General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

HelloBostonHi said:
Not sure what you're on about because I just checked a few commuter rail station pages and they all have list the lines that serve them...
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Today it came up with Plimptonville, but I've had it happen before... I did check Roslindale just now and DOES have the line, so seemingly this issue does not consistently affect all pages.
 
Good presentation on the status of Green Line Transformation projects including the lack of D Branch GPS: https://cdn.mbta.com/sites/default/files/fmcb-meeting-docs/2019/05-may/2019-05-13/originals/2019-05-13-fmcb-G-green-line-transformation.pdf

Also from the AFC 2.0 presentation, interesting to note the potential inclusion of Lyft as an option in Employers LinkPasses?

lyft.png
 
HelloBostonHi said:
Yeah it is unfortunate. Looking at some rough figures though it looks to me that it would be really difficult to fit in two 800ft platforms at the existing location and keep the SL3 busway, especially around Washington Ave bridge. New location will hopefully be able to avoid blocking grade crossings when stopped though. And hopefully allows SL3 to continue past because currently when the train is stopped and the barriers are down SL3 isn't allowed to proceed through the intersection.
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Keep on eye on the propoerties just North of that new station though, I;m sure there are plenty of small businesses in there now but most likely under utilized industrial buildings become great apartments/ transit-hub development. Or tear it all down and put up a soccer stadium.
 
I can feel the pain of Adam Vaccaro every time the editors and headline writers get a hold of a story like this:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2...tem-billion/61teyJl55HZCCq52hUowlK/story.html

He's trying so hard in the article to explain what's actually going on, but we still have to close with some lackey from the Chamber of Commerce claiming we need a new "Transit Construction Agency" (run, I'm sure, by his friends from the chamber) because he understands nothing, and we still need the subheadline to emphasize that this is SO MUCH BIGGER than the last number, even though Vaccaro puts all the context for why that's not a bad thing in the article. But no one will read the article, just the headline.

And I'm sure a "Transit Construction Agency" wouldn't have been subject to the parts recall delaying PTC, the subsystem failures identified in testing briefly delaying the first OL car from entering service, the political problems holding AFC 2.0 hostage...
 
10 Billion and which includes no expansions. :(

How much dead weight is at the MBTA.

Nobody will sign off on this because of the overall corruption in the MBTA.
 
TheMagicMan said:
10 Billion and which includes no expansions. :(

How much dead weight is at the MBTA.

Nobody will sign off on this because of the overall corruption in the MBTA.
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...and there, perfectly stated, is my point. For what it's worth, everything you just said is completely wrong. The number does include enhancements, that's part of why it's bigger. The MBTA actually has too little weight, which is why it can't spend the money it's given. The MBTA is not corrupt, and this analysis represents not just Federally-required oversight but additional assessment the agency chose to conduct on itself. The FMCB did sign off on it, that was the point of yesterday's meeting.

But you are the typical Bostonian, and the Globe is your drug.
 
Equilibria said:
...aThe MBTA is not corrupt,.
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I'm not saying its illegal but the overall pension scenario is very misleading to the taxpayers.

When you have workers retiring at 40 with 60-80K pension then getting another job inside the MBTA to collect a 2nd pension that in my opinion is a loop hole that should have been closed a long-time ago. Thats seriously taking advantage of the system that is funded by the public. The overall public now is forced a 401k to be vested because the rule changes have forced private companies not to carry pensions due to risk assessments.


The MBTA has been a cess pool of political corruption.
Ed Markey must have his entire family and most of his voters working there at this point pushing papers all day.
 
TheMagicMan said:
When you have workers retiring at 40 with 60-80K pension then getting another job inside the MBTA to collect a 2nd pension
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This doesn't happen anymore. Pensions have been tightened up. Still generous, but not to the extent you state.
 
TheMagicMan said:
The MBTA has been a cess pool of political corruption.
Ed Markey must have his entire family and most of his voters working there at this point pushing papers all day.
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Ed Markey is a US Senator. He would have no pull to get anyone hired at the T even if he wanted to. Stop trolling.

If you want to educate yourself, it's easy enough to Google "MBTA Pension Fund" and see what's going on with it.
 
We need "Accelerated Bridge Repair 2.0" and 5c/gal excise to fund it to at least address road-or-rail bridges statewide, including whatever backlog of MBTA culverts and bridges (particularly rail-road grade seprations) there is--and also to fund, for example, the upgrade of the Lechmere Viaduct for GLT.

If the politics require, the whole rest of the state should get every last old bridge replaced over every little rivulet in every little hamlet for geographic balance vs bringing the bridge--or "all the stuff" in the MBTA district up to date, with maybe a little CSX & PAS freight bridge work too.
 
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Arlington said:
We need "Accelerated Bridge Repair 2.0" and 5c/gal excise to fund it to at least address road-or-rail bridges statewide, including whatever backlog of MBTA culverts and bridges (particularly rail-road grade seprations) there is--and also to fund, for example, the upgrade of the Lechmere Viaduct for GLT.

If the politics require, the whole rest of the state should get every last old bridge replaced in every little rivulet over every little hamlet for geographic balance vs bringing the bridge--or "all the stuff" in the MBTA district up to date, with maybe a little CSX & PAS freight bridge work too.
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Before we get to the funding stage, we'll need to go through the 10 years of community meetings it takes to replace a large bridge that's in poor condition and to set the price tag for the massive mission creep that goes along with it, as MassDOT is learning in Allston.

The Accelerated Bridge Program was funded just fine without additional taxes, FWIW, as will be the Lechmere Viaduct. I think new revenue is ultimately a good idea, but in addition to that we need to create an environment where the MBTA or MassDOT can actually spend the money:

- The T is struggling to hire skilled project managers, even now that our GOP administration has lifted the Reaganomics-mandated hiring freeze and early retirement programs (which resulted in a talent drain and added tons of people to the pension plan, thanks Charlie!).

- There are materials shortages because of Trump's trade war, and the Commonwealth is competing with private development for them.

- Massachusetts only has so many contractors and skilled laborers, which puts a hard cap on the amount of infrastructure work - public plus private - that can be done in a season.

- Projects that cause closures and diversions can't be simultaneous or the City would shut down (a BIG deal when you're talking bridges and tunnels). Since large projects may take 5 years to build, that spreads out the work quite a bit (why the T hasn't been talking about the Charles Circle viaduct for the past 15 years, even though it needed to happen that whole time).

A new ABP is a good idea, but the standard argument that the T and MassDOT aren't improving things fast enough because they either (A) need more tax money from drivers or (B) are corrupt morons needs to be put to bed for good.
 
FK4 said:
Today it came up with Plimptonville, but I've had it happen before... I did check Roslindale just now and DOES have the line, so seemingly this issue does not consistently affect all pages.
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I mean Plimptonville gets one flag stop train per day... But yeah no one pointed this out but all the MBTA station pages were redesigned last week... They now prominently show live departure info on them, both commuter rail and T stops.

new
Old
 
HelloBostonHi said:
I mean Plimptonville gets one flag stop train per day... But yeah no one pointed this out but all the MBTA station pages were redesigned last week... They now prominently show live departure info on them, both commuter rail and T stops.

new
Old
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I like the new design! My only quibble is that while it lists nearby busses that aren't technically routes for a given station, it only provides countdown information if the station is an official bus stop. So at Forest Hills, for example, you can see when the next 51 will leave, but at Roslindale, you can only see that the 51 is nearby, but not when it will actually be there. I think I understand why they did this, but it's a bit weird to see a long list of busses without any actual information about transfer times.
 
HelloBostonHi said:
I mean Plimptonville gets one flag stop train per day... But yeah no one pointed this out but all the MBTA station pages were redesigned last week... They now prominently show live departure info on them, both commuter rail and T stops.

new
Old
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I saw that when looking around at other station sites and it looks great. I was thinking they should as a next step add in other regional transit systems that connect to outer stations, and went to Wachusett Station to see if they've already done that — only to find the same issue I'd originally raised with that page, too... no link to the FBurg Line there, just a tab that says the zone. So it's inconsistent, and I think it was probably inconsistent before the redesign, as well.

HenryAlan said:
I like the new design! My only quibble is that while it lists nearby busses that aren't technically routes for a given station, it only provides countdown information if the station is an official bus stop. So at Forest Hills, for example, you can see when the next 51 will leave, but at Roslindale, you can only see that the 51 is nearby, but not when it will actually be there. I think I understand why they did this, but it's a bit weird to see a long list of busses without any actual information about transfer times.
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An issue I noticed that's specific to Roslindale Station is that bus routes that stay on Washington aren't close enough to the station to get included, which is unfortunate. I assume there's an algorithm that just plugs in nearby bus routes within a certain radius, but they should fix it so routes like the 34 are noted next to the station. Maybe a next-phase webpage doodad would be to have a tab that lets you choose your walking distance for nearby transportation connections.
 
TheMagicMan said:
I'm not saying its illegal but the overall pension scenario is very misleading to the taxpayers.

When you have workers retiring at 40 with 60-80K pension then getting another job inside the MBTA to collect a 2nd pension that in my opinion is a loop hole that should have been closed a long-time ago.
Click to expand...

Equilibria said:
The MBTA is not corrupt, and this analysis represents not just Federally-required oversight but additional assessment the agency chose to conduct on itself.
But you are the typical Bostonian, and the Globe is your drug.
Click to expand...


stefalarchitect said:
This doesn't happen anymore. Pensions have been tightened up. Still generous, but not to the extent you state.
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:-? I think that was pretty misleading by our elected officials to allow city, state and federal workers were allowed to be able to do this in the past. As more and more services continue to be cut along with rising property taxes to service the city & state pension implosion.

Now they need 10 Billion dollars to fix the everyday services for the MBTA which does not include any expansions. :-?

Why doesn't the entire public pension system convert to a 401K like the private sector? Especially since the public system has so much faith in Wall Street. Why are there retirements guaranteed and 401K are fluctuations?
 
Does anyone know if the new Charlie card system will have the chip feature? How will anyone else be stopped from using your T pass if it should get lost or stolen?

We often hear about people fraudulently using credit / debit cards (it has happened to me many times), but what about the T passes? Who or what is to stop them from being fraudulently used? :???:
 
TheMagicMan said:
:-? I think that was pretty misleading by our elected officials to allow city, state and federal workers were allowed to be able to do this in the past. As more and more services continue to be cut along with rising property taxes to service the city & state pension implosion.

Now they need 10 Billion dollars to fix the everyday services for the MBTA which does not include any expansions. :-?

Why doesn't the entire public pension system convert to a 401K like the private sector? Especially since the public system has so much faith in Wall Street. Why are there retirements guaranteed and 401K are fluctuations?
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Property taxes have been capped from rising via prop 2½ in 1980. The number is also, again, not fixing every day service but literally modernizing everything (and doesn't include already spent dollars on projects ongoing - such as the complete overhauls of the Red and Orange). Furthermore, the public sector cannot compete on private sector wages, so things like pensions are offered as incentives to attract talent. Lastly, if you want to look at what hamstrung the MBTA, look no further than the switch over to forward funding, indexing the MBTA's revenue stream to the sales tax (which never met projections), and the forcing of the MBTA to pay for and take debt on for the Big Dig's remediation projects, which, last I checked account for about 1/3 of the agency's overall debt.
 
The MBTA pension is pretty lucrative for workers. More so than any other state pension.

The system for other state employees isin't, the state saves money by not putting 6% towards social security. Many workers there would be better off with a 401k system. When it was "reformed" in 2012 it stopped being a benefit.
 
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