General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

[bigeman312]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

A 10% T increase would drive people to Bridj or Uber? Not sure I see the logic there.

I think Bridj is not long for this world. But there is logic to the fact that a high enough fare increase will drive people to alternate modes. Maybe that mode is biking. Maybe it is an occasional Uber. Maybe it is to buy your own private automobile. Whatever it may be, the economics argument is sound. The demand for transit has a certain level of elasticity, as applied to all goods on the free market.

 

[Matthew]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

In a way, the fare hikes of the past few years did push me towards biking, despite being a transit fan.

:/

 

[bigeman312]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

In a way, the fare hikes of the past few years did push me towards biking, despite being a transit fan.

:/

Same here. When I take public transportation, my commute is ~$16 round trip, but biking is free. And that savings adds up quickly. Even if I did a monthly pass, I'm still saving almost $200/month biking. That would be even more true after another fare hike.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Same here. When I take public transportation, my commute is ~$16 round trip, but biking is free. And that savings adds up quickly. Even if I did a monthly pass, I'm still saving almost $200/month biking. That would be even more true after another fare hike.

It wasn't the cost for me. but the huge winter failure last year that made me move my office so that my business partner and I can walk to the office, independent of the (unreliable) T.

I now use the T 1/10 of what I did a year ago.

 

[datadyne007]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

A 10% T increase would drive people to Bridj or Uber? Not sure I see the logic there.

If the T becomes just as pricey as more comfortable alternatives, then yes, people will see no reason to suffer on the T and opt for an Uber across town or Bridj.

Disclaimer: I'm not a Bridj supporter in the slightest. I do not believe it is a healthy solution for transit. I'm simply pointing out the truth.

 

[bigeman312]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

It seems like the weekend Bowdoin closure and work on GC really screwed up the Blue Line. According to the T Report Card, Blue Line OTP was <20% on Saturday.

 

[datadyne007]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

It seems like the weekend Bowdoin closure and work on GC really screwed up the Blue Line. According to the T Report Card, Blue Line OTP was <20% on Saturday.

So for the Bowdoin closures, they run a shuttle train between State and Maverick and then a separate train from Maverick to Wonderland. The trains run on the wrong tracks. (For example, the train to State boards on the outbound side of the platform at Maverick)

 

[DigitalSciGuy]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

If the T becomes just as pricey as more comfortable alternatives, then yes, people will see no reason to suffer on the T and opt for an Uber across town or Bridj.

Disclaimer: I'm not a Bridj supporter in the slightest. I do not believe it is a healthy solution for transit. I'm simply pointing out the truth.

Yeah, I'll be honest - I love watching you stir the pot with Matt, but it's such a third rail that I'd rather discuss face-to-face with him than on Twitter. Ari Ofsevit recently duked it out with him at our Beer & Transit with Chris Dempsey; I was more than happy to sit back and watch. I appreciate you tagging the TransitMatters Twitter account, though - I'd have probably missed watching that whole argument otherwise.

T4Mass and others are trying to get through some legislation that would allow for local transport funding to be proposed as regional ballot items, which could theoretically unlock more local funding for the T's capital and operating costs.

The biggest thing bloating the T's operating costs upward of $2bn is inefficiencies from legacy infrastructure. A bigger capital development program complimented with the state taking a much harder line on redeveloping MBTA property around stations rather than continuing to sell it for one-off annual budget gap fillers will mean greater operating efficiency and more non-statutory revenue to compliment fare box income.

Reminds me of this article posted to the Infrastructurist subreddit the other day about how India, in spite of its massive $15bn investment into the national rail network, isn't coming close to modernising the system to chip away at its monstrous operating costs from a very labour-heavy operation (among having cost centers that are amenities only for railway employees).

 

[Arlington]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Somewhere we discussed that ridership rose ~2% after the last ~5% hike. Don't hold me to exact numbers (all were single-digit %) but the point was that raising fares was supposed to cause a net lower ridership and something like only a 3% increase in revenues (fares up 5%, ridership down 3%) and instead revenues went up 8% (Fare hike + rising ridership)

From an economist's standpoint that says that the fare hike was too low--not extracting a pay-what-it-is-worth-to-you price from enough people.

From a public policy standpoint, Sec. Pollack wants higher fares (from those who can pay) and a better low-income pass program (to deliver mobility to those who cannot afford higher transportation costs but need to get to work and social services)

I'd like to see 15% higher rush&crush fares, and then better needs-based / off-peak / off-hours / counter-rush discounting: Transit is most valuable when cutting through rush hours and users at that time should pay.

Meanwhile, it is hard for transit to compete with cars in any market where the cars are flowing freely. Lower prices would help transit better compete with cars at times when cars are unslowed by congestion.

Examples:
A capped, flat $4 commuter rail fare on weekends and 10am to 2pm and 8pm-Close "outbound" and 6pm-Close "inbound") on weekdays aimed at diverting long-ish car trips to transit, but raise parking fees on weekdays.

Make Zone 1A buses free on weekends after 4pm (or something)

And in exchange, raise weekday rush fares.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Somewhere we discussed that ridership rose ~2% after the last ~5% hike. Don't hold me to exact numbers (all were single-digit %) but the point was that raising fares was supposed to cause a net lower ridership and something like only a 3% increase in revenues (fares up 5%, ridership down 3%) and instead revenues went up 8% (Fare hike + rising ridership)

From an economist's standpoint that says that the fare hike was too low--not extracting a pay-what-it-is-worth-to-you price from enough people.

From a public policy standpoint, Sec. Pollack wants higher fares (from those who can pay) and a better low-income pass program (to deliver mobility to those who cannot afford higher transportation costs but need to get to work and social services)

I'd like to see 15% higher rush&crush fares, and then better needs-based / off-peak / off-hours / counter-rush discounting (Transit is most valuable when cutting through rush hours and users at that time should pay. Meanwhile, it is hard for transit to compete with cars in any market where the cars are flowing freely. Lower prices would help transit better compete with cars at those times)

Arlington, from an economic perspective this makes a lot of sense. With a caveat...

It only works if the trains are actually cutting around the traffic at rush hour. If everyone is crammed in stalled broken down trains, then the economic argument falls apart.

It is hard to charge for value that is not delivered. So you basically need to fix the system operationally FIRST to make this kind of value pricing work.

 

[Arlington]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

NYCTA did a package c. 1991:
- Big fare hike ($1.10 to $1.25...in the token era..IIRC)
- Fare freeze for 5 years
- All proceeds spend on State of Good Repair

 

[Arlington]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

If everyone is crammed in stalled broken down trains, then the economic argument falls apart.

You may view the trains as crammed/stalled, but rising ridership said/says that the average rider has a postive-enough experience to keep them riding (so it is not generalizable to say "crammed/stalled" is how the system was/is viewed and unlikely to be how it would be viewed in the next 2 years either, especially with Gov Center and Silverline Gateway coming online)

It isn't needful to be perfect, it just needs to be better than the alternatives.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

It isn't needful to be perfect, it just needs to be better than the alternatives.

I am not looking for perfect, I just want less that 4 messages a day about delays in service due to broken down Orange Line trains.

IMHO value based pricing is a really dangerous move for the T before the rolling stock upgrades (in the pipeline) are completed.

 

[Arlington]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

I am not looking for perfect, I just want less that 4 messages a day about delays in service due to broken down Orange Line trains.

IMHO value based pricing is a really dangerous move for the T before the rolling stock upgrades (in the pipeline) are completed.

[Post Substituted] What's the danger? That ridership will drop and trains will uncrowd? Or that ridership won't drop and they'll have the money to fund SOGR and other stuff.

I see no danger at all in raising fares, particularly at crammed hours, but I'm educable.

 

[George_Apley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

You may view the trains as crammed/stalled, but rising ridership said/says that the average rider has a postive-enough experience to keep them riding (so it is not generalizable to say "crammed/stalled" is how the system was/is viewed and unlikely to be how it would be viewed in the next 2 years either, especially with Gov Center and Silverline Gateway coming online)

It isn't needful to be perfect, it just needs to be better than the alternatives.

So squeezing some more money out of people who have no choice / aren't going to spend still more money for alternatives is the way to go? That's going to solve our funding gap? I get it. Economics says it's foolish to do anything less than the highest amount people are willing to pay without abandoning the service. But that's kind of missing the point. Fare hikes will not do anything to raise the revenue to fix the T. Squeezing a trivial amount of money out of desperate and angry commuters in a city with broken transportation (road/rail/etc.) just sounds like bad politics.

If it's part of a comprehensive overhaul of transportation funding in the metro-area then sure, raise the fares as part of a "spread the pain" process, but if they're just going to raise fares without anyone noticing any meaningful improvements (which is the likely result of raising fares in a vacuum) it's a useless gesture to non-transit riders.

 

[Arlington]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

So squeezing some more money out of people who have no choice / aren't going to spend still more money for alternatives is the way to go? That's going to solve our funding gap? I get it.

First, IF it lowers peak-hour ridership, it is the very fastest way to deliver less crowded trains, TOMORROW. No construction, no added fleet. Immediate gratification.

Do we like less crowded trains? Mostly. Would we be happier paying more for less crowded trains? Mostly. 100% of the people who do stay, like what they are staying for, and 100% of the people who shift out freely do so to save money. That's the beauty of competition and consumer choice.

The first choice we can guide these folks to may be to not crowd rush hour trains--that's what DC does, where fares go up at 7am and down at 10am and then up at 4pm down at 7pm. People for whom money is more important than schedule self-select and move themselves out of the daily rush hour and are HAPPIER because they freely chose to ride that way. They are happier because they saved money.

If we "can't" do that on the subway, maybe try it on the CR (with lower off-peak fares). If you really really are the working poor, we gotta get you a discount pass. But mostly fare hikes during times of overcrowding are a social good, regardless of how ripped off we feel when somebody raises prices on us.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

[Post Substituted] What's the danger? That ridership will drop and trains will uncrowd? Or that ridership won't drop and they'll have the money to fund SOGR and other stuff.

I see no danger at all in raising fares, particularly at crammed hours, but I'm educable.

The danger is pissing off even more people about bad management at the T.

Number one rule of customer service: under promise, over deliver. The T breaks this rule all the time -- bad, bad management. (Witness the stupid current statements about winter preparedness).

You get to extract value based pricing from people when you deliver real value. Promise and price for value, and deliver poorly, and people will turn against you. They will find ways to not use the service, which overall is BAD FOR THE CITY. We want people out of their cars and on the T (and walking and biking).

The worst outcome would be a bunch of T riders getting pissed off enough to get back into cars at rush hour, further paralyzing traffic (and hence commerce and growth) in the city.

 

[datadyne007]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

The first choice we can guide these folks to may be to not crowd rush hour trains--that's what DC does, where fares go up at 7am and down at 10am and then up at 4pm down at 7pm. People for whom money is more important than schedule self-select and move themselves out of the daily rush hour and are HAPPIER because they freely chose to ride that way. They are happier because they saved money.

And what about the lower wage people in the service industry that HAVE to get to work at the store or restaurant at 8am? You're making a bizarre assumption that lower income people can just move around their schedule willy-nilly.

If you really really are the working poor, we gotta get you a discount pass.

The problem with means-tested discounts is that the means-tests don't tell the whole picture. I, and many others in my generation, am crushed with enormous amounts of student loan debt with payments I can't lower and rates I can't reduce. On paper, my income looks more than sufficient (above AMI), but the reality is that I can barely afford to eat but don't qualify for any help.

 

[George_Apley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

So there's a general policy push for complete streets; making parking more expensive; discourage driving downtown; reclaim road space for bicycles and pedestrians; etc. It's a slow, gradual push, but it's a real push. Given that, how can a simultaneous policy of making public transit more expensive while also doing nothing meaningful to improve the service at all productive with the overall transportation and urbanization policy shift? Raising fares without being able to deliver improved service is exactly the wrong thing to do.

I fail to see how a relatively small injection of money from higher fares would do anything to practically improve MBTA service for riders.

 

[Arlington]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

The worst outcome would be a bunch of T riders getting pissed off enough to get back into cars at rush hour, further paralyzing traffic (and hence commerce and growth) in the city.

These cheapskates go from mode to mode bogging them down and we're supposed to chase them / lure them back with lower fares? No way. They're perfectly awful customers--willing to bog down whichever mode appears to be under-charging them. We should NOT be designing ANY transportation system for these people, street or transit.

We should be designing the system for the 97% *stay* after the fare hike (or toll hike or gas tax hike or parking fee hike or congestion charge), not appease the 3% who flee.

Congestion charges (aka peak hour pricing) are a great idea precisely because they calibrate modes to the people who actually are willing to PAY MORE for BETTER service, not those willing to bog a system down because it is cheap.