Interesting. http://fixourt.com/
MBTA Winter 2015: Failure and Recovery
- Thread starter Jahvon09
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Don't be fooled by this. This is Baker's campaign. By "fix our T" they mean keep starving it of money and using front-door boarding.
Nicole Dungca @ndungca 41m ago
Lt. Gov. Polito, members of the governor's MBTA panel, and biz leaders lobbying for Baker's MBTA plan.
https://twitter.com/ndungca/status/601078766769680386
whighlander
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Data -- Data ....
Please .... you are talking Stephanie Pollack of the CLF
http://www.bostonherald.com/business/business_markets/2015/05/mbta_is_fundamentally_broken
Don't be fooled by this. This is Baker's campaign. By "fix our T" they mean keep starving it of money and using front-door boarding.
Nicole Dungca @ndungca 41m ago
Lt. Gov. Polito, members of the governor's MBTA panel, and biz leaders lobbying for Baker's MBTA plan.
https://twitter.com/ndungca/status/601078766769680386
yes, this is a little paranoid...
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2015 is undoubtedly the year of the e-mail:
E-mails show MBTA chief’s frustration with Keolis
By Nicole Dungca GLOBE STAFF JUNE 02, 2015
As February’s snow storms paralyzed the region, the then-general manager of the MBTA complained that leaders of the company running the commuter rail system were “virtually MIA,” and — in a misstep she called “beyond unbelievable” — had sidelined trains because of fuel delivery problems, according to e-mails released to the Globe on Monday.
Beverly Scott’s e-mails, obtained through a public records request, offer a window into the T’s chaotic response to the repeated snow storms, and they lay bare the disappointment Scott and other T officials felt with Keolis Commuter Services as it under-performed throughout the winter.
...
In a candid Feb. 6 e-mail to one of the top officials for Keolis, Scott made clear her disappointment with those running the commuter rail service, which had come under fire for stranding commuters throughout the region. The T contracts out its commuter rail operations to Keolis, a French company.
“Recognizing the extraordinary challenge, I needed LEADERSHIP and a PARTNER to stand up to help make a way out of no way,” she wrote. “On that score, your top leadership has been virtually ‘MIA.’ ”
...
![mbta_email_new[1].png](http://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_371w/Boston/2011-2020/2015/06/02/BostonGlobe.com/Metro/Images/mbta_email_new[1].png)
Full story:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...frustration/YYcPRe1ujDiJB1ItAN2RoN/story.html
F-Line to Dudley
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FFS, take it in-house so the buck stops somewhere. This shell game of blaming the operator, then operator blaming the agency has been going on ever since the very first mercenary operator contract was bid out to Boston & Maine 39 years ago. It's a mutual circle-jerk of obfuscation to prevent the buck from ever stopping somewhere. At least with self-run commuter rail ops the chain of command is crystal-clear, can't pass the blame to anyone else, and has several fewer layers of management abstraction.
It'll take time...probably on the order of 5 years...to enact a plan to go in-house and build the back office of logistics usually provided by the outside contractor. As well as doing the hiring of the ops planning folks provided from the outside. But other than that they know their own system way better than the 2 operators we've had the last 11 years and all the front-line ops staff transfers intact between operators. It's not starting over, nor is it staring into the void. It just needs a transition plan that's well-vetted before being formally enacted at expiration (or opt-out) of the latest deal. There was no avoiding another bid-out after MBCR because they didn't start the conversation about taking it in-house...much less begin ramping up the actual transition...anywhere soon enough to pull it off. It's not a process you start 1 year in advance and months away from having to bid out a new contract.
But...heaven forbid...a little bit of proactive planning and starting that transition process earlier can actually get them there when Keolis is done and end this pass-the-buck stupidity that serves no purpose other than giving each partner who's falling down on the job plausible deniability and a foil to blame it on.
It'll take time...probably on the order of 5 years...to enact a plan to go in-house and build the back office of logistics usually provided by the outside contractor. As well as doing the hiring of the ops planning folks provided from the outside. But other than that they know their own system way better than the 2 operators we've had the last 11 years and all the front-line ops staff transfers intact between operators. It's not starting over, nor is it staring into the void. It just needs a transition plan that's well-vetted before being formally enacted at expiration (or opt-out) of the latest deal. There was no avoiding another bid-out after MBCR because they didn't start the conversation about taking it in-house...much less begin ramping up the actual transition...anywhere soon enough to pull it off. It's not a process you start 1 year in advance and months away from having to bid out a new contract.
But...heaven forbid...a little bit of proactive planning and starting that transition process earlier can actually get them there when Keolis is done and end this pass-the-buck stupidity that serves no purpose other than giving each partner who's falling down on the job plausible deniability and a foil to blame it on.
whighlander
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F-line -- Completely inverted logic --
Surely you jest -- All we need to improve things is for the Carmen's Union to be responsible for running the commuter rail
Much better -- Make Keolis a deal that they can't refuse if they deliver
i.e. the contract should be heavy on incentives for the contractor to deliver service to the T's customers on time and under-budget -- every train that arrives completely in working order and on time gets points to be redeemed for $
Surely you jest -- All we need to improve things is for the Carmen's Union to be responsible for running the commuter rail
Much better -- Make Keolis a deal that they can't refuse if they deliver
i.e. the contract should be heavy on incentives for the contractor to deliver service to the T's customers on time and under-budget -- every train that arrives completely in working order and on time gets points to be redeemed for $
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Are you kidding? That was how MBCR's contract was structured and look what that created. The Keolis contract got rid of the "reward for doing your job" (to a lot of media attention) and instead switched it to the penalty-heavy method of penalizing for bad service rather than rewarding for good service.
WormtownNative
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F-Line to Dudley
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What do you think the current contract is?
Oh, my...exactly freaking that! But it sounds profound to metaphorically ask the long-answered question, doesn't it?
Nice try at the threadshit, whigh, but no...that's completely full of shit.F-line -- Completely inverted logic --
Surely you jest -- All we need to improve things is for the Carmen's Union to be responsible for running the commuter rail
The Carmen's Union isn't a RR union. In any way, shape, or form. It will never get anywhere near commuter rail other than their own members commuting on commuter rail. Commuter rail employees have their own RR-specific, non- Boston-specific national unions with contract terms not synced to the T's operator. At least two separate unions...one for just the engineers/conductors/ops people and one for just the maint/shop/physical plant people. The contracts transfer intact between operators as the staff transfers intact between operators. Like it has been doing since B&M begat Amtrak begat MBCR begat Keolis. And would begat another operator if somebody else wins the next bid.
I don't know how good/bad/otherwise the RR contracts are vs. other commuter rail operators, but I do know they're much more in line than the Carmen's Union because these are the same unions the RR employees at blessed-invisible-hand-of-the-market billion dollar freight money-printing conglomerates like CSX belong to. They're shaped a lot more by the gravitational pull of all RR union contracts collectively vs. the vacuum the Carmen's Union contract operates in. These are not pure public-sector unions; equal parts public, equal parts private employers in those membership ranks. So the contracts are to non-trivial degree shaped by the influence of the private RR's who live totally amongst the ever-so-blessed-invisible-hand-of-the-market.
The operator is purely management types. i.e. majority non-union except for a few low-level people they assign to individual clients. It's a tiny staff overall who would be under any contract. Whereas the management ranks are very bloated and obfuscated indeed. Management being what ditching the mercenary operator would trim down.
This has been today's whighlander-special Bullshit Talk Radio Re-microwaved Talking Points of Faux Profundity(-sounding)™ thorough debunking.
Same-time same-place tomorrow, eh?
tangent
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It is always important to look at managing and doing the work in-house versus contracting it out. If you are paying more and getting bad service and it is possible you could do a better job in-house, then you need to look at whether you can do a better job in-house.
I will leave the invective at the door and give F-Bomb an A- on this one. The minus is because I don't think it is a definite that it should be done in-house or that the state would necessarily do a better job running the commuter rail directly and simply doing something different doesn't necessarily make it better, but every project at every level should periodically be looked at competitively.
When you have a major contract failure like this then there should be a review to see if the existing contract should be terminated and that should include a thorough review of in-house alternatives versus just blindly putting it out to bid again.
But it is very hard to see what the "value add" of the Keolis contract is. I mean they skim a percentage off the top for what exactly? Just to make it easier to fire them at the end of their contract versus hiring people as state employees?
I will leave the invective at the door and give F-Bomb an A- on this one. The minus is because I don't think it is a definite that it should be done in-house or that the state would necessarily do a better job running the commuter rail directly and simply doing something different doesn't necessarily make it better, but every project at every level should periodically be looked at competitively.
When you have a major contract failure like this then there should be a review to see if the existing contract should be terminated and that should include a thorough review of in-house alternatives versus just blindly putting it out to bid again.
But it is very hard to see what the "value add" of the Keolis contract is. I mean they skim a percentage off the top for what exactly? Just to make it easier to fire them at the end of their contract versus hiring people as state employees?
bigeman312
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Governor Baker announces new MBTA plan
Sounds good in June. I hope it will make a difference in February (fingers crossed)
Sounds good in June. I hope it will make a difference in February (fingers crossed)
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This is definitely good news to hear they are investing in resources for the winter (looks like Charlie is actually willing to invest money in the T), but watch us have a mild winter next time and then everyone start screaming about wasted money...
tangent
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Maybe if they can actually get new equipment by then... Funding request... Legislative wrangling... RFPs.... bids... bid selection... lawsuits... etc etc. Oh and what if they have to custom order the new equipment...
F-Line to Dudley
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By a large margin.
See below for a copypasta list mashed from 2 Wikipedia pages of all 29 CR systems in North America, ranked by weekday ridership. I added the operators if you scroll way to the right.
MBTA is 7th largest, and size-wise it drops off the table after them. Both in ridership, # of lines, # of stations, and (except for the sprawl L.A. Metrolink has to cover) # of total route miles. Given that #8 and #9 are also in-house ops (excepting 2 AMT lines that have to be run by their freight landlords until the agency completes its planned purchase of those lines), and all others below that have far less than half the T's ridership and physical plant. . .
. . .yes, they are a singularly huge exception to the rule on in-house vs. contracted out. To the point where they really have to answer some pointed questions justifying why this setup is still is effect
Code:
RANK SYSTEM METROPOLITAN AREA STATE/PROV. WEEKDAY RDRS. ANN. RDRS. MI. RDRS./MI. LINES STA. OPERATOR (BY # LINES) FOUNDED
---- ------ ----------------- ----------- ------------- ---------- --- --------- ----- ---- --------------------- -------
1 MTA Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) New York City/Long Island NY 337,800 98,393,700 321 1,052 11 124 in-house 1834
2 New Jersey Transit Rail (NJT) N. Jersey/NYC/Phila./Atl. City NJ/NY/PA 236,668 86,383,800 398 594 11 164 in-house 1983
3 MTA Metro-North Railroad (MNRR) New York City/New Haven NY/CT 298,900 84,468,800 385 776 6 122 in-house 1983
4 Metra Chicago IL/WI 290,500 74,381,900 488 596 11 241 in-house 1984
5 GO Transit Toronto ONT (CAN) 197,000 68,200,000 281 n/a 7 63 in-house 1967
6 SEPTA Regional Rail Philadelphia PA/NJ/DE 134,600 37,132,500 280 481 13 153 in-house 1983
7 MBTA Commuter Rail Boston/Providence MA/RI 130,600 36,087,600 368 355 13 127 Keolis 1973
8 Ferrocarril Suburbano Mexico City DF (MEX) 88,000 n/a 17 n/a 1 7 in-house 2008
9 Agence métropolitaine de transport (AMT) Montreal QUE (CAN) 75,600 19,322,200 159 n/a 6 61 in-house(4)/CN(2) 1996
10 Caltrain San Francisco/San Jose CA 56,700 17,942,600 77 736 1 32 TransitAmerica 1987
11 Metrolink Los Angeles/San Bernardino CA 41,200 11,489,700 388 106 7 55 Amtrak 1992
12 MARC Train Baltimore/Washington, D.C. MD/DE/DC 35,200 9,364,800 187 188 3 43 Amtrak(1)/Bombardier(2) 1984
13 Virginia Railway Express (VRE) Washington, D.C. VA/DC 17,900 4,513,500 90 199 2 18 Keolis 1992
14 UTA FrontRunner Salt Lake City/Ogden/Provo UT 16,800 4,416,100 88 191 1 16 in-house 2008
15 Tri-Rail Miami FL 14,400 4,389,600 71 203 1 18 Veolia 1987
16 NICTD South Shore Line Chicago/South Bend IL/IN 11,800 3,614,200 90 131 1 20 in-house 1903
17 Sounder Commuter Rail Seattle/Tacoma WA 13,700 3,362,800 80 171 2 9 BNSF 2000
18 West Coast Express Vancouver BC (CAN) 10,600 n/a 43 n/a 1 8 Bombardier 1995
19 Trinity Railway Express Dallas/Fort Worth TX 8,200 2,293,500 34 241 1 10 Herzog Transit Services 1996
20 NCTD Coaster San Diego/Oceanside CA 4,900 1,748,200 41 120 1 8 TransitAmerica 1995
21 Altamont Corridor Express (ACE) San Jose/Stockton CA 4,600 1,179,400 86 53 1 10 Herzog Transit Services 1998
22 New Mexico Rail Runner Express Albuquerque/Santa Fe NM 3,400 1,062,700 97 35 1 13 Herzog Transit Services 2006
23 SunRail Orlando FL 3,200 540,700 38 101 1 12 Bombardier 2014
24 Capital MetroRail Austin TX 2,800 782,100 32 88 1 9 Herzog Transit Services 2010
25 Northstar Commuter Rail Minneapolis/St. Paul MN 2,500 721,200 40 63 1 6 BNSF 2009
26 Shore Line East (SLE) New Haven/New London CT 2,200 658,300 59 37 1 13 Amtrak 1990
27 A-Train Denton County TX 1,900 570,100 21 90 1 6 in-house 2011
28 Westside Express Service (WES) Portland OR 1,800 501,100 15 120 1 5 Portland & Western RR 2010
29 Music City Star Nashville TN 1,000 256,700 32 31 1 6 in-house 2006F-Line to Dudley
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Yep. 4 routes under the same "you wanna use my track, we run the trains...deal or GTFO" ultimatum with their Class I freight overlords. Same deal AMT's building a warchest to buy its way out of on its two CN-run lines. Only Metra strangely seems to have no interest in buying its way to freedom, despite the fact they're basically third-class citizens to the freights on those 4 lines.
BNSF does the same thing with Sounder and Northstar. And so does Amtrak...implicitly at least...with the MARC Penn Line and Shore Line East: cooperate if you want slots. CT's just issued the RFP for Hartford Line operators, but it's basically a kabuki dance of pre-ordained Amtrak outcome. For the same reason: Amtrak's the Springfield Line's landlord and dispatcher.
tangent
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It should be a mix. The only choice shouldn't be all full time union state employee jobs versus just outsourcing the whole thing including management. There needs to be a mix of employees and shorter term individual contractors and contracted companies with clearly specified deliverables. Long term employees are best for long term needs, contractors are good for short or medium term work and contracted companies might be good for things like marketing or call centers or non-mission critical IT.