to discover that the system allows profiteering wildly from the Federal funds allocated to the state. 

The way this works is: the Feds provide transportation funds (80% of total) to the state who then  allocates it to the various state MPOs.  The MPOs search for deserving projects to fund and provide the budget funds.  Unlike other MPOs, Boston MPO will cover cost overruns and that's the key!  

A town can present a project for X amount but work up plans for X++ amount and, after construction starts, the town can implement the X++ plans reporting that it decided to "widen the scope' or that sadly, an unexpected obstacle was discovered that forced a change of plans. 

Boston MPO can become a goose generously laying golden eggs to fill the coffers of construction companies and real estate developers who, in turn, pass some of the profits (for example as donations) to the politicians who pushed the projects through their towns and/or districts.  Below that, local officials and people who helped push the project receive their share of the profits either as "contributions", "donations" or outright jobs through a politician's recommendation for a state or corporate job.  All of this can happen because of corporate-state networks of the powerful and influential.

Due to Covid-induced economic deterioration, Boston MPO has found itself in a very difficult financial situation that has been aggravated by two projects' cost overruns of 30% and a whooping 140%.  Currently, it barely has enough funds to cover ongoing projects stretching from 2021-2026.   What it boils down to is that Boston MPO has $0 of the $350M it needs in the next 6 years for new projects such as Project #609204, the Belmont Community Path.  So So it seems that the Goose no longer has Golden Eggs!




 


Popular posts from this blog

The Miracle of the Sketchily Scheduled Public Hearing

I've been on hiatus fron this blog after Nitsch's submission of the 25% design plan at the end of 2021.  All that time, I've continued to observe the CPPC meetings; they have been as interesting as watching paint dry. Nitsch's Michalak seemed to avoid the CPPC but, a few times, the CPPC succeeded in having Michalak show up to give a report of ... non-progress. This was confirmed by someone with knowledge of the project within the MBTA who complained to me of how Nitsch was not delivering the necessary engineering plan although 1 year had lapsed since the request made in 2022. Engineering plan vs design sketch  My MBTA interlocutor explained that an engineering plan is different from the design plan. The latter is a sketch; the former is plan that shows location of items and structures in the subsurface and surface of the project area.  The subsurface items include pipes and cables because you don't want to start digging - for example - to build a wall and then fin...
Read more

A Tangled Web

  Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive " Abutters have asked for the engineering plan for the 25% design submittal or what Stanton called the "revised" 25% design.  Since, on January 10, Michalak (PE or Project Engineer) announced that the Public Hearing had been scheduled then this revised plan had to exist at that date.  JS requested it from MassDOT Public Records on Februaru 23 and waited and waited.  Finally around March 14-15, JS received documents: the original, unrevised 25% design submission from November 2021, ROW papers, and the bridge worksheet with a submission date of January 24. (It's a tunnel or underpass but technically it becomes a bridge).   Note that it is the original 25% not the revised design so it still has a figure indicating that the tunnel will be "jacked".   The other fun part is that the bridge worksheet was submitted on January 24th not by December 21, 2023 as Michalak had said at the Dec...
Read more

Sept 15 - CPPC: A Fog of Words

Image
 Michalak and Clancy attended.   Michalak reported. 7 Channing Rd: Jammal scheduled a site meeting and, at the last minute, cancelled.  Clancy, Michalak will schedule again. Later on, Michalak said that submitting the 25% design did not depend on meeting Jammal: "that connection/spur is in the plan”.   All they wanted is Jammal’s approval of the spur/path planned for the side of the Chase building.  But Michalak conceded that the only thing he can see changing in the 25% are the access points such as the spur.  [My guess  is that they are likely to back down when it comes to the spur.] Soil borings 1.  Borings that required Keolis/MBTA were completed last week (week of Sept 6).   2.  Two other borings to be completed by the end of this week (week of Sept 13th).  These Pleasant St borings moved away from the ROW "to reduce cost and easier access”.* *Via FOIA request, I received Nitsch-GZA-Clancy emails .  This ROW issu...
Read more