General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

mass88 said:
Look at all of the hospitals in Boston. They employ thousands of people that simply cannot work from home. Plenty of those people still need a way to get to/from work, and mass transit is their best, or only option.

This is a sad state of affairs for the system. The hits just seem to keep coming.
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Yea, and the fact that we never got to see a trafficopocalypse from the 30 day Orange Line shutdown, is kinda disappointing. Since it means that we could just rip apart 2/3rds of our transit system and 2/3rds of our buses without making traffic too much worse.

Also, what about the people who can't bike because the roads are too dangerous? The fact that our transit system is decaying to nothing post-COVID, will mean only the fit and able can bike on Boston's dangerous streets, or drive a car if on the wealthier end, spells disaster.
 
It's quiet quitting basically. Although there's a point where it becomes fraud.
 
JeffDowntown said:
Some of the big employers whose workers are impacted by the T mess should consider a class action lawsuit for fraud. Force the Commonwealth to clean house at the T.
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You would think at some point these larger employers would begin to put some pressure on the Commonwealth. A strong transit system benefits everyone. You have large employers, like the hospitals I alluded to, that need their workforce to have a reliable way to get to work. Not every job can be done remotely. Companies have incurred and will continue to incur large expense for their office leases and some want their employees back in the office. From a retention or recruiting standpoint, companies could start to see diminished interest working in the Seaport, or Financial District, or Kendall if prospective or current employees view getting to/from work as too big of a burden. Driving can be a big hassle and now the T has steadily also become a big hassle. Again, a strong mass transit system benefits us all.
 
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Compromise, replace the tracks with moving walkways. Im only half joking. When the T makes SEPTA look competent, drastic measures are needed.
I would call the MBTA a joke, but jokes are at least funny.

EDIT: Forgot the T’s record with escalators, nevermind.
 
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Highwayguy said:
Compromise, replace the tracks with moving walkways. Im only half joking. When the T makes SEPTA look competent, drastic measures are needed.
I would call the MBTA a joke, but jokes are at least funny.
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We could possibly convert all the tracks to rail to trails projects; and now the e-bikes will be travelling much faster than the subway is right now; on dedicated right of ways!
 
393b40 said:
At this point I'd consider mothballing it entirely. Strongly incentivize companies to go fully remote or redistribute offices across the state, re-allocate the MBTA funds to 21st century fiber optics to every home in the Commonwealth and then subsidize parking garage costs only for people making under some income threshold (e.g 40K/yr.) in Boston to handle the remaining service industry workers that would need to come into the city still daily to support the people living here.

Not only should this reduce traffic in the metro to basically weekend levels but it would save a lot of money and spur investment in places outside of Boston which the state badly needs to do.
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Cool so all the minimum wage and service industry workers would be forced to own a car to get to work, leeching what little money they earn. Those that aren’t already stuck with that due to poor service in their area anyway.
 
Delvin4519 said:
We could possibly convert all the tracks to rail to trails projects; and now the e-bikes will be travelling much faster than the subway is right now; on dedicated right of ways!
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l was actually thinking moving walkways but with bikes allowed when l typed that. 30 MPH nonstop service with 0 headways doesn’t sound that bad 😂. This may deserve its own Crazy Transit Pitch…
 
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Highwayguy said:
l was actually thinking moving walkways but with bikes allowed when l typed that. 30 MPH nonstop service with 0 headways doesn’t sound that bad 😂
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Plus, with e-bikes an order of magnitude cheaper than private motorized vehicle ownership/gas/insurance/maintance, and more accessible to vulnerable populations, it's a win/win.

Rails to Trails on an e-bike from Medford/Tufts to Haymarket would be 13.2 minutes at 20 mph top speed on an e-bike, + 0 headways. Faster than the GLX on dedicated ROWs, much, much faster than today's 10 mph Red Line-wide slow zone, and higher capacity than highway lanes for automobiles.

That person who wanted to mothball car ownership to service workers is out of their mind.
 
I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: implement Chinese style punishments for mismanagement and fraud.
 
Privatization will solve exactly zero problems.

On a more mundane/practical note: how many stretches are there right now where the T actually (until last night) was going more than 25 mph? As some have pointed out, it often feels like the T doesn’t go that much faster than that (especially with all of the Red Line slow zones). I’m sure that in reality there are quite a few stretches— I remember clocking the Medford Branch at at least 30 mph— but I am genuinely curious how much.

I also heard the suggestion that the 10 mph limit will be for travel through switches. (I wonder if that would include traveling straight through, eg a crossover switch, in which case that would be a lot of places.) But at a minimum, that would mean slowdowns at:
  • All terminals (except maybe Bowdoin because of its loop?)
  • Kenmore
  • Copley
  • Park
  • Government Center
  • JFK/UMass
 
Riverside said:
Privatization will solve exactly zero problems.

On a more mundane/practical note: how many stretches are there right now where the T actually (until last night) was going more than 25 mph? As some have pointed out, it often feels like the T doesn’t go that much faster than that (especially with all of the Red Line slow zones). I’m sure that in reality there are quite a few stretches— I remember clocking the Medford Branch at at least 30 mph— but I am genuinely curious how much.

I also heard the suggestion that the 10 mph limit will be for travel through switches. (I wonder if that would include traveling straight through, eg a crossover switch, in which case that would be a lot of places.) But at a minimum, that would mean slowdowns at:
  • All terminals (except maybe Bowdoin because of its loop?)
  • Kenmore
  • Copley
  • Park
  • Government Center
  • JFK/UMass
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The Medford Branch of the GLX is 40 MPH between Medford/Tufts and East Somerville.
 
Highwayguy said:
l was actually thinking moving walkways but with bikes allowed when l typed that. 30 MPH nonstop service with 0 headways doesn’t sound that bad 😂. This may deserve its own Crazy Transit Pitch…
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Isaac Asimov described just such a system (but without the bikes) in Caves of Steel, including moving transfers, wherein two walkways would converge to within an inch of each other, and riders could simply step on to the other path. The same approach was used for shifting from slower to faster walkways, which were geared toward longer distance travel.
 
Riverside said:
Privatization will solve exactly zero problems.

On a more mundane/practical note: how many stretches are there right now where the T actually (until last night) was going more than 25 mph? As some have pointed out, it often feels like the T doesn’t go that much faster than that (especially with all of the Red Line slow zones). I’m sure that in reality there are quite a few stretches— I remember clocking the Medford Branch at at least 30 mph— but I am genuinely curious how much.

I also heard the suggestion that the 10 mph limit will be for travel through switches. (I wonder if that would include traveling straight through, eg a crossover switch, in which case that would be a lot of places.) But at a minimum, that would mean slowdowns at:
  • All terminals (except maybe Bowdoin because of its loop?)
  • Kenmore
  • Copley
  • Park
  • Government Center
  • JFK/UMass
Click to expand...
I feel like this 10mph limit over switches was already in place for the Green Line. At least on the GLX it has always slowed significantly over every switch regardless of if it is changing track.
 
Badusername said:
I feel like this 10mph limit over switches was already in place for the Green Line. At least on the GLX it has always slowed significantly over every switch regardless of if it is changing track.
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Yeah that matches my recollection as well.
 
Riverside said:
Thanks! I’ll be pedantic, but the specification was for 40 mph — I’m more curious about what the actual conditions/speeds have been lately.
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The switches are 10 MPH in Medford/Tufts and East Somerville/Lechmere, 40 MPH between Medford/Tufts and East Somerville, and the Lechmere viaduct is 25 MPH, and 10 MPH between Lechmere and Science Park. At least when I last took the GLX on Feb. 20th.
 
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