General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

underground said:
I wonder if rather than just being explained by the increased cost, if ridership on CR being down isn't related to ridership on the T being up. Might be that the total numbers are the same, but housing trends have moved people from CR serviced areas to T serviced areas. That's pure speculation, but it makes some sense as a hypothesis and is probably something to think about in terms of potential fare increases.
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There probably is something to that, and it can happen even if people are broadly living in the same locations. A lot of people live in neighborhoods that overlap substantially with both zone 1 commuter rail and the MBTA core services. I ride the commuter rail less than I once did, because it is substantially more expensive now than the local trip fare ($5.50 vs. $2.00). I like the comfort and speed of commuter rail over the experience of riding a bus to Forest Hills and then taking the Orange Line. But I can't say that's worth an extra $7.00 each day.

But there might be other issues, too. I always ride the commuter rail less in the third quarter, because that's the time of year when I mostly commute by bike. Maybe some other people make similar choices or more vacations are taken, etc. I think we need more stats about this, including how that quarter compared to year earlier, and who is no longer riding.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

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.
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F-Line, oddly the T has been shifting more and more to lump sum construction contracts in recent years. Any idea why they've been doing that?
It drives costs up because:
1. Contractor's carry a larger risk premium.
2. When unforeseen conditions arise, there's no unit price to pay for it. So the contractor can bill some fat change order (rather than a low unit price that they originally bid).
 
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Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

HenryAlan said:
There probably is something to that, and it can happen even if people are broadly living in the same locations. A lot of people live in neighborhoods that overlap substantially with both zone 1 commuter rail and the MBTA core services. I ride the commuter rail less than I once did, because it is substantially more expensive now than the local trip fare ($5.50 vs. $2.00). I like the comfort and speed of commuter rail over the experience of riding a bus to Forest Hills and then taking the Orange Line. But I can't say that's worth an extra $7.00 each day.
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Agreed. The same here in Waltham in zone 2. The commuter rail is three times the fare of the 70 bus + Red Line, and 71% more expensive than most express buses.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

What's with all the cracked rails on Red this winter? Are they just old or poorly maintained?
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2013/03/17/news/doc5145a73a25208535591439.txt

Amtrak Inland Route running Regionals via Springfield and Worcester for one St. Patty's Day only today thanks to a freight derailment shutting the NEC from NHV-BOS. Shuttle service running from Kingston to Boston to transfer to the next westbound departure. Look for that round-trip to be hitting a Worcester Line near you over the next few hours.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

It would be cool. The T is a fraction of the complexity of the New York Subway though.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

That's such a "nice to have" I can't believe they're actually wasting the money on it, all things considered. Why not spend the money on actually keeping their stations clean?
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

probably because you can sell advertising on it. You can't really place advertising on a janitor.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

found5dollar said:
probably because you can sell advertising on it. You can't really place advertising on a janitor.
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Sell advertising space on the floor. Then, the sponsors will need the station to be clean, or else their ads won't be visible.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

found5dollar said:
probably because you can sell advertising on it. You can't really place advertising on a janitor.
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That's a pretty hefty capital investment to recoup before that advertising starts making them any money.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Its what I thought they were installing smack in the middle of the Harvard concourse
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

omaja said:
That's a pretty hefty capital investment to recoup before that advertising starts making them any money.
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The installations are probably pretty heavily underwritten by the ad providers. I'm sure the MTA got a pretty sweet per-unit deal on them in exchange for the ad space.

Those expensive-looking and seldom-maintained Red Line animated tunnel ads were no-cost installations, for instance. Technological trial totally paid for by whatever billboard company approached them. If this thing in NYC works well I could easily see that coming en masse here with the shared-use upside making it worth the T's while. It wouldn't take that much ad underwriting to get the price point into very attractive territory.

Look at how cheap and disposable tablets are today. It's probably just a little cable box-sized motherboard running one of those ubiquitous ARM smartphone processors and Android or some other thin-client embedded operating system, behind a ruggedized touch screen. I bet the metal casing for the kiosk costs more than the actual hardware powering it. You're talking something with less horsepower than those $249 Chromebooks they're now advertising on TV. If the ad space is underwriting the cost premium of the kiosk casing they'd probably spend as much on the off-shelf hardware itself as they do once every couple years upgrading their employees' cell phones and field radios. Disposable smartphone tech like that is trivial cost when bought in bulk.


If they use a low-power cell phone-derived computer this is something they could even deploy remotely out at CR stations hooked into the network that feeds the scrolling announcement signs and powered by little more than a solar panel charging the internal battery.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

The Boston Business Journal had an op-ed today regarding the MBTA's financial situation, basically stating the Big Dig debt was a red herring compared to the other structural issues of the T. Some of these statements don't ring true to me, but admittedly, I don't have any factual information to either bolster or refute the argument. The part about underutilized transit lines being consolidated definitely seems far-fetched, at least on the rapid transit side.

I'd be curious to see what others think of this?

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/b.../why-deval-patricks-tax-plan-will.html?page=2
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

The guy assumes that fares should cover the costs of operation. The only bone he throws is that a "390% fare increase might cause a passenger revolt" which is assured. Public transit is a super high fixed cost piece of infrastructure with very limited ability to price discriminate, and its customer base is largely determined by a sprawl-oriented land use policy that is out of the agency's control. It's also expected to provide a social service, a mission which conflicts with a pure ridership and profit goal.

Forward funding is broken but at least it does not assume that operating costs can be covered by fares. That's why there are assessments and sales tax allotments. And if you factor all that in, then the MBTA's deficit can largely be closed by eliminating the Big Dig debt interest payments (~$120 million/year) and some relatively small tweaks.

There are plenty of ways the T could improve service and at the same time save money. Generally speaking, making a route more efficient means it costs less money to operate. But he's fooling himself if he thinks some magical restructuring is going to turn the T into the country's only profitable public transportation agency. Maybe if we all turned Japanese.

The Blue Line is the only "underutilized" rapid transit line and that's largely a matter of geography and land use policy that, again, is out of hands of the MBTA. The best way to fix that would be to extend it at both ends (as well as zoning reform), but I'm sure he doesn't want to hear that.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Matthew said:
There are plenty of ways the T could improve service and at the same time save money. Generally speaking, making a route more efficient means it costs less money to operate. But he's fooling himself if he thinks some magical restructuring is going to turn the T into the country's only profitable public transportation agency. Maybe if we all turned Japanese.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEmJ-VWPDM4

I'm sorry. I couldn't resist.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

^ Well played.

But the public service goal of the T is sometimes forgotten. Any time there is a major event, the 4th of July, First Night, Championship parades, the T is made free. It presence and being free allows more people to enjoy the city events, even those that would try to drive. The tolls aren't made free. The parking garages arent made free. However, on a day when the T would have probably 2 million rides, it is made entirely free. This argument needs to be made more so people who say "well i drive so i shouldn't pay" or "I only use it twice a year so we dont need to invest in it because its free when I go to the esplanade". That's precisely why we should invest more in it. I am very glad the Patrick is taking a very holistic view and approach to pitching his plan, which South Coast Rail aside (F-line persuasion), I agree with.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

jdrinboston said:
The Boston Business Journal had an op-ed today regarding the MBTA's financial situation, basically stating the Big Dig debt was a red herring compared to the other structural issues of the T. Some of these statements don't ring true to me, but admittedly, I don't have any factual information to either bolster or refute the argument. The part about underutilized transit lines being consolidated definitely seems far-fetched, at least on the rapid transit side.

I'd be curious to see what others think of this?

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/b.../why-deval-patricks-tax-plan-will.html?page=2
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No mention of the billions lost on Wall Street Mitt Romney's "rate swap" deals?

--
MBTA and Wall St. “swaps”
http://www.masspoliticsprofs.com/2012/06/13/mbta-and-wall-st-swaps/

--
How Big Banks Are Raising Your MBTA Fare: The Interest Rate Swap Edition
http://mikethemadbiologist.com/2012...our-mbta-fare-the-interest-rate-swap-edition/

--
MBTA needs better terms on interest swaps
June 25, 2012
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/...erest-swaps/80QA959eRCn7slM94M3FKJ/story.html

Only until the Fed puts interest rates back up will the MBTA start saving money again through those swaps.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

choo said:
^ Well played.

But the public service goal of the T is sometimes forgotten. Any time there is a major event, the 4th of July, First Night, Championship parades, the T is made free. It presence and being free allows more people to enjoy the city events, even those that would try to drive. The tolls aren't made free. The parking garages arent made free. However, on a day when the T would have probably 2 million rides, it is made entirely free. This argument needs to be made more so people who say "well i drive so i shouldn't pay" or "I only use it twice a year so we dont need to invest in it because its free when I go to the esplanade". That's precisely why we should invest more in it. I am very glad the Patrick is taking a very holistic view and approach to pitching his plan, which South Coast Rail aside (F-line persuasion), I agree with.
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From my experience, most of the people don't even know that the T is free until they actually get to the fare gate. They make the decision to use public transit much much sooner than that. I've always wondered how much money they lose by making the T free on the busiest nights of the year. I get that it is to curb drunk driving (and that's great), but I'd bet that a large percentage of those riders (if not all) would pay the fare anyway.
 
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