General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

...he was driving 35 miles per hour at the time of the crash, well over the 10-mile-per-hour speed limit, T officials confirmed yesterday.

I think I was more annoyed about the fact that there is a 10mph speed limit than anything else mentioned in the story. Don't get me started on the several stop signs that are placed along the length of the B line where no other vehicles need to stop.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

The silver line stop across from my place was steamed cleaned this morning at 12:30. They seem to do this several times a year
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Boston Globe - July 7, 2010
Trolley turnaround tests nerves
Neighbors say the noise tops 100 decibels at Ashmont Station

By Eric Moskowitz, Globe Staff | July 7, 2010

At its best, the noise emitted by the MBTA?s Mattapan Trolley as it turns at Ashmont sounds like the long, low moan of a whale. At its worst, it is like nails on a chalkboard coupled with a piercing whistle, drawn out for half a minute.

Using noise meters from RadioShack, neighbors have measured the sound in excess of 110 decibels at the platform (louder than a jackhammer) and at 100 decibels in the kitchens of the Victorians, colonials, and three-deckers surrounding the station, with the windows open. The noise repeats every five to 12 minutes for 20 hours, from the first trolley at 5 a.m. to the last at 1 a.m.

?It?s like a toothache,?? said Kim Pengelly, 49, a caterer who owns a condo on nearby Beale Street. ?It doesn?t go away. . . . It cuts through everything.??

The shrieks and screeches, which the MBTA says it has temporarily fixed, are an unexpected byproduct of the MBTA?s roughly $50 million investment over the last five years to rebuild Ashmont Station and to refurbish the historic trolley line that runs between Mattapan and the Ashmont section of Dorchester.

The line uses a fleet of 10 painstakingly restored trolleys from the 1940s. The trolleys are beloved by transit aficionados, who visit Boston to ride them, as well as by local residents who over the years have called on the T to preserve them.

But the trolleys lack the modern ability to go in reverse. As a result, the rebuilt terminus at Ashmont includes an elevated loop for the trolleys to change direction, albeit with a curve so tight the friction of the steel wheels against the steel track causes a screech. Residents say they have been tortured by the sound since that loop opened in December 2007.

?It?s not to be confused with normal train noise,?? said Moo Bishop, a Bushnell Street resident who has organized neighbors on the issue. ?I live next to the train. I?ve always had train noise, I expect train noise, I?m not complaining about train noise. This is something that?s just at a sound level that is unbearable.??

Over two years, T officials made several attempts to quiet the screeching while telling residents they were making progress, telling them the problem was not as bad as they thought and telling them they had simply forgotten what the trolleys used to sound like before construction, several neighbors said.

The screech is exacerbated in warm weather. As this summer approached, Bishop formed a Facebook group with her neighbors and they began pressing the T to resolve the problem.

With help from local elected officials, the neighbors arranged a meeting last month with the T?s new general manager, Richard A. Davey. About a week later, the T installed what officials and residents call a semisuccessful solution: $30,000 in special blankets draped on fences surrounding the tracks, and thousands of gallons of water sprayed along the route by a network of hoses and sprinklers.

The water reduces the friction that causes the squealing, while the blankets dampen the noise. Neighbors say the noise level is now acceptable, but they worry about what will happen when winter comes; they also say there have been scattered moments when the screeching still pierces the neighborhood.

Mary MacMasters, a lifelong Bushnell Street resident, said the ?ear-splitting?? sounds have been replaced by the constant rush of water sprinkling the tracks and draining to the neighborhood below.

?That?s their solution? I do everything I can: I recycle, I conserve, when I brush my teeth I don?t run the water,?? said MacMasters, 55, who called the T a good neighbor for most of the six decades her family has owned the house. ?Now I hear that going on for days???

T officials acknowledge the blankets and water are temporary measures and say they are seeking a long-term solution short of reconstructing the loop or disrupting trolley service.

?The T wants to be a good neighbor, and we?re going to solve this problem,?? Davey said yesterday.

The 2.55-mile Mattapan High-Speed Trolley Line, reputed to be the only line in the country that runs through a cemetery, carries 4,700 one-way riders a day, a fraction of 1 percent of the MBTA?s daily riders. On paper, it appears to be an eight-stop extension of the Red Line route beyond Ashmont. In reality, the trolleys are operated and maintained by Green Line workers, and the vehicles were painted green until a few years ago.

Since the service resumed, following construction and 18 months of busing, the trolleys have been painted pumpkin orange and bedecked with old-fashioned insignia not used anywhere else in the MBTA system. Riding the trolley is like stepping back in time, save for the recently added air conditioning and the posters carrying Davey?s face and the message ?We?re only as good as our last rush hour.??

Under a 99-degree sun yesterday, MBTA officials stood on the Ashmont trolley platform as dozens of sprinklers watered the bend along both sides of the track. They pointed out the features that have not worked ? a pair of solar-powered, grease-pumping ?friction modification systems?? ? as well as the sprinklers and blankets. New signs have also been effective, encouraging trolley operators to proceed more slowly around the bend, at 3 miles per hour.

An audio specialist is working with the T to identify more precisely the extent of the problem and its cause, including which trolley components are causing the worst noise at different points in the bend.

?We?re really not sure exactly what the fix for this is going to be,?? said Brian Dwyer, the T?s director of light rail operations. ?This is buying us time for us . . . to investigate what we think the best fix will be.??

Eric Moskowitz can be reached at emoskowitz@globe.com.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

I don't blame them... watch the article's video. I can only imagine what it's like to actually hear it with your own ears, especially every few minutes of the day.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Well, what do the residents want, quiet trolleys or historic ones?
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Well, what do the residents want, quiet trolleys or historic ones?

How about a loop properly built so trains can go around it without making so much noise?
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

How about historic trolleys with replaced engines and mechanisms allowing them to travel in reverse?
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Was the old (much broader loop) as noisy? I read somewhere that transferring was much easier with old setup.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

It was easier to transfer from a trolley to the inbound red line, but I would argue the opposite was much less straightforward. The new set-up gives pretty good access for both transfer directions.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

My recollection is that you walked across the platform from the outbound Red Line to the trolley.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Are they ever going to put modern trams on the Ashmont-Matapan line?
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Are they ever going to put modern trams on the Ashmont-Matapan line?

Not in the foreseeable future. There really isn't any demand for them. Quite the opposite, actually.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

The Matapan line works fine with the old PCCs. Why "fix" what isn't a problem? Obviously they should do something about the noise in that curve, but the only justification for LRV conversion would be an extension of the line from Matapan Square to Dudley via Blue Hill Ave. and Warren St. That would be a really useful line to build, but I doubt it will ever happen.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Or if the PCCs someday become just too worn out to keep fixing. (I hope that never happens.)
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Or if the PCCs someday become just too worn out to keep fixing. (I hope that never happens.)

Agreed. I have many times taken out of town guests for a ride on that line, just so they can experience the PCCs in a non-museum type setting.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

From the MBTA's site

For the first time since 2008, T Ridership Grows for 3 Months Straight

Start Date: 7/6/2010
Email: jpesaturo@mbta.com

Boston ? For the first time since the fall of 2008, MBTA ridership has increased for three consecutive months, from March through May of this year. Average weekday ridership system-wide for May 2010 increased by 3% over May of last year, totaling 1.262 million passenger trips per weekday. In May, an average of 36,000 more passenger trips were made across all modes of MBTA services each weekday.

Continuing improvements to the Massachusetts economy and employment levels are considered by many analysts to be the most likely drivers of these ridership increases.

?Guided by the Patrick/Murray Administration?s commitment to transportation reform, we have worked hard to maintain our customer base while attracting new riders through innovative customer service initiatives such as real-time bus tracking,? said MBTA General Manager Richard Davey. ?Our concerted efforts to provide T services that are reliable, safe, and affordable demonstrate our strong determination to encourage people to get out of their cars and onto public transportation.?

The MBTA?s bus and subway systems experienced the most significant increases in ridership. Average weekday bus ridership in May of 2009 was 354,700, but it jumped to 378,500 in May of this year. Many bus riders are benefitting from the availability of a feed of real-time bus locations and arrival predictions. Building on a successful pilot for five bus routes last month, the T has now made real-time information available this summer on 12 additional bus routes. Such information is now available to one-third of MBTA bus riders.

On the Red, Blue, and Orange Lines, average weekday ridership rose from 475,600 in May of 2009 to 490,000 this May.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Air Conditioning.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Boston Globe - July 15, 2010
T to give $115m boost to rail fleet
Says new engines will cut delays


By Eric Moskowitz, Globe Staff | July 15, 2010

The MBTA yesterday agreed to spend $115 million to buy 20 new locomotives for its oft-criticized commuter rail lines, saying the purchase should improve on-time performance of trains that daily carry 70,000 people between Boston and its suburbs.

The new locomotives will allow the T to retire a significant part of its aging fleet of locomotives, which are blamed for about half of all service delays on the commuter rail lines. About 14 percent of all commuter rail trips were late during the first half of this year.

The locomotive purchase, which was delayed for years because of cost concerns and disputes over whether the trains would be built in the United States, will be financed by a loan taken out by the T. But agency officials said they expect the federal government to reimburse 80 percent of the cost of the purchase.

The new locomotives, T officials said, will also be more environmentally friendly than the existing fleet, burning less fuel and emitting fewer pollutants.

The T had initially hoped to buy 38 new locomotives, but the process dragged on so long that the agency can no longer afford to buy that many. Nonetheless, agency officials hailed the decision, which was approved yesterday by the agency?s board.

?This is great news,?? said MBTA General Manager Richard A. Davey, who previously was general manager of the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Co., the private company that manages the MBTA?s commuter rail operations. ?It will provide reliability and better service for our present customers, give us more flexibility to provide future service, reduce our long-term costs in terms of fuel, and it?s an environmentally more friendly locomotive than we have in the fleet today.??

Brian Kane, budget and policy analyst for the MBTA Advisory Board, which represents the cities and towns served by the T, welcomed the purchase, but said it should have happened sooner. The new locomotives are scheduled to arrive in 2013.

?We would have all preferred if this deal was done a year or two ago,?? Kane said.

The commuter rail runs 476 combined inbound and outbound trips a day, about three-fifths of those along South Station lines. Riders regularly complain about the trains? occasional failure to meet posted schedules ? a phenomenon the T blames on everything from medical emergencies to construction projects. But aging engines have increasingly been cited as the cause in recent years.

At South Station yesterday, outbound commuters said they would welcome new locomotives. Jason Tucker, an attorney from Wrentham, estimated that one in every five trips he takes is delayed by five to 10 minutes or more. ?Always good to upgrade,?? said Tucker, 44, waiting to catch a Franklin train.

Noreen Simpson said the trains she takes to and from Norwood Central Station typically run on or near posted times. But once last year she sat on a broken-down train for two hours, stalled midway on the commute to her engineering job.

?They do break down, so I guess an upgrade would be good,?? said Simpson, 59. ?As long as our rates don?t go up.??

More than half of the T?s existing 80 locomotives are near or beyond their expected lifespan of 25 years. All of the locomotives date at least to the 1990s, and 18 were built between 1978 and 1980.

The T uses three-quarters of its fleet on a given weekday to propel the commuter coaches that fan out from North Station and South Station.

As a stopgap measure, the T recently arranged to purchase two unused, surplus locomotives at $3.5 million each from the Utah Transit Authority, and to lease up to nine others, with the first of those expected to arrive by Oct. 1, MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said.

The new locomotives approved yesterday by the board will be built by the Idaho-based MotivePower Inc., using parts manufactured by General Electric. Future warranty work and a parts inventory will be handled in Worcester through a partnership between MotivePower and the Providence and Worcester Railroad, a freight company. The new locomotives will take three years to build and are expected to arrive between spring and fall 2013.

The purchase will chip away at a $3 billion backlog of investments needed to maintain basic service levels on existing train, bus, and subway routes and at stations, a ?state of good repair?? deficit noted last year in an MBTA review ordered by Governor Deval Patrick and led by former John Hancock chief David D?Alessandro, T officials said.

The T?s earlier attempt to purchase locomotives was derailed in part by lobbying from Idaho politicians seeking to protect MotivePower against a rival bid from a European company proposing to assemble most of its locomotives in Kentucky after designing and building the first few overseas. The T unsuccessfully sought a waiver to have that bid considered eligible under the ?Buy America?? requirements for federally reimbursed transit projects.

The T?s locomotives each run roughly 50,000 miles a year. The new locomotives together will save more than 700,000 gallons annually in fuel ? more than $1.5 million ? over their aging counterparts, and will emit 924 fewer tons of nitrogen oxide, 38 fewer tons of hydrocarbons, and 26 fewer tons of particulate matter, according to the T.

Eric Moskowitz can be reached at emoskowitz@globe.com.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

I have always wondered why the Blue Line got newer rolling stock rather than the Orange Line. I mean, the latter has higher ridership than the former.
 

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