General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Only $1 million! Saw this today:

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/levin031/transportationist/2013/03/annals-of-excess-cost.html

"A new $13.2 million station in Ramsey also opened in early November, and is seeing an average of 130 weekday boardings."
So we have the capital cost of a commuter rail station at $100,000 per passenger. Note this is more than a car or even a simple house. The park and ride ramp ("ramp" is midwestern for "garage") has 800 free parking spaces.

Of course if they had the anticipated 800 daily passengers (assuming 1 passenger per vehicle, since this is Amerucah, and one vehicle per space, since why build excess), then the capital cost would be a mere $16,500 per passenger. How much do we spend per bus passenger at most bus stops? Is it even $1?
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Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

jass said:
For those who thought that the kenmore bus stop was bad...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...e5c47e-917c-11e2-9abd-e4c5c9dc5e90_story.html
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I especially liked this paragraph:
County Board member Libby Garvey (D) asked Leach for a more complete cost breakdown, saying the bus shelter is “pretty, but I was struck by the fact that if it’s pouring rain, I’m going to get wet, and if it’s cold, the wind is going to be blowing on me. It doesn’t seem to be a shelter. It doesn’t really shelter you very much . . . you can get pretty soaked in two minutes.”
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Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

datadyne007 said:
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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Can you imagine the backups if those twice-per-year riders needed to figure out the fare machines and each had to insert their CharlieTicket into the gate?

I'm guessing that making it free has as much to do with keeping the crowds moving as it does encouraging use.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

saulblum said:
Can you imagine the backups if those twice-per-year riders needed to figure out the fare machines and each had to insert their CharlieTicket into the gate?

I'm guessing that making it free has as much to do with keeping the crowds moving as it does encouraging use.
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That is a good point...
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

^I'm not disputing the rationale, but if the T were a private enterprise you could not expect any of that to happen. If anything, you would get a congestion pricing dynamic designed to maximize revenue and most efficient use. Or you just cram 2 million people through the gates and take your normal fare. Only because it is a public agency with a larger mission do these free fairs actually happen.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

After games, at Kenmore they sometimes just throw open the gates and wave people through too.

Goes to show how shitty fare gates are.

They could just use proof-of-payment system-wide (like in Germany) and not have any back-ups at all. At least, not any due to fare payment.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Matthew said:
They could just use proof-of-payment system-wide (like in Germany) and not have any back-ups at all. At least, not any due to fare payment.
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Preach it, my friend. I still have my U-Bahn Monatskarte in my wallet. ;-)
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

choo said:
Only because it is a public agency with a larger mission do these free fairs actually happen.
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Are you presupposing that for profits never have free giveaways? Wouldn't a free ride on the 4th be called a "Promotion" if it was a private company? Hardly seems crazy to me or an oddity that only happens because the T's a state agency.
 
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Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

When was the last time you heard of a for profit travel service offering systemwide free travel for everyone?
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

In this instance, it hardly seems crazy to compare the T to all for-profits rather than transportation for-profits seeing as the number with comparable service to the T is somewhere between none and a few depending on how you count. Even if you could do that comparison, it still doesn't mean that a free ride on the 4th is a bad idea necessarily. It just means that others aren't doing it. What I'd want to know is, does the T giving a freebie on the 4th work? Just my gut instinct that there's a reason companies do freebie promotions, and that there's no reason that reason wouldn't carry over to the T.
 
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Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Matthew said:
They could just use proof-of-payment system-wide (like in Germany) and not have any back-ups at all. At least, not any due to fare payment.
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It might not be a bad idea, but it's probably an easier thing to enforce with due-on-the-spot fines, as is the practice in Germany, which because of due process concerns, are unconstitutional in the US.
 
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Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Plenty of POP systems in the United States too. Most new light rail systems for instance.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Not on thanksgiving weekend. A promotion is much different than making service free at peak usage
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

93 is free during peak usage.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

93 is free all the time. :)
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

the Bunker Hill Street bus is free? I don't think so.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

jass said:
93 is free during peak usage.
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omaja said:
93 is free all the time. :)
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Booya!

How do we convey to people that suggesting the T be self-sufficient is like saying the roads should be? Both are public infrastructure. The only difference I see is that transit typically uses some pricing mechanism to prevent total tragedy-of-the-commons while roads are "free" to have daily traffic jams.
 
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