Commuter Rail Operator

New name, same old rip-off, same old crappy service because the equipment is failing and the infrastructure is crumbling.

I guess it's a little satisfying to see MBCR get its ass handed, but, there needs to be much more radical reform.
 
New name, same old rip-off, same old crappy service because the equipment is failing and the infrastructure is crumbling.
Click to expand...

There's not really a lot they could do in picking in a new operator though, right? Infrastructure spending was never on the table with this, and neither were the union contracts. The increase in potential penalties and total price tag was probably about it.

In other news, saw a tweet that Davey's supposed to announce something about $800m in new spending today. Haven't seen anything after that vague tweet though.
 
^Well they have new locos on order and are taking in new bilevels. They seem to be getting their fair share.

It shouldn't be regarded as a competition between the two modes, but the suburbanites have got commuter rail goodies for the last 20 years (and that's good for everyone). But it would be great if we could get the state to focus on the T. Where 10x the number of people travel daily but has 45 year old cars and terrible infrastructure/operational difficulties.
 
^ They are going to put in orders for Red and Orange, but it will take what, two or three years min after the order is placed before we see new trains rolling. We're stuck with a few more winters of ancient, struggle, mostly dead trains.
 
Can I be the first to say that $12m/yr in penalties on a $325m/yr contract is still stupidly low?
 
Matthew said:
New name, same old rip-off, same old crappy service because the equipment is failing and the infrastructure is crumbling.

I guess it's a little satisfying to see MBCR get its ass handed, but, there needs to be much more radical reform.
Click to expand...

There's not going to be radical reform until the Legislature forces that issue. The T wasn't in a position to take ops in-house without years head-start in planning on how to transition it in, and they can't wrap brain about any of that kind of reform-oriented planning when they spend all their time having to dance for spare change to close this year's $20M shortfall. The kind of total reform required to get the contracts reined in, costs in-line, and...hell...to watch their own subcontractors better has to come top-down.

MBCR needed to get its ass handed to it because the entire company was a political creation for political perks. Specifically formed to make the MBTA commuter rail their own little private party. They were never going to bid on anything else like the 3 partners in isolation each routinely bid on other contracts. Look at their frigging name. Those stars aligned for one purpose: to swing a big dick around Beacon Hill while satisfying each partner's for-profit motives.

If it were Veolia...If it were Bombardier...If it were ACI. . .

. . .alone, the rules of engagement with any of them would've been much clearer. Because their for-profit motives also involve staying above-board enough to retain the contracts they have and keep adding to them. Which they can't do if they take the stink of a rep for being fuck-ups into some new bid. Which is exactly what's happened to Veolia: shitting the bed with Metrolink was bad for business. Shitting the bed with the MBTA--even at only 33-40% "our fault"--effectively takes them out of the U.S. commuter rail game for the balance of the decade. But still...Metrolink was the fuck-up that lives on in infamy because they--Veolia--fell alone, not the "L.A. Basin Commuter Transportation Holding Company Superfriends".

ACI by contrast has been able to pull off a few small but strategic solo wins that expand its bidding prospects across modes and the country (esp. being able to earn contracts so far away from home). And Keolis has generally gotten solid B+'s on the way it's run Virginia Railway Express the last 3 years. Yeah, for-profits will cut costs as much as you let them. But single players aren't cloaked in this incredible obfuscation layer of horse-trading bullshit the MBCR venture was by design. If Keolis fucks up, it's bad for Keolis' business and bad for Keolis' PR and they will get questioned on it in the next city they bid for. Ergo, they have a basic bottom-line motivation to not fuck up. Whose ass had that motivation at MBCR when their top brass has been a revolving door of political operatives cashing into (Sec. Davey) or out of the public sector.

Maybe the results weren't so dangerous this time. Maybe they do have plausible deniability on the sorry state of the equipment they inherited (it's not like Amtrak didn't tell 'em so on the way out the door). But another 10 years of this arrangement and there would've been a major shitshow of a corruption scandal. Power corrupts; it's inevitable. I doubt Bev Scott would've touched the GM job if she didn't get guarantees she'd be able to roll back what was going on. Who would take the position mid- rubber stamp knowing they're teed up perfectly as the sacrificial lamb when some quid pro quo that started well before her time went bad? And maybe the rest of the MassDOT board had long memories of Romney's war on the Turnpike Authority and had moment of self-reflection about their own political mortality going into an election year?


Either way...this was a referendum on MBCR. What it stood for first and foremost, how it performed a distant second. Keolis...well, they're the devil you know. By virtue of being the devil they don't know. No local connections. No absurd blurring of the lines. No wondering if the guy who signed the contract today is going to be the one on the other side of the table doling out the contracts tomorrow. 1 company, 1 name, 1 reputation to uphold. 1 case where something it proved (generally good all-around marks for running Virginia Railway Express) helped it earn a big deal, and 1 case where something it has to prove (running a BIG commuter rail system for a change) is crucial motivation to them for earning more contracts. 1 easily-understood profit motive...money over spoils, not money AND spoils.

The terms of engagement are clear. We can measure to some degree what their bottom line is because it's conventional. And that's a lot more transparency than we had with unconventional MBCR. If Keolis fucks up, they don't get more business elsewhere. If Keolis pushes the envelope on how skinflint they can be and it shows, we can nail the T a lot harder for being too permissive with them instead of wondering who's really the boss of whom...because, hey, it's well-understood what the checks and balances are on the other side when one side's profit motive is clearly defined. And if Keolis shows demonstrable improvement...well, we can be reasonably sure that's because they think the effort expended into improving the service is good for business.
 
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