Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos
Is there any reason that the infastructure and operations of the T couldn't be transfered to another agency (let's say massport)? Then have the MBTA remain as a shell agency with loads of debt, in charge of something banal such as selling advertising space and making the system maps? This way the operation and maintance is carried out by an agency not riddled with debt, while the MBTA still exists to avoid chapter 9.
That's kind of playing whack-a-mole with the issues. There are some efficiencies that they can gain here:
-- Consolidate more central functions to MassDOT. Payroll, healthcare, etc. If they can renegotiate some of the labor agreements, try to get those as pan-MassDOT as possible so there's less institutional fiefdomship with labor practices. Centralize fare collection. Charlie needs to become way more universal across modes. Hell, integrate EZ-Pass and all manner of parking lots into a single universal customer account. Saves admin money, increases utilization statewide, makes apportioning revenue to the sub-agencies more equitable.
-- Transfer the ferries to Massport. Largely cosmetic, but the water mode is such an outlier for the T it's got more in common with, say, the Steamship Authority.
-- Transfer all common-carrier RR ROW ownership to MassDOT. Every other Northeastern state has the buck stop at the DOT...even CT with its Metro North lines. Basically, every mile that isn't shared with rapid transit (and if they build new ones alongside, transfer ownership back to the T for $1 or something). Have them just retain stations and just ops-specific layover yards. Then their cost scrutiny gets zeroed in where it should be: station lard. No easy way to bury cost overruns for one eye candy station in a corridor project. It's a little absurd that public ownership of the ROW's is fragmented amongst the T, MassDOT, DCR, and even the Mass Water Resources Authority for the Fore River branch in Quincy. Freights use the T-owned lines. The T's engineering dept. has to get borrowed and reimbursed way out-of-district in places they don't run. They've got several lines (the Greenville Branch active for one stinking Pan Am customer? the remains of the Hanover, Topsfield, Stoneham, and Bridgewater branches?) that have absolutely zero passenger potential in the next century. And they are completely fucking incompetent at preserving abandoned lines...with turf wars frequently erupting with DCR. Enough.
-- I don't think commuter rail should be spun off. We don't have overlapping commuter districts where a "MassRail" makes sense, because all lines do go one-seat to Boston. ROW ownership and MassDOT getting its own rail dept. (or a more robust lend-lease partnership with the T's engineering) keeps the playing field level enough for all common carriers and ought to help the freights and the excursion passenger carriers a lot. If Western MA gets commuter rail up the Conn River it's easier to tether off CTDOT or Amtrak mercenaries than to reach across state. I DO think that they need to get with the program and run it all in-house, because the private outsourcing is milking them dry, is awful for transparency, and is letting them waste too much time on eye candy and unacceptable-risk equipment purchases while ignoring ops. Every CR system of comparable size runs it in-house for a reason. Do a 5-year MBCR renewal since they don't have much of a choice, then git 'r dun transitioning it inside.
-- Consolidate planning and procurement into some dashed-line reporting relationship with MassDOT. Cut this bullshit about having custom equipment for every mode and force some higher authority to ask them to price out modifying Green Line clearances so they can order off-shelf trolleys...and similar. Reform the bidding process so projects have more reliable numbers than just throwing shit at the wall. Take them to task for these station projects that are guaranteed to sail 20% over budget every time, and those 40% contingencies that aren't real but never ever disappear from the conversation when they're talking themselves out of improving the system. On the flipside, they need to have total control over projects like South Coast FAIL that are totally unaccountable because some Governor's task force has to be the intermediary promising ponies to the out-of-district towns. The T can't be bound and gagged like that. They have big reservations about the project, but it's out of their control because of so much outside meddling.
-- Get the asphalt folks paying their fare share for these parking overbuilds and station driveway work that do little more than move more cars around faster. Yes, they "own" the park-and-ride work...but it's stretching it to force the T to pay for traffic flow improvements in a wide radius around the station. And get them paying their fare share for grade crossing improvements and grade separations where the T is similarly paying for road improvements that benefit only the roads. That's a shared responsibility, and it's totally dysfunctional to use the rail transit agency to get free streetscaping or other car-only frills.
