General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

Cleaning contractors. MBTA really getting into the outsourcing game. With the lucrative contracts the Carmen's Union has negotiated, it's almost always better for the MBTA to outsource haha.
 
That is how myself & others lost their jobs at United Airlines. Outsourcing!! Twice!! The2nd time, I just didn't go back because we lost out job seniority & pay scale! They wanted us to start all over on that. I said no!! :mad:
 
tysmith95 said:
Cleaning contractors. MBTA really getting into the outsourcing game. With the lucrative contracts the Carmen's Union has negotiated, it's almost always better for the MBTA to outsource haha.
Click to expand...

Pretty sure for outside the track area all station maint has always been performed by contractors since that's way more utilitarian labor than anything transpo-specific. Now, whether that existing contracting meets Gov. Pioneer Institute's definition of forever outsourcing ourselves to fiscal freeeeeedumb is anybody's guess. :rolleyes:

--------------------

BTW...Carmen's Union membership ≠ catch-all T employees union. As an Amalgamated Transit Union affiliate it is specific to only employees working as:

  • rapid transit, bus, paratransit, ferry operators and inspectors/supervisors (if that's even fully applicable to our ferries)
  • maintenance workers and mechanics
  • attendants (fare staff/station attendants, baggage handlers & accessibility staff, customer service agents)
  • transit emergency personnel
  • misc. support staff (dispatchers, some types of back-office staff and industry-specific support roles)
Then you've got the 3 federal RR unions on the Keolis side, the SEIU-affiliated janitors, some craft unions like IBEW handling staff electricians (the T being the largest electricity consumer in MA), and so on. While the hordes of desk jockeys, planning staffs, and every PR sub-flak Joe Pesaturo gets to boss around for a living have no union affiliation whatsoever.

This explainer needs to be stickied everytime some Rifleman goes off on a "Blaaargh!...Carmen's Union wasting muh taxes!" word salad every time there's a Herald article about the T that contains any dollar sign whatsoever. Carmen's Local 589 does royally suck as a corruption cesspit within its membership confines, but half the rants lobbed at them aren't even targeting relevant union-member personnel. I'm always more likely to listen to an argument that expends enough brain cell energy to first tell the difference between which ID'ed union's membership(s) are at fault and/or makes a distinction between waste at the foot of unions and/or union personnel and waste at the foot of management incompetents and/or patronage hacks.
 
Jahvon09 said:
What about the elevators?!! They are so nasty & pissy smelling that the smell is unbearable if you don't cover your nose with your jacket or coat!!! :mad:
Click to expand...

We're talking one-time heavy cleaning. Elevators might get (via elevator contractor) their own interior power washing, changing of murked-up light fixtures, changeouts of worn floor indicators, and so on. Maybe also security cam installs so they can catch in the act who is relieving themselves in there.

But the piss smell? That...uh...gets too regularly "replenished", so a one-and-done power cleaning isn't going to help much when the next day somebody lets fly all over again. Dealing with that is going to be a regular station janitorial staff assignment, with gradual improvement in the problem hopefully aided by those new security cam installs discouraging such "unauthorized" usage.
 
Apologize for the Rifle comment.

I do stand by my comment about the MBTA pensions, they should be the same as other state workers.
 
sm89 said:
I was looking at the MBTA's contracts section and noticed "reopen the Temple Place stairs on Tremont Street" as part of the upcoming Park St improvements project. I assume they'll be making these vents/skylights into stairs? https://goo.gl/maps/AHUX3da8MaU2

http://bc.mbta.com/business_center/bidding_solicitations/bid_responses/?cnumber=A49CN01
Click to expand...


They were also supposed to be so-called bringing back the Green Line to Forest Hills Station. Hah!! See where that went! It was supposed to be one of the agreement / deals to go along with the Big Dig, which has come & gone, though it took longer than it had been anticipated.

Seems that plan has been killed & laid to rest! :eek:
 
Jahvon09 said:
They were also supposed to be so-called bringing back the Green Line to Forest Hills Station. Hah!! See where that went! It was supposed to be one of the agreement / deals to go along with the Big Dig, which has come & gone, though it took longer than it had been anticipated.

Seems that plan has been killed & laid to rest! :eek:
Click to expand...

The MBTA certainly doesn't like the E-line in that it's right in the middle of the road, but it was also an issue on Centre St with losing all the on-street parking. There was a lot of opposition on those grounds.
 
Coyote137 said:
The MBTA certainly doesn't like the E-line in that it's right in the middle of the road, but it was also an issue on Centre St with losing all the on-street parking. There was a lot of opposition on those grounds.
Click to expand...

Also the 39 bus that replaced it is honestly really effective. I don't always like when buses win but I've tried it multiple times and the 39 even beats the separated portion of the E branch on Huntington avenue. 39 Gets you from Northeastern to Heath St faster than the GL I would say 90% of the time. The reality is they get stuck at the same traffic lights along the way, Huntington avenue traffic isn't terrible ignoring the holdup right before the Heath St area, and the bus has much less dwell time, even with more stops. The headways are similar too. Usually just pick whichever comes first.
 
HelloBostonHi said:
Also the 39 bus that replaced it is honestly really effective. I don't always like when buses win but I've tried it multiple times and the 39 even beats the separated portion of the E branch on Huntington avenue. 39 Gets you from Northeastern to Heath St faster than the GL I would say 90% of the time. The reality is they get stuck at the same traffic lights along the way, Huntington avenue traffic isn't terrible ignoring the holdup right before the Heath St area, and the bus has much less dwell time, even with more stops. The headways are similar too. Usually just pick whichever comes first.
Click to expand...

Also the bus is more accessible. It can pull over to the curb and deploy the ramp.
 
HelloBostonHi said:
Also the 39 bus that replaced it is honestly really effective. I don't always like when buses win but I've tried it multiple times and the 39 even beats the separated portion of the E branch on Huntington avenue. 39 Gets you from Northeastern to Heath St faster than the GL I would say 90% of the time. The reality is they get stuck at the same traffic lights along the way, Huntington avenue traffic isn't terrible ignoring the holdup right before the Heath St area, and the bus has much less dwell time, even with more stops. The headways are similar too. Usually just pick whichever comes first.
Click to expand...


Looks like it runs more often than the trolley does!! :cool:
 
Green line transformation got a website: https://mbta.com/projects/green-line-transformation

It also got a map of projects, planned and ongoing. As I predicted earlier in this thread, they are including all future GL projects as part of the "Green Line Transformation" including the Central Tunnel Track and Signal Replacement which I was strongly told had nothing to do with GLT last time I mentioned it on this board. Map: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=8995f231cff44a99a7a25cb175c38086
 
HelloBostonHi said:
Green line transformation got a website: https://mbta.com/projects/green-line-transformation

It also got a map of projects, planned and ongoing. As I predicted earlier in this thread, they are including all future GL projects as part of the "Green Line Transformation" including the Central Tunnel Track and Signal Replacement which I was strongly told had nothing to do with GLT last time I mentioned it on this board. Map: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=8995f231cff44a99a7a25cb175c38086
Click to expand...

No Stuart St Subway or South Station Connection? Booo.
 
HelloBostonHi said:
Green line transformation got a website: https://mbta.com/projects/green-line-transformation

It also got a map of projects, planned and ongoing. As I predicted earlier in this thread, they are including all future GL projects as part of the "Green Line Transformation" including the Central Tunnel Track and Signal Replacement which I was strongly told had nothing to do with GLT last time I mentioned it on this board. Map: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=8995f231cff44a99a7a25cb175c38086
Click to expand...

Thanks for the links. I'm curious about your last sentence, though, as the central tunnel work has generally been lumped with GLT in discussions I've seen here. Perhaps the statement regarded GLX? It's probably accurate that central tunnel improvements have nothing to do with GLX, but I'm pretty sure everybody here would say it is a fundamental requirement for GLT.
 
Anyway. Explicit mentions of signal and track projects to raise speeds, not just nebulous 'SOGR', is great news. Improvements to core system speeds help nearly everyone, especially with many new GLX riders going the full distance through the painfully slow Lechmere->Copley segment
 
setup_-mbta-clean-up-.transfer.jpg


“MBTA Kicks Off $25M ‘Station Brightening’ Campaign”

“It’s all part of a $25-million effort. “It’s a substantial sum of money. We’re really emphasizing some of the larger stations, Downtown Crossing, Dudley, JFK UMass, that a lot of our customer use,” Poftak says.”

https://boston.cbslocal.com/2019/04/01/mbta-25-million-cleaning-effort-train-stations/amp/
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
https://commonwealthmagazine.org/transportation/t-vows-blitz-will-make-stations-look-smell-better/

Bad news for fans of dank ambiance! ;)
Click to expand...

tysmith95 said:
Cleaning contractors. MBTA really getting into the outsourcing game. With the lucrative contracts the Carmen's Union has negotiated, it's almost always better for the MBTA to outsource haha.
Click to expand...


Whats interesting is that NYC MTA did the exact same thing just last month

It was successful, except the union threw a fit and required two union bros on every job to stand and supervise the outside crews
 
If you give the average brightening employee 100k a year to "brighten" MBTA stations, that's 200 employees working for a whole year just to clean and paint stations. The entire T should be pretty "bright" after that.
 
tysmith95 said:
If you give the average brightening employee 100k a year to "brighten" MBTA stations, that's 200 employees working for a whole year just to clean and paint stations. The entire T should be pretty "bright" after that.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that there are other improvements being made with the $25M, such as fixing elevators and escalators that have been out of service. But I would love to see a detailed budget for this spending.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top