MBTA Winter 2015: Failure and Recovery

Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

mass88 said:
Given how many people depend on the MBTA to get to/from work, or just to get around their everyday lives, the state should have done whatever they could to get the system back up and running. Call this crazy, but why not pull people who are currently collecting unemployment out to start shoveling out stations and tracks? Traffic has been downright awful the last week as one would assume a large number of people opted to drive, instead of taking the T to work.
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They were offering $30 an hour for people who wanted work to shovel all day. They've also had the National Guard out shoveling and even prison work crews out shoveling. So yes....they've done that.

If you're asking why they aren't forcing people on unemployment to go shovel, they can't legally do that.
 
Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

When one system is down, then the other system with driving gets fully blown, out of line and off kilter. Driving to and from work has also been a headache as well with all that blasted snow narrowing the streets!

I drove to the CVS store at Central Square yesterday, for the first time in about 3 weeks, and I could not believe how negligent the city is that they just wouldn't widen the side streets a little better than they did.

It was too close for comfort! I almost sideswiped a vehicle and almost knocked a side view mirror off of another vehicle. All because there is just not enough clearance to get down a side street with all that bloody snow narrowing them so ridiculously! :mad:
 
Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

Charlie Baker is about to give a speech & speak any minute now about his thoughts and views on the recent winter weather problems that have plagued & crippled the MBTA in the 3 weeks that the city was dumped on by the recent monster storms.
 
Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

So, Baker’s commissioning an advisory panel, with a thirty-day turnaround. I tuned in late and my feed cut out for a bit, so I didn’t catch any names besides Kate Victor. Baker did mention there’s been lots of prior studies to draw from.

Pollack noted that the panel is not supposed to look at short-term storm stuff, but the deeper long-term issues.

I can’t hear the questions, but here are some things I’m picking up from responses:

Baker denied that prior studies “gathered dust”, and noted 2009 and 2013 transportation bills. Also noted the prior studies big part of the reason his panel can do their “deep dive” in thirty days.

He emphasizes drawing on local knowledge AND knowledge from other agencies (makeup of panel might reveal where).

Bev Scott and some of his admin focus to be on immediate recovery. His panel to focus on longer-term deeper issues.

My first impressions are positive, although I'll admit that when I first heard "forming an advisory panel" I almost went nuts. Then hearing "thirty days" - that calmed me down. I don't have a problem with a new governor pulling together a panel of experts to "deep dive" into it afresh.
 
Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

All my comments below are paraphrased, obviously.

Q: Will you speak with previous commissioners – D’Allessandro, for example? Answer, yes, and Baker said one of his panelists was on the D’Allessandro group.

Q about toughness of labor contracts and changing them: Answer from Baker: Let’s not define a challenge as a barrier, then went on to note that there’s been no pushback from unions on outside groups brought in to help cleanup. Very well handled answer, very good.

Baker says he’ll spend time on the T, but not announcing in advance (avoid photo ops, tell media afterwards).

Pollack getting some microphone time, too, switching back and forth with Baker, him handling political type Qs, her handling ops details. She’s doing well in my opinion.

Wraps up with emphasis on three points to the plan (which I had missed earlier): Operations, finance, and governance.

Oh, and it's end of March turnaround, not thirty days, my mistake.
 
Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

for those too lazy to go read it themselves, the panel consists of:

Paul Barrett (chair), Jane Garvey, Robert Gittens, Jose Gomez-Ibanez, Katherine Lapp, Brian McMorrow, Joe Sullivan

Impressive list of credentials. Lapp was CEO of NY's MTA, for example.

On the less exciting side, as a member of the legislature in 2000, Sullivan helped write the forward funding legislation, about which I have never read a positive thing. Well, I imagine Baker could not have avoided appointing one ex-legislator. And I don't know anything about Sullivan, he might be great for the panel, I don't know. The forward funding thing jumped out at me, that's all. For all I know he's as eager for another crack at re-writing that as I am to see it get replaced.
 
Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

West said:
for those too lazy to go read it themselves, the panel consists of:

Paul Barrett (chair), Jane Garvey, Robert Gittens, Jose Gomez-Ibanez, Katherine Lapp, Brian McMorrow, Joe Sullivan

Impressive list of credentials. Lapp was CEO of NY's MTA, for example.

On the less exciting side, as a member of the legislature in 2000, Sullivan helped write the forward funding legislation, about which I have never read a positive thing. Well, I imagine Baker could not have avoided appointing one ex-legislator. And I don't know anything about Sullivan, he might be great for the panel, I don't know. The forward funding thing jumped out at me, that's all. For all I know he's as eager for another crack at re-writing that as I am to see it get replaced.
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Forward funding itself wasn't that miserable of a plan, but it made egregious errors in predicting future revenues. The state's intransigence with acknowledging that and fixing forward funding into something that functions is the issue, not forward funding itself.

All said, this is the Charlie Baker I've been waiting to emerge. He picked a good team for the "deep dive" panel. Next test will be what gets acted on based on the panels recommendations.
 
Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

BussesAin'tTrains said:
Forward funding itself wasn't that miserable of a plan, but it made egregious errors in predicting future revenues. The state's intransigence with acknowledging and fixing forward funding into something that functions is the issue, not forward funding itself.

All said, this is the Charlie Baker I've been waiting to emerge. He picked a good team for the "deep dive" panel. Next test will be what gets acted on based on the panels recommendations.
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True. It is generally acknowledged by economists as bad policy to link an expenditure with an unrelated funding source - like linking the MBTA to sale tax revenue. That doesn't stop politicians from liking to do just that (e.g. lotteries and education). Dedicating $0.01 sales tax to the T was completely unrelated to forward funding and the shortfalls in revenue (obviously through no fault of the T) contributed greatly to the T's financial woes. They should have taken that penny into the general fund and paid the MBTA out of the general fund.

The problem is that spineless legislators with no understanding of economics don't want to publicly debate budgets for popular things like education and public transit every year. Too many opportunities to piss off their constituents.
 
Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

statler said:
When have those terms ever been used to describe the T?

I'll settle for a simple 'dependable'.
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And the sad truth is, that we can't even get simple & dependable any more! It has come all the way down to; "Well, we can't provide the level of service that you've long come to expect. Deal with it. Tough it out on your own!" Hah! :eek:
 
Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

fattony said:
True. It is generally acknowledged by economists as bad policy to link an expenditure with an unrelated funding source - like linking the MBTA to sale tax revenue. That doesn't stop politicians from liking to do just that (e.g. lotteries and education). Dedicating $0.01 sales tax to the T was completely unrelated to forward funding and the shortfalls in revenue (obviously through no fault of the T) contributed greatly to the T's financial woes. They should have taken that penny into the general fund and paid the MBTA out of the general fund.
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Yeah. The concept of forward funding was/is needed - especially compared to the "backward funding" the T was operating on beforehand. It was the revenue stream behind forward funding that caused the underfunding.

Also agreed that specific budget streams shouldn't be tied to unrelated and unpredictable forms of revenue.

The problem is that spineless legislators with no understanding of economics don't want to publicly debate budgets for popular things like education and public transit every year. Too many opportunities to piss off their constituents.
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Yup. And all that really does is force the public debate down a level anyway. For education it pushes it down to the local level, and for the bureaucracy it pushes it down to the agency level. Nice work Great & General Court...
 
Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

BussesAin'tTrains said:
He picked a good team for the "deep dive" panel. Next test will be what gets acted on based on the panels recommendations.
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+1

And I really liked the 30 day time frame and his explicitly noting the other studies, and the fact that this panel is not even remotely starting from zero. He made it sound far more like there's been lots of studies and talks, now he needs it synthesized into an action plan.

If he had said 6 months, and we're starting from scratch, that would have looked like a whitewash in the offing. But by the end of March this won't all have been forgotten. He's either felt enough heat to have gotten sincerely on board with T reform (from fear or having woken up, I don't care) or he's just backed himself into a corner. While I'm not a huge fan of his, I'm not a big detractor either, and I have never thought him stupid enough to back himself into obvious corners. I'm willing to give him and his panel to the end of March to synthesize all the ideas, and I'm willing to give him a shot thereafter at making a push in a better direction. He really laid a marker down today, I will credit him with that. If he comes back with "we need cuts only", well, we'll cross that road if he takes us there.

I wish I was seeing some similar sense of urgency from any member of the House or Senate. One thing at a time, I suppose. Baker's news today is a fair start, and we gotta start somewhere.
 
Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

West said:
On the less exciting side, as a member of the legislature in 2000, Sullivan helped write the forward funding legislation, about which I have never read a positive thing. Well, I imagine Baker could not have avoided appointing one ex-legislator. And I don't know anything about Sullivan, he might be great for the panel, I don't know. The forward funding thing jumped out at me, that's all. For all I know he's as eager for another crack at re-writing that as I am to see it get replaced.
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I just realized about Sullivan that I hadn't considered earlier. Aside from his previous experience working on state transit issues/budgets in the state legislature, he's the current Mayor of Braintree. Braintree/Quincy has been hit hardest by the Red Line outages, so there may be some convenient political optics going here besides his qualifications.
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
Thanks for the merge van!
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Busses -- this is the kind of thing Baker thrives on -- Baker is tailor made for this challenge even more than Mitt who was very good when he got fully engaged in the problem [e.g. the collapse of the Ted W tunnel ceiling panels]

Although Baker was Sec of Admin and Finance -- he is first and foremost a plans and operations guy a bit less emphasis on the financial side than Mitt

I would fully expect him to let this Advisory Panel work for the next 5+ weeks with little in the way of interference other than an occasional knock on the door -- then he'll have an intensive and extensive review

The goal as he stated it is to do was is as close to a clean-sheet budget for the upcoming fiscal year -- has to be presented to the Legislature by the end of May at the latest

Later after the budget is approved and signed he'll engage the Legislature to do any structural [he called it governance] and major financial changes such as the Pension / Labor morass and funding

He's leaving the current return to "normal operations" up to the T's current and soon to be interim senior management -- I would expect that the new GM will bring in a new top level team of assistants as well
 
What do you guys think about the T running Late Night T tonight? (The T has announced they are running it) Wouldn't those hours best be spent working on maintenance instead? We don't even have regular service running and we're gonna try to do extended service?
 
Honestly? It'll cost them, what, two hours of maintenance? By contrast, though, the PR boost will, I think, far outstrip those costs. It recreates a small but real degree of normalcy for the system, which, if they really are in this for the long haul (which, given next week's coming storms, they will have to be), will be very necessary. The T can't appear to be in triage for the next month.

Also, this night is insanely cold– if I were a manager, I'd be concerned about my workers getting seriously hurt working outside tonight. And that same cold is all the more reason to provide even limited service as a public safety measure.

So it's not clear they'd be able to get much work done safely tonight anyway, so why not run the service?
 
datadyne007 said:
What do you guys think about the T running Late Night T tonight? (The T has announced they are running it) Wouldn't those hours best be spent working on maintenance instead? We don't even have regular service running and we're gonna try to do extended service?
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The limited trains that are running don't need the maintenance.

And it is not like the maintenance crews are running the trains.

Getting more trains into service and running late night service are not mutually exclusive.
 
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