General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

JeffDowntown said:
Classic Red Line performance yesterday. Boarded a Braintree train at Davis. Last car was "dead" but the lights were on and there was no announcement, so minor mayhem as people scrambled to relocate. We got as far as Kendall, then the train was taken out of service, so everyone was kicked out onto the platform. While waiting for another train (more than 10 minutes) an Alewife train arrived at the other platform, also with a dead first car, again no announcement, lights on.

Gotta love the MBTA.
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Weekend headways have been downright embarassing..sometimes 15 to 20 minutes. Don't understand why they can't just maintain the usual 8tph. I believe ridership is also down 5-10% as a result.. and with the Tobin bridge construction on the north side, I have to imagine the entire I93 corridor is a disaster these days.
 
sneijder said:
Weekend headways have been downright embarassing..sometimes 15 to 20 minutes. Don't understand why they can't just maintain the usual 8tph. I believe ridership is also down 5-10% as a result.. and with the Tobin bridge construction on the north side, I have to imagine the entire I93 corridor is a disaster these days.
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The Tobin isn't even in the same direction as the red line.

Anyway, the Tobin construction actually helps I-93 southbound slightly. There aren't as many cars getting through on the Tobin, so I-93 moves a little faster.
 
What I saw this morning on I-93 from Medford to Callahan: typical "July-August" decongestion--just enough straws that usually break the camel's back are on vacation each week.

If just half of all downtown workers take 1 week vacay in the 8-week July-August vacation season, that's enough to nip 6% off the roads at peak each workday and decongest the metro area.
 
sneijder said:
Weekend headways have been downright embarassing..sometimes 15 to 20 minutes. Don't understand why they can't just maintain the usual 8tph. I believe ridership is also down 5-10% as a result.. and with the Tobin bridge construction on the north side, I have to imagine the entire I93 corridor is a disaster these days.
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Agreed about weekend headways, and it's the same on the OL.
 
stick n move said:
Wow
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Opinion
SHANNON: Redirect federal tax funds to fix MBTA
By Submitted by Paul Shannon of Somerville
Posted Jul 16, 2019 at 5:27 PM
Updated Jul 16, 2019 at 5:27 PM

To the Editor:

The answer to our MBTA crisis is staring us right in the face. It’s estimated that the cost to replace the MBTA’s aging equipment and upgrade to new, modern infrastructure is about $10 billion over 5 years, or $2 billion per year. Last year Massachusetts taxpayers alone gave $23,100,000,000 to the Pentagon through their federal taxes: that’s $23.1 billion per year. In comparison, of all the money Mass. taxpayers as a group paid last year, well less than 1 percent of that $23.1 billion in Pentagon money went to public transportation: that’s less than $230 million.
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Try Using the same logic on the rest of the Federal Budget -- at least with the Pentagon we get a toilet seat even if it costs $400 for our contribution of about 3% of the $700B

With the rest of our contribution to the Federal Budget our 3% of $4T - or $120B most of what we get is Hot Air, Documents and Forms wasting paper [despite the Paperwork Reduction Act and its regular renewals] and a plethora of Websites purporting to tell us how high the sea-level will be in 50 years -- RIGHT!

PS: Paul -- a reasonable fraction of the $23B pays for the jobs of a whole lot of your neighbors who work at places like: Raytheon, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Draper Lab, US Air Force Electronics at Hanscom, US Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Barnes Air National Guard near Springfield, US Army Institute of Soldier Nanotechnologies in Cambridge, Otis and Camp Edwards down on the Cape and the National Cemetery down on the Cape. And then there are hundreds of Profs and researchers supported by the DOD working on medical devices, solar energy, robotic prosthetic devices, etc.. Which of those do you want to cut?
 
While I appreciate the MBTA is having problems, Michelle Wu saying "The MBTA is heading for total shutdown" is blatent fearmongering and just lying. Yes this year has been rough but "total shutdown" is pushing it, especially with the projects so close to completion in the pipeline for so many different areas.

Source: https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/07/17/wu-mbta-headed-toward-total-shutdown/amp/
 
whighlander said:
Try Using the same logic on the rest of the Federal Budget -- at least with the Pentagon we get a toilet seat even if it costs $400 for our contribution of about 3% of the $700B

With the rest of our contribution to the Federal Budget our 3% of $4T - or $120B most of what we get is Hot Air, Documents and Forms wasting paper [despite the Paperwork Reduction Act and its regular renewals] and a plethora of Websites purporting to tell us how high the sea-level will be in 50 years -- RIGHT!

PS: Paul -- a reasonable fraction of the $23B pays for the jobs of a whole lot of your neighbors who work at places like: Raytheon, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Draper Lab, US Air Force Electronics at Hanscom, US Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Barnes Air National Guard near Springfield, US Army Institute of Soldier Nanotechnologies in Cambridge, Otis and Camp Edwards down on the Cape and the National Cemetery down on the Cape. And then there are hundreds of Profs and researchers supported by the DOD working on medical devices, solar energy, robotic prosthetic devices, etc.. Which of those do you want to cut?
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Come on, Whigh, you are smarter than this. You should know damn well the toilet seats you refer to cost way more than $400. (for reasons both legit and not, but reasons nonetheless).
 
HelloBostonHi said:
While I appreciate the MBTA is having problems, Michelle Wu saying "The MBTA is heading for total shutdown" is blatent fearmongering and just lying. Yes this year has been rough but "total shutdown" is pushing it, especially with the projects so close to completion in the pipeline for so many different areas.

Source: https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/07/17/wu-mbta-headed-toward-total-shutdown/amp/
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I liked it better when Wu was promoted to editor for a couple years there and barely had any time to write columns. Now that she's shaken out the rust on the acid-fever beat she's been ramping up the awful lately to Olympics levels.
 
Report for Red Line signal repair looks promising (maybe)?

https://www.boston25news.com/news/s...-control-as-repairs-continue-t-says/967713420

The T said in its most recent update on the work that three signal bungalows have been rebuilt so far and one replacement was built.

And 21 of 29 signals along with 11 out of 19 switches are back to pre-derailment and remotely controlling the trains, allowing more of them to move through the stretch of track where the train derailed.
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F-Line to Dudley said:
I liked it better when Wu was promoted to editor for a couple years there and barely had any time to write columns. Now that she's shaken out the rust on the acid-fever beat she's been ramping up the awful lately to Olympics levels.
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Yeah I was big fan and hoped she'd take on Marty next election, but she showed her neophyte hand when she called for the T to just be free. Whatever you think of that as a proposal, just "calling for" it, as if a city councilor has any standing whatsoever to "call for" something of that magnitude, is utterly idiotic... and contributes nothing to the debate. She had been doing well. I hope she can right herself because I do think Boston would do well with a non-Irish-non-Italian-from-the-neighborhood for a mayor.
 
FK4 said:
Yeah I was big fan and hoped she'd take on Marty next election, but she showed her neophyte hand when she called for the T to just be free. Whatever you think of that as a proposal, just "calling for" it, as if a city councilor has any standing whatsoever to "call for" something of that magnitude, is utterly idiotic... and contributes nothing to the debate. She had been doing well. I hope she can right herself because I do think Boston would do well with a non-Irish-non-Italian-from-the-neighborhood for a mayor.
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She at least introduced the concept to the conversation. I don’t see anything wrong with that. Should no city councilor say anything about the T just because it is out of their jurisdiction? Frankly I think 90% of our transit problems are caused because all the politicians who care about the T have no say and all the politicians who couldn’t care less about the T make the decisions.
 
fattony said:
She at least introduced the concept to the conversation. I don’t see anything wrong with that. Should no city councilor say anything about the T just because it is out of their jurisdiction? Frankly I think 90% of our transit problems are caused because all the politicians who care about the T have no say and all the politicians who couldn’t care less about the T make the decisions.
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Personally, I think it’s a dumb idea. It’s certainly not a model that’s in any way realistic... and therefore is a dumb thing to say that means she isn’t to be taken seriously. I agree with your latter statements, but there’s more pragmatic things local pols could be saying and advocating for; just saying “oh hey let’s make it free” is a cop out... like demonstrating a granular understanding of the problems of the MBTA... It absolutely is the kind of statement that makes me immediately take her less seriously as a future candidate.. hence my frustration, since I’ve watched her closely hoping she’ll run.
 
cadetcarl said:
With all due respect, that's ridiculous and defeatist. I ride the Red Line every day and know about its travails but despite them there is no sense in which a car commute from the ends of the Red Line downtown is improved with a car. Every couple of weeks there are pretty bad delays, and it is a totally unacceptable level of service. But let's not be hyperbolic, it's still reliable and superior to driving and parking.
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Is it though? A lot of people tend to just look at this issue as, oh I'll be late 1 or 2 days out of a work week but the cost is more than that. There's mental cost to this, having to stress out each day thinking whether or not today is 1 of those 2 days where the train breaks down. And while I'm paid a salary with job security, others, especially moreso to those who have to take the T, are not as lucky. Being late means less hour paid or even being fired. For peace of mind, at least when driving you have more control over your commute than taking the T and faster too, and as the T continues to raise fare with no improvement in performance, the financial cost is going to start balancing out. If the state is serious about taking drivers off the road, then they need to allocate funding to fix the system rather than having the T raise fares to the point that people start seeing driving as a feasible option. But they are not, or rather their voters outside of the Boston metro area can give no shit about the transportation problems that the city faces.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
I liked it better when Wu was promoted to editor for a couple years there and barely had any time to write columns. Now that she's shaken out the rust on the acid-fever beat she's been ramping up the awful lately to Olympics levels.
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I liked it better when I thought you knew the difference between Councilor Michele Wu and Globe employee Shirley Leung.
/mostly said in jest
 
FK4 said:
Yeah I was big fan and hoped she'd take on Marty next election, but she showed her neophyte hand when she called for the T to just be free. Whatever you think of that as a proposal, just "calling for" it, as if a city councilor has any standing whatsoever to "call for" something of that magnitude, is utterly idiotic... and contributes nothing to the debate. She had been doing well. I hope she can right herself because I do think Boston would do well with a non-Irish-non-Italian-from-the-neighborhood for a mayor.
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I don't read it that way at all. I don't think Wu seriously expects her call to directly result in fare elimination. She is trying to move the overton window by making it a topic for public consideration.
 
Completely unrelated but if the T switched to EMU/DMU service, could they run splitting trains on the old colony lines to seriously increase capacity? As I write this I'm sitting on a (lovely) train in London, where the first 6 carriages break off and go down one branch and the back 6 break off and go down another branch about halfway along the route. Essentially two trainsets running together which are quickly separated at the dividing point and each continue on their branch. For example, South coast rail could have a double length DMU to East Taunton, at which point the train is separated and the two continue separately onward.
 
HelloBostonHi said:
Completely unrelated but if the T switched to EMU/DMU service, could they run splitting trains on the old colony lines to seriously increase capacity? As I write this I'm sitting on a (lovely) train in London, where the first 6 carriages break off and go down one branch and the back 6 break off and go down another branch about halfway along the route. Essentially two trainsets running together which are quickly separated at the dividing point and each continue on their branch. For example, South coast rail could have a double length DMU to East Taunton, at which point the train is separated and the two continue separately onward.
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Breaking-in-motion is illegal in FRA-land. I'm surprised they still do it at all in Europe, because it's generally not regarded as safe practice. If the MU connection shorts out from a bad break it's an immediate disabled train rolling towards a junction switch.

Splitting at a stop would induce all the same systems tests that happen with reversing direction, which takes a minimum 10 minutes on the clock based on what the T was evaluating a few years ago for Nippon-Sharyo DMU's. That's going to clobber headways on the Old Colony, so bad idea. Amtrak does it all day every day in Albany when it swaps dual-mode locos for straight diesels...and it does that plus merges/splits the separate New York and Boston halves of the daily Lake Shore Ltd. The LSL has to endure an excruciating 30-minute Albany layover for that chore.


Hasn't been done in Greater Boston since NYNH&H on the southside 52 years ago. They split/combined Needham Heights and Millis/West Medway trains at Needham Jct. station as regular practice...also with an inconveniently long layover despite the much looser regs. But those schedules only ran RDC's for the last half-dozen years of Millis service. Before that it took a painfully time-consuming set of maneuvers around the Needham Jct. wye to get the loco-hauled trains all positioned, which was a great way of killing what was left of Millis ridership. NYNH&H also did that much longer ago on the Cape at Yarmouth Jct. to split Hyannis trains from Provincetown trains.

There'd probably be more extant examples of it if it weren't such a buzzkill on required layover time. I can think of *one* and only one that might work well in this neck of the woods: if a restored AMTK Cape Codder was later joined by a "Newporter" service over restored Fall River-Newport trackage where the two halves ran together New York-Attleboro and split at Taunton. The layover would be tolerable for passengers because it's a weekender train, and would work for not blocking regular commuter trains because special dispatching mitigation would only need to massage schedules on a handful of summer Fridays.
 
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They separate at a station stop here but it's pretty rapid, about on par with current commuter rail dwell times at a low level platform. The only real delay is waiting for the first train to clear the switch once it's left the platform so the second train can get going. But I'm sure the regulations are wildly different around here
 
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