I fully understand that DePaola isn't chair of the FMCB. My frustration is also less over needing to
navigate legal mandates and more over the way they're
navigating their way out of them instead of providing better services.
It is absolutely within the GM's purview to make high-level promises; the seat itself doesn't preclude the ability to have or set vision for the transit system. It certainly helps to have a Secretary above him/her who can back it.
I also argue that having vision and running an agency responsibly within 'realistic constrains' are not mutually exclusive.
I realise the political realities - thanks for reiterating that for everyone else here. My issue is that the witch hunt the FMCB has been tasked with does more to damage public trust in the MBTA - something the Governor claims he's trying to rebuild with the installation of his FMCB - and very much seems to be the prevailing narrative rather than an agency promising to improve specific and concrete service initiatives.
Take the recent passenger communications that the thread has been discussing the past few days. Why is that not a thing the MBTA is explicitly talking about or doing as a progressive pilot program with explicit participation from riders? It's easy to dismiss this as unnecessary work; 'just fix the system and run it better' you might say. But what it
doesn't do is have an honest conversation with the public about the improvements it's trying to make. It also doesn't align with any clear goal for improvements.
I'm going to point back at
the plan of WMATA's new GM because I really cannot overstate how important it is to set specific goals and targets and show progress toward achieving them. What is the FMCB doing? What are its goals? What progress is it making that has
any effect on service or reliability? Even as an advocate, I struggle to point to something specific the FMCB is doing other than muckraking and penny pinching; their mission is nebulous, just as every 'reform before revenue' scheme before it. We did the same thing with the late night pilot - the T/MassDOT/the Commonwealth didn't set any specific goals or marker of success and threw away any opportunity to make it work well.
My point is: we
can have both vision and grounded, responsible transit operations, but above all, the folks at 10 Park Plaza need clear, discrete, concrete, and service-oriented goals.
