The long, involved process to finalize funding and construction planes for the Green Line Extension continues as MassDOT and MBTA officials sort out the details with the Federal Transit Administration.

By Rebecca Danvers

Andrew Brennan, Director of Environmental Affairs for the MBTA, gave a short Green Line Extension presentation at Monday’s joint meeting of the MassDOT Board and the MBTA Fiscal and Management Control Board.

Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack said that Brennan has joined the Interim Project Management Team due to his experience with the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) on the GLX New Starts Application, and he provided an update on the FTA’s reassessment of the GLX to determine if it still meets the New Starts program and the Full Funding Grant Agreement.

There are three components:

1. FTA assessment of the scope, schedule and budget as presented by the IPMT, which is underway; a report is expected in about two weeks.
2. A risk reassessment, which will take place in late summer, following the creation of a “risk register” of items that will be evaluated.
3. The FTA’s consultant will run a risk model to analyze the risk assessment.

Once these steps are completed, Brennan said, the MBTA and the FTA plan to have a confirmed and agreed upon cost estimate that will be the basis for the new GLX Finance Plan.

Meanwhile, concurrent with the FTA’s work, the MBTA is working on updating the GLX Finance Plan, and when the risk assessment is completed, the MBTA will “overlay” the GLX project cost and its sources of funding to provide a new GLX Finance Plan.