General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Uhh...car? Or not living in Allston when you work at Ashmont.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Walk to Harvard Sq, take a bus to Ashmont(?)/Harvard Sq/Central Sq?
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

I was thinking the 66, either to Harvard + red, or to dudley + 1 of a hundred bus options.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

I'm sure she can afford Dorchester?
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

She should demand her employers pay for a private helicopter to pick her up each morning and drop her off each night.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Boston Globe - April 7, 2010
T taps tech-savvy to keep riders in loop

By Eric Moskowitz, Globe Staff | April 7, 2010

The number 39 bus is the MBTA?s busiest, carrying 14,400 passengers a day between Jamaica Plain and the Back Bay. Its schedule is tacked up at JP Licks, where commuters grab coffee before catching the bus, but anyone who has ridden the 39 knows the posted times are only a suggestion.

Now there is something better: An LED sign mounted above a display case, to the left of the ice cream counter and the right of the life-sized cow. In red letters that scroll across the face, it displays arrival times for the next two buses.

The sign was built not by the MBTA, but by a 42-year-old software engineer and entrepreneur who lives around the corner and wanted a better way to catch the bus. With $350 in materials and an afternoon?s work, Benjamin Resner accomplished what the T has been talking about doing for years.

Resner?s bus tracker is part of a wave of rider-friendly iPhone apps, desktop widgets, websites, and hardware installations that tell people where and when to find the next bus. The applications are the first results of a trial program in which the MBTA, once a careful guardian of its data, is now sharing information freely with local software developers, web entrepreneurs, and at-home tinkerers to see if they can do better than the T itself at finding innovative ways to keep commuters up to date.

The project represents a dramatic shift in philosophy at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which a year and a half ago sued a group of MIT undergraduates who uncovered flaws in the CharlieCard system to keep them from presenting their findings at a hacker conference.

?Those days are over,?? said Jeffrey B. Mullan, the state?s secretary of transportation. The MBTA is now partnering with MIT?s Center for Future Civic Media and reaching out to the tech community, offering modest prizes like CharlieCard passes and chances to play with the T?s bus-driver training simulator to reward the best work.

?What the open-data initiative has done is it?s permitted people who are quote-unquote outside of transportation to help us perform our core mission, and it?s huge,?? Mullan added. ?Even just letting people have access to our data proves to people that we?re willing to trust others.??

Encouraged by the first applications developed for the 39 and four other bus lines, MBTA officials say they anticipate a time when riders of all subways, buses, and trains will be able to select from an array of independently produced high- and low-tech applications when making travel plans.

The open-data initiative is being driven by Christopher Dempsey and Joshua Robin, bus-riding Department of Transportation officials in their 20s who met on Deval Patrick?s gubernatorial campaign and who were impressed by the efforts to enlist outsiders in helping commuters use Portland?s TriMet and the Chicago Transit Authority.

?The initiative really started with a question, and that question is, where is the bus??? Robin said.

Dempsey and Robin convinced higher-ups to get on board with a limited trial, insisting that the data could be released in a safe and productive fashion and that developers hungry for the challenge and interested in transit would actually produce applications at no cost to the T.

At first, the MBTA released only schedule and route information, and within weeks, developers had created half a dozen different phone and desktop applications. One of them, Sparkfish Creative?s MassTransit, made a cameo appearance in an iPhone ad last week.

Then the T released real-time predictions about when buses would arrive, based on GPS data and past travel times, for five bus routes. Within an hour, someone had plugged the data into Google Earth. And within a month, Resner had programmed and built his JP Licks sign.

Now there are more than a dozen applications and devices that track buses on the five routes, ranging from a whimsical bus-tracking clock powered by a recycled cellphone to widely available applications for the iPhone. And the transportation agency has created a website, a Twitter feed, and a Google group, and has organized regular networking events to encourage competition and collaboration among potential transit application developers.

By summer, the state plans to release real-time location data for every bus along the T?s 190 routes.

Some of the developers hope to eventually turn a profit, by selling their applications to riders or selling advertising. Others, like Resner, say they are just dabbling to show what can be done.

?It?s gratifying to be able to use a skill, with very little time, that has a big impact and help the community,?? Resner said.

But Resner acknowledges that there is one fringe benefit to his ice cream counter bus-tracker ? he has gotten to know top management at JP Licks.

?I?ve got two small kids,?? he said. ?I?m like a huge hero.??

Eric Moskowitz can be reached at emoskowitz@globe.com.
Click to expand...
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Does the Globe recycle old stories or are they just that slow?
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

^^ Yes.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Expanding the pilot project to include all buses is news, though it's buried a bit in the story.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Does anyone else feel that the MBTA is behind other cities when it comes to tech use?
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

*cough* IBM Smarter City *cough*
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Ron Newman said:
Expanding the pilot project to include all buses is news, though it's buried a bit in the story.
Click to expand...

It was actually announced a few weeks ago. The news is the time line: summer. Before it was "this year"

Heres a video of a high tech bus countdown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m0oSjSQkrE


Also, we still havent heard a peep about what the new Yawkey stop will look like, if tracks will be moved, and if there will be bustitution. The daily free press mentioned this today, but it must be taken with a giant clump of salt; they're frequently misinformed.


The complex, built partially over the Massachusetts Turnpike, would include a 700-car garage, 200 units of mixed-income housing and 370,000 square feet of office space.

Rosenthal?s company plans to break ground in August on a $12 million upgrade to the Yawkey commuter rail station.

The new station would include street-level entrances, two more tracks and solar panels to power the station?s lights and elevators. It would also allow the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority to increase its stops at the station to 41 a week from the 14 provided now, Rosenthal said.

In the first phase, the developer plans to build a garage, also equipped with solar panels, for Fenway Park fans and workers at the nearby Longwood Medical Area, and an apartment building facing the stadium.

Rosenthal then plans a second phase of apartments and office buildings capped off with a 27-story office tower to serve as a ?landmark? for the area.​
http://www.dailyfreepress.com/high-hopes-for-fenway-1.2212101
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

jass said:
Rosenthal then plans a second phase of apartments and office buildings capped off with a 27-story office tower to serve as a ?landmark? for the area.[/INDENT]
http://www.dailyfreepress.com/high-hopes-for-fenway-1.2212101
Click to expand...

I bet the Red Sox ownership is really pleased someone is creating a "landmark" for the area. SINCE THERE'S NONE NOW? (I mean, aside from that ghastly, rickety, old, dreary collection of green steel girders and red brick called Friendly Fenway Park.)


(edit: spelling)
 
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Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

vanshnookenraggen said:
As has been previously stated, the T isn't about transportation, it's about Jobs. If we lived in some objective market controlled world (not that I'm advocating that) then the T would be about transportation and these projects would all be done as soon as possible. But since the T is about jobs these projects drag on much longer than they should. The new super-agency isn't about to change this so unless any of you are going to run for Governor (John?), enjoy the mess.
Click to expand...

While working at the MBTA I learned something. The MBTA will always be behind the curve. No matter what it does. For example: Everyone is haggling the MBTA about extending to city of Lynn. Now in theory it sounds good. The socioeconomic situation presently in Lynn seems as though it would be ripe for rapid mass transit. e.g. a lot of people might actually ride the service, but there is a problem. Gentrification... Once the MBTA builds out to a new neighbourhood property values jump, taxes jump, and eventually rents start to jump. Eventually the general cost of living in the area becomes more expensive and poorer families start to get pushed out. So look at in this way. When the MBTA finally extends to Lynn, the rents in Lynn will eventually go up. Then around 10-20 years later the less well off households will be forced to move out past Lynn into the new suburbs which may be cheaper. New money then start moving back-in as people start realising they can afford Lynn and it would just be a simple train ride into Boston. So you'll start seeing more upscale professionals moving in. Ofcourse, some of these professionals wont want to commute on mass transit so they'll drive their cars in to work if they can. The drop in ridership lowers overall revenue for the MBTA (but they still have this expanded area to serve). So what does the MBTA decide to do? Begin to look at expanding out into the new- lower income areas and this goes on and on in a circle. The MBTA will constantly have to chase the lower income areas as those areas get pushed farther and farther out from Boston. The Roxbury community has been very vocal about wanting a direct Silver Line train underground, but I'll be frank, I hope everyone in Roxbury and Dorchester could then afford South End-style rents because that's just what will begin to happen property values at Dudley will start to skyrocket and before long big industry will start buying up buildings around there and turning it into an upscale area and the whole aura of the area will change.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

mass88 said:
Does anyone else feel that the MBTA is behind other cities when it comes to tech use?
Click to expand...

The MBTA has blown a lot of money on upgrading the existing system rather than expansion. For example: removing the elevated portions of the orange and green line rather than just expanding and keeping the elevated portions as is.
It is a cost to pay.... Keep what you have? and just keep patching it Or do you keep spending your money on revamping the existing coverage areas?

Most of Boston's subway lines IMHO can't stand too much more extending because of the fact that most of Boston's subway lines don't have alternate parallel tracks (aka express tracks). Parallel tracks could be used in an emergency like if a train breaks down. Currently all it takes is a single break down to cripple an entire line since trains can't go around it easily. Furthermore, Boston made the mistake of clustering lines I assume to save on costs. E.g. The Orange and Green roughly parallel one another and the Commuter Rail lines in turn parallels many of the existing subway lines too. If they all were further spread-out much more of metro-Boston could have been covered.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Digital_Islandboy said:
The MBTA has blown a lot of money on upgrading the existing system rather than expansion. For example: removing the elevated portions of the orange and green line rather than just expanding and keeping the elevated portions as is.
It is a cost to pay.... Keep what you have? and just keep patching it Or do you keep spending your money on revamping the existing coverage areas?

Most of Boston's subway lines IMHO can't stand too much more extending because of the fact that most of Boston's subway lines don't have alternate parallel tracks (aka express tracks). Parallel tracks could be used in an emergency like if a train breaks down. Currently all it takes is a single break down to cripple an entire line since trains can't go around it easily. Furthermore, Boston made the mistake of clustering lines I assume to save on costs. E.g. The Orange and Green roughly parallel one another and the Commuter Rail lines in turn parallels many of the existing subway lines too. If they all were further spread-out much more of metro-Boston could have been covered.
Click to expand...

I don't see any problem with commuter rail lines following heavy rail lines; it saves space, where else would you run them? Commuter Rail is to get commuters into the city, the subway system is to move people around the metro area.

So, in my opinion, the general guideline should be: Rapid Transit within/servicing Rt 128 belt and Commuter Rail from Rt 128 to the "outer belt" (Rt 190, Rt 146, Rt 195, NH 101, etc, there's gaps in it, but I call it the outer belt) with no stops within 128 other than the furthest possible rapid transit transfer (ie: Forest Hills, Braintree, Porter) and North/South/Back Bay.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Digital_Islandboy said:
While working at the MBTA I learned something....
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I agree with you on this point. What saddens me and what holds Boston back is this culture of "Why bother?" Once again it isn't about providing transportation, it's about jobs and watching your back. Boston isn't alone in this, plenty of bureaucratic agencies face this problem (private companies too, check out the This American Life episode on GM from a week or two ago).
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

vanshnookenraggen said:
I agree with you on this point. What saddens me and what holds Boston back is this culture of "Why bother?" Once again it isn't about providing transportation, it's about jobs and watching your back. Boston isn't alone in this, plenty of bureaucratic agencies face this problem (private companies too, check out the This American Life episode on GM from a week or two ago).
Click to expand...

I don't know which is worst for that type of thing: the public or private sectors? In the private sector sure they can ruin your career. But public sector can do little nit picky things to drive a person half madd.
Out in the system (e.g. if you're a Customer Service Agent) it appeared to me as there being less of that having to 'watch your back' stuff. But if you work in one of the big offices you do have to watch what you say. It can be as simple as "I hope _blank_ wins the election", to a "I'm transferring this call (irate caller) to you because I think it is your department's area to resolve."

If you make enemies, you have to be careful because you never know who they are connected to up on Beacon Hill or even within the authority itself. All it takes is someone on Beacon Hill to call one of your bosses about something and you'll see some dust raised. It goes without saying you'll be called into somewhere to explain yourself. In that case all you can do is hope that you still have your notes on that incident, and that you followed protocol and tried to utilise commonsense.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Digital_Islandboy said:
While working at the MBTA I learned something. The MBTA will always be behind the curve. No matter what it does. For example: Everyone is haggling the MBTA about extending to city of Lynn. Now in theory it sounds good. The socioeconomic situation presently in Lynn seems as though it would be ripe for rapid mass transit. e.g. a lot of people might actually ride the service, but there is a problem. Gentrification... Once the MBTA builds out to a new neighbourhood property values jump, taxes jump, and eventually rents start to jump. Eventually the general cost of living in the area becomes more expensive and poorer families start to get pushed out. So look at in this way. When the MBTA finally extends to Lynn, the rents in Lynn will eventually go up. Then around 10-20 years later the less well off households will be forced to move out past Lynn into the new suburbs which may be cheaper. New money then start moving back-in as people start realising they can afford Lynn and it would just be a simple train ride into Boston. So you'll start seeing more upscale professionals moving in. Ofcourse, some of these professionals wont want to commute on mass transit so they'll drive their cars in to work if they can. The drop in ridership lowers overall revenue for the MBTA (but they still have this expanded area to serve). So what does the MBTA decide to do? Begin to look at expanding out into the new- lower income areas and this goes on and on in a circle. The MBTA will constantly have to chase the lower income areas as those areas get pushed farther and farther out from Boston. The Roxbury community has been very vocal about wanting a direct Silver Line train underground, but I'll be frank, I hope everyone in Roxbury and Dorchester could then afford South End-style rents because that's just what will begin to happen property values at Dudley will start to skyrocket and before long big industry will start buying up buildings around there and turning it into an upscale area and the whole aura of the area will change.
Click to expand...

Do many people in Roxbury or Dorchester actually own their houses, or do most rent? I can see how higher property values would kick out some renters, but wouldn't it be good for any homeowners?
 
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