Recent content by Mother Brook

  1. M

    General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

    Yes. Down in DC Randy Clarke and the WMATA board has been sounding alarm bells for the last month plus. The MA Leg sleepwalking here is going to have bad consequences. Most likely they will pass something at the last minute and it will be thrown together because any new dedicated revenue which...
  2. M

    General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

    This is what they want you to think. It is most of the same people at the MBTA managing the actual work. I suspect they learned from their mistakes the first time around and as others have said, the shutdown was better planned and most importantly had fewer surprises once they got out there...
  3. M

    General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

    I mean, the MBTA is expanding commuter rail right now. It's called South Coast Rail, and the Green Line changes are looking to be pretty huge even if they're not "expansion." GLX was a barebones operation when Dalton took over but when it became a priority of the administration to get it done...
  4. M

    General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

    Newspapers used to be mostly vehicles for advertisements. If you wanted to sell an old car or hire someone you would pay $20 for an add in the classifieds and companies would spend a lot of money letting people know what was on sale. The subscriptions were cheap because it was more beneficial...
  5. M

    Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

    Why would this ever happen in the first place? I understand that it could shift over time, perhaps unpredictably, but it seems like installing track at a specific and standard gauge should be something that track building companies know how to do without a lot of fussing around. Would it come...
  6. M

    MBTA Buses & Infrastructure

    Or the city could just do whatever it wants and not worry about what some "neighbors"* think, like they do for projects that they really want to build (e.g., Centre St, West Roxbury, to their credit). People who don't want bus lanes will complain whether the city calls it a pilot or not. You...
  7. M

    MBTA Buses & Infrastructure

    This doesn't make sense because the poor design would make the pilot less likely to be successful.
  8. M

    MBTA Buses & Infrastructure

    Correction. A small minority of local residents who have time and knowledge to go to public meetings.
  9. M

    General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

    It is almost certain that the Healey admin stopped the podcast. I have heard from people on the inside that similar things occurred under the Baker admin and the Patrick admin where seemingly benign stuff was held back from release by someone in the Gov's office. I don't know or care what they...
  10. M

    Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

    Funny thing here, TransitMatters just pulls an API from the T and makes it pretty and available. Their slow zone data are based on the difference between the best runtimes that the T has recorded in the data and the current times, not any official slow zones from the T. (This method is...
  11. M

    Regional Rail (RUR) & North-South Rail Link (NSRL)

    Yeah and CT has a small number of stations. I'd like to just see the MBTA build out 3-4 lines and focus on those for good Regional Rail service, like the FMCB recommended, but it will never happen because every state rep will call the governor and whine about why they're not getting something...
  12. M

    Green Line Type 10 Procurement

    Title VI is a mess. The service side isn't terrible but the fares guidance is outdated and just bad. As you say, it assumes the status quo is equitable and evaluates any changes based on that. It hamstrings agencies who want to do more interesting things with fares* but doesn't really prevent...
  13. M

    Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

    Right. I said this in the other thread but the T owes the public an explanation of the risk management and tradeoffs with slow zones in general here. If the trains have been running for months on defective track at higher speeds, in some cases significantly higher, what risk of derailment...
  14. M

    General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

    I really want to know what the estimated risk of a derailment is and whether that is worth slowing all the trains down to jogging speed for months. It's barely worth having a mass transit system when it runs like this and I really question the need for ALL the slow zones given that trains ran...
  15. M

    General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

    This is because the Lieutenant Governor is no longer from near Worcester.

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