General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

[datadyne007]

To be fair, this looks to be using the same number for "operating expenses" as this bit of propaganda from the Financial Management Control Board.

The FMCB claimed their graph shows revenue from ridership is not tracking expenses ("flat" ridership vs. soaring expenses). Never mind the totally arbitrary maximum value on the ridership axis. The Frontier Group's graph is a direct response, using the same figure for expenses, but showing fare revenue instead of ridership, and using a common axis of percent growth, so you cannot manipulate the ordinate to pretend one value is spiralling upwards while the other is "flat".

Holy crap that graph is terrible and violates all statistical standards. You could easily manipulate the ridership Y axis there to make the increase in cost *appear* directly proportional to the expenses.

 

[citylover94]

Yup you could even make ridership "outpace" expenses. It is totally worthless.

 

[underground]

that is really disingenuous.

It's Pioneer. Pseudo-scientific political axe grinding is their MO.

 

[curcuas]

Yup you could even make ridership "outpace" expenses. It is totally worthless.

Well, sure, but trips went up by less than 1/7 while costs more than doubled, so this chart, while ugly, isn't such a distortion....

 

[dwash59]

Well, sure, but trips went up by less than 1/7 while costs more than doubled, so this chart, while ugly, isn't such a distortion....

Yes it is a distortion. The FMCB is trying to argue that operating expenses are climbing faster than fare revenue, which was a straight up lie. They intentionally chose to use ridership as a proxy for fare revenue because they knew using fare revenue would show their argument was bullshit.

Over 15 years, no one expects expenses to be flat, if only due to inflation and expansion of the system. Yes, that's right, the FMCB couldn't even be bothered to adjust their figures for inflation; yes, expenses grew faster than inflation, but so did fare revenue.

A reasonable thing to compare with ridership is population. Ridership grew faster than population.

 

[whighlander]

A reasonable thing to compare with ridership is population. Ridership grew faster than population.

Dwash -- did you check it?

Boston Pop & Transit
Population(k)
Year Pop D D% Cum %
1990 572 0 0 0
1992 552 -20 -3 -3
1994 551 -1 0 -4
1996 556 5 1 -3
1998 555 -1 0 -3
2000 590 35 6 3
2002 608 18 3 6
2004 607 -1 0 6
2006 612 5 1 7
2008 637 25 4 11
2010 620 -17 -3 8
2012 638 18 3 12
2014 656 18 3 15

 

[ant8904]

Dwash -- HUH???

Boston Population increased over the period by quite a bit -- total trips were essentially flat

Your use of huh is condescending. This is another example why so many gets annoyed at you. Especially when you ask questions that could be genuine but the way you pose it speaks against that interpretatiob.

Even the graph above if you look closely you see what everyone is talking here. The graph displays trips as flat. But numbers says 355M trips in 2000 to 395M trips in 2015. In percentages, that's an 11% growth. Not the largest but you can see the graph in its y-axis usage completely hides it.

Now being intellectually honest, if linking trips to expenses is a fair metric, then 700M to 1.6B - even after inflation, is a higher than 11% growth. But you also a lot of these growing expenses is from deferred maintenance and growing interest payments too.

Oh and a Google search she Boston's pop was officially 589,141 and now its roughly 617,594. A ~5% increase. That supports dwash's claim.

 

[datadyne007]

In this case: arbitrary extension of the Y-axis instead of truncating the Y-axis.

 

[whighlander]

Your use of huh is condescending. This is another example why so many gets annoyed at you. Especially when you ask questions that could be genuine but the way you pose it speaks against that interpretatiob.

Even the graph above if you look closely you see what everyone is talking here. The graph displays trips as flat. But numbers says 355M trips in 2000 to 395M trips in 2015. In percentages, that's an 11% growth. Not the largest but you can see the graph in its y-axis usage completely hides it.

Now being intellectually honest, if linking trips to expenses is a fair metric, then 700M to 1.6B - even after inflation, is a higher than 11% growth. But you also a lot of these growing expenses is from deferred maintenance and growing interest payments too.

Oh and a Google search she Boston's pop was officially 589,141 and now its roughly 617,594. A ~5% increase. That supports dwash's claim.

Ant -- I will admit that the Huh?? was unwarranted -- and hence subsequent to my first post -- I rewrote what I submitted

However, the Huh? is indicative of the state of confusion with respect to the statistics

I've been putting Population and usage data onto a spreadsheet -- trying to gain a true sense of the relevant trends -- on population the only issue is which standard granularity [City, Metro, CSA] to use or some hybrid such as the population of the T District -- I chose the Boston City numbers from the Census Bureau [1990, 2000, 2010 and then some of their estimates for other years-- which seem sort of flakey]

But when it comes to the T usage --I've spent several hours today trying to clear this up for myself and come to the same conclusion quoted in [http://commonwealthmagazine.org/transportation/commuter-rail-ridership-numbers-dont-add-up/

Commuter rail ridership numbers don’t add up
Official data point in every direction

But well beyond the CR numbers -- there are problems with the Blue Book -- which data to compare to what -- and how reliable is the data which you are using

The only T usage data which is really reliable -- is the fare gate data from the Heavy Rail and the core Green Line stations and then only since the introduction of the Charlie Card and Ticket

This while reasonably accurate in counts -- provides only an incomplete measure of the current full usage of the system and of course it only provides a limited number of time samples from which to discern trends [circa the last 10 years]

Everything else is either an guestimate, some kind of attempt at a set of samples or it is "count" which is only approximate due to a whole manner of sources of error ranging from: conductor "counts" on the CR; to rear door boarding on the Green Line and buses; to pre-Charlie data

 

[dwash59]

Dwash -- HUH???

Boston Population increased over the period by quite a bit -- total trips were essentially flat

(Note, whighlander went back and changed his message, because he apparently wanted to post irrelevant numbers instead?)

Oh really?

Numbers from the census bureau:
2000 Boston (city) Population: 589,141
2014 Boston (city) Population: 639,594
2000 Cambridge Population: 101,355
2014 Cambridge Population: 106,844
2000 Somerville Population: 77,478
2014 Somerville Population: 77,560

Ridership from the National Transit Database:
2000 for the MBTA: 355M
2014: 409MM
2015 (according to the FMCB): 394MM

So, let's take 2000-2014, as 2015 population figures have not been released, we saw 8.6% population growth in Boston, 5.4% growth in Cambridge, and 0.1% population growth in Somerville.

What was the growth of ridership? 15.2%, quite a bit higher than population growth.

Alright, let's use 2015, which had lower ridership due to the T practically shutting down for a month. 2000-2015 ridership growth was 11%, still higher than population.

So, I guess in "whighlander" world, 0-8% growth is a population explosion while 11-15% growth of ridership is "flat".

Commuter rail ridership numbers don’t add up
Official data point in every direction

Well, the numbers for commuter rail from the NTD are:

2000: 36,416,816
2014: 35,251,719

Let's just leave those out and use the more reliable data for subway and bus, which rely on taps rather than conductor counts. Oh wait, now we have 17.4% growth... whoa, so fucking flat when compared to population growth!!!!

 

[whighlander]

(Note, whighlander went back and changed his message)

Numbers from the census bureau:
2000 Boston (city) Population: 589,141
2014 Boston (city) Population: 639,594
2000 Cambridge Population: 101,355
2014 Cambridge Population: 106,844
2000 Somerville Population: 77,478
2014 Somerville Population: 77,560

Ridership from the National Transit Database:
2000 for the MBTA: 355M
2014: 409MM
2015 (according to the FMCB): 394MM

So, let's take 2000-2014, as 2015 population figures have not been released, we saw 8.6% population growth in Boston, 5.4% growth in Cambridge, and 0.1% population growth in Somerville.

What was the growth of ridership? 15.2%, quite a bit higher than population growth.

Alright, let's use 2015, which had lower ridership due to the T practically shutting down for a month. 2000-2015 ridership growth was 11%, still higher than population.

Well, the numbers for commuter rail from the NTD are:

2000: 36,416,816
2014: 35,251,719

Let's just leave those out and use the more reliable data for subway and bus, which rely on taps rather than conductor counts

Dwash -- if you look at my revised post above -- I'm only now getting to reliable values for the population numbers as the T useage numbers are really only available post 2006 and then only really the Heavy Rail

Moral of the story:
For me -- do even more retrospection with respect to the published data
For the rest of you -- don't ascribe ill motives to my postings at least until I'm satisfied with my own work

This is still a work in progress -- to get a reliable set of statistics -- I think we should make the comparison between 2006, 2010 2014 to have some reasonably reliable numbers for both population and usage -- unfortunately while that gives us the best set of T usage it limits the population data to one set of counts while the rest are only estimates [the uncertainty seems quite large as evidenced by the "jumps" around the decennial census data points]

Gratuitous comment -- "This isn't nuclear physics or rocket science" -- actually -- it's a hellufalot more uncertain as to what the data really is with respect to your "measurement" than the other two fields of which I profess some first hand knowledge

 

[bigeman312]

5 Investigates: Cash-strapped MBTA paying drivers to stay home

Time sheet shows worker was paid to stay home for seven hours

End of the shift at the MBTA's busy Cabot Yard in South Boston for most of the bus drivers means most have worked a full day, but 5 Investigates found the T is paying many bus drivers as well as train and trolley operators to stay home and pays other drivers overtime to fill their shifts.

"It's literally throwing money down the drain," said Gregory Sullivan, research director for the Pioneer Institute, a government watchdog group.

5 Investigates' Kathy Curran found it's quite a bit of money down the drain: In 2015 the T paid drivers $378,188 to stay home and spent another $252,708 in overtime for other drivers to pick up those shifts.

Just to blear, this is taxpayer money. This is your money. This is my money. Rather than using our money on mass transit, it is being used for a bus driver to take a nap. [sarcasm]That's a great use of resources. Hooray public unions![/sarcasm]

For those who are still confused, this is yet another data point showing us that unions, and corrupt employee practices, are preventing us from having a better transit system.

---------
ADDITION:

Repeated for emphasis:

"It's literally throwing money down the drain,"

While I disagree, and only think it's figuratively throwing money down the drain, how do you (underground) think this is a good idea? Take your paycheck, throw it down the drain, hooray!

 

[underground]

Calm down, dude. When did I ever say that this scheduling practice was a good idea?

 

[sm89]

This seems like it would be really easy to fix. If the 10hr rest rule conflicts with another shift, they can't work that shift. It's that easy. I don't understand why someone would think it's alright to put in for that schedule.

Additionally, I thought the union's comment about a four day week in exchange for a new scheduling system was out of line. Union's represent worker's rights. They really shouldn't have any say in this matter. It's just a scheduling system.

 

[bigeman312]

The MBTA union is constantly out of line advocating for practices that screw over the taxpayer and our transit system.

 

[underground]

Constantly? Like, even while driving the bus? That's amazing!

 

[bigeman312]

"the MBTA unions and employee practices are not working, are corrupt, and are one of the things that are preventing us from having good mass transit."

Please, don't deflect. If you disagree, fine. But why?

 

[underground]

Onus probandi

 

[The EGE]

Workers are not allowed to voluntarily choose shifts that infringe on the ten-hour rule. When picking shifts, if there is an available shift that doesn't hit it, they must choose that. Some new employees (picking last) are occasionally forced to pick into it if there are no possible shifts that avoid it.

The MBTA formerly had a six-hour rules, which was by far the worst in the industry. Every other major property in the US used eight or ten hours, with an agreement to move to ten. The MBTA planned to implement the ten-hour rule over a five-year period to make integration with union rules as smooth as possible - and instead it was forced immediately (this was several years ago) by an outside agency.

 

[datadyne007]

Workers are not allowed to voluntarily choose shifts that infringe on the ten-hour rule. When picking shifts, if there is an available shift that doesn't hit it, they must choose that. Some new employees (picking last) are occasionally forced to pick into it if there are no possible shifts that avoid it.

The MBTA formerly had a six-hour rules, which was by far the worst in the industry. Every other major property in the US used eight or ten hours, with an agreement to move to ten. The MBTA planned to implement the ten-hour rule over a five-year period to make integration with union rules as smooth as possible - and instead it was forced immediately (this was several years ago) by an outside agency.

Thank you for the other side.

We'd never get it from the Boston media just looking for clickbait rage headlines. Journalism used to be about talking to people on both sides of an argument and investigating the merits of each side's response. Now it's just about throwing whatever some biased thinktank says into an article/report without investigating the validity of the concerns or why certain things happen the way they do.