General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

[as02143]

That's fair to say we don't know that she was "forced out." But she did suddenly quit after less than eight months on the job. I think she was the shortest serving Transportation Secretary ever. There was absolutely zero explanation at the time and no one has said anything since, as far as I know. She left in basically the most suspicious way possible. An article like should should be more careful, but it does seem like maybe she was forced out.

there was also the mini-scandal about the no-bidding contract assigned to her former brother-in-law (we really need a better term to describe the divorced spouse of your sibling). Seems like the potential view that this was nepotistic may have not been a good look for a secretary in Governor AG's cabinet.

 

[as02143]

For people saying we can rebuild the entire system for this: the number is inclusive of not only the entire subway (light+heavy rail), but also the Commuter Rail, the entire bus network, and all the support/maintenance systems for them. SGR also has various degrees of priority and need: just because something falls out of SGR doesn't mean it isn't still functional. It also isn't going to be $25B upfront all right now. I would expect, again, the MBTA to come up with a 5 or 10-year plan to address this would be $5b to $2.5B a year over that time period. This brings me back to my original rant: is it even really $25B when a seemingly whole bunch of this stuff is already underway and paid for?

I looked through the document and it's really disheartening to see that they cannot give an accurate narrative. It would be accurate to say we have $25bn of assets that are out of a state of good repair *and* to also say that there are $x bn in projects that are addressing the state of good repair. And further, that this means that there's an $Xbn capital deficit.

They are /almost/ there by including this chart below on page 16. But they couch this in a bullet point of the "vast and diverse" asset inventory. Which, like means nothing.

Taking a bit of a higher-order view, IMO this chart goes to show how much the Baker administration and the 191st and 192nd general courts have failed Eastern Mass. It has been very evident to people since many years ago, but, acutely since 2015, that the decades of the police of "deferred" maintenance was not sustainable. (Meta comment: how come reporters never ask "when is this deferred until?" when governments speak of "deferring" maintenance or use terminology like a "state of good repair backlog"?) This chart says that, ceteris paribus, we will NEVER get out of a policy of deferred maintenance.

 

[aquaticko]

^^Worth noting, too, that SGR can manage to be a huge money sink without having to show anything for itself. Punctuality the same as it was years ago, at whatever percent <95? Trains having mechanical issues like before? Regions served the same as 40-50 years ago? Great! That'll be billions of dollars, please.

The fact that the MBTA can't even manage that standard is cause for serious concern. I'm no longer living in Greater Boston (moved from Manchester, NH to a suburb of Portland, OR a few years ago), so the scale of the shortfall hasn't hit me personally, but it'd been obvious for years that like any conservative (and too many dems) that the Baker administration had no interest in running Mass' transportation systems seriously, or at least that he was inadequate to the task. Living here in the PNW gives me a new appreciation for just how pedestrian/transit-friendly much of Greater Boston is naturally, and makes me all the madder that New England's electeds have squandered that advantage for decades.

 

[thepianoperson]

The Red Line now has the smallest percentage of track under a speed restriction of any line:

Currently at 36 minutes of slow zones, it’s lowest since mid-February and less than half of its peak of 82 minutes of slow zones reached on 9/9. Still a long ways to go but the progress has been steady - hopefully enough slow zones have been removed to make headways smaller next schedule change and finally turn the branches into practical rapid transit again.

 

[stefal]

9 were removed this weekend, as opposed to the 6 that were planned.

 

[Justbuildit]

And another penny goes into the "build the Statue of Liberty but with Phil Eng's head in the middle of the Common" fund. I know it's supposed to be about another year until all planned slow zones are addressed, but if these fixes are permanent going forward I will be incredibly impressed.

 

[JeffDowntown]

And another penny goes into the "build the Statue of Liberty but with Phil Eng's head in the middle of the Common" fund. I know it's supposed to be about another year until all planned slow zones are addressed, but if these fixes are permanent going forward I will be incredibly impressed.

Just to be clear, no fixes to a heavily used transit system are permanent. The best you can hope for is getting the rate of decay back to a level that is manageable with mostly overnight ongoing maintenance. Even then there will be bigger stuff that requires occasional shutdowns. (And if the occasional shutdowns are not happening, you can assume they fell back into their bad old deferred maintenance rut.)

 

[Justbuildit]

Permanent as in “doesn’t become functionally unusable” again. This is mostly the fault of deferred maintenance, so the occasional maintenance shutdown should be tolerated and welcomed. If for example these same stretches of track need to be replaced again before the big push is finished then it will be a failure.

 

[FitchburgLine]

Targeting the Central Subway is an interesting choice... how many mph can be gained there?

 

[JeffDowntown]

Permanent as in “doesn’t become functionally unusable” again. This is mostly the fault of deferred maintenance, so the occasional maintenance shutdown should be tolerated and welcomed. If for example these same stretches of track need to be replaced again before the big push is finished then it will be a failure.

I think there is a good chance that additional big faults will be found during or right after this current work cycle. It really should not surprise anyone.

The core subway system is century plus old tunnels that have not been maintained. Every line except Green includes an underwater crossing. Right now they are focused on slow zones and track -- but there is a lot more to tunnel maintenance than just the track, and the T had been doing none of it. Look at the current effort required to bring the Sumner Tunnel up to decent standards, and it is newer than most of the central T tunnel network.

 

[Jahvon09]

This is still a whole damn year from now!!! What are commuters supposed to do, sit & twiddle their thumbs until then while things get slower & slower to fix?!!!!

MBTA plans to eliminate all 191 subway slow zones by end of 2024 - CommonWealth Beacon

MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng outlined a plan on Thursday to eliminate all 191 slow zones on the subway system by the end of 2024 and restore service to regular speeds.

commonwealthbeacon.org

 

[HenryAlan]

This is still a whole damn year from now!!! What are commuters supposed to do, sit & twiddle their thumbs until then while things get slower & slower to fix?!!!!

MBTA plans to eliminate all 191 subway slow zones by end of 2024 - CommonWealth Beacon

MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng outlined a plan on Thursday to eliminate all 191 slow zones on the subway system by the end of 2024 and restore service to regular speeds.

commonwealthbeacon.org

There are way too many slow zones for the MBTA to fix them all in short order. What commuters will do, is enjoy incremental improvements over the course of the year. Such improvements will make a real difference each time that they happen (eg the 9 Red Line slow zones eliminated this past weekend).

 

[bigeman312]

Targeting the Central Subway is an interesting choice... how many mph can be gained there?

I plan on providing a more in-depth answer if I get a chance later, but I can say that the Green Line system averages 10.0 mph (including dwell time) over the past month and the recent historical maximum was 12.6 mph.

 

[Jahvon09]

Green Line closures start today: Here's what to know

This week’s Green Line closures are the first in a series of shutdowns that the MBTA has planned through the end of 2024.

www.boston.com

 

[Jahvon09]

This is not even fair! She hasn't been in office that long, yet Baker was in 0ffice for about two terms. Poftak about the same. All this crap that happened is on HIS watch. It manifested into a monster when HE was in office, not Healey!! The shortcomings with the GLX happened during Baker's term in office.

Healey polling lower than Baker on transportation - CommonWealth Beacon

For her handling of the T specifically, about as many gave Healey a D (17 percent), or an F (13 percent) as gave her an A (6 percent) or B (24 percent).

commonwealthbeacon.org

 

[Teban54]

This is not even fair! She hasn't been in office that long, yet Baker was in 0ffice for about two terms. Poftak about the same. All this crap that happened is on HIS shoulders. It manifested into a monster when HE was in office, not Healey!! The shortcomings with the GLX happened during Baker's term in office.

Healey polling lower than Baker on transportation - CommonWealth Beacon

For her handling of the T specifically, about as many gave Healey a D (17 percent), or an F (13 percent) as gave her an A (6 percent) or B (24 percent).

commonwealthbeacon.org

This shows the unfortunate fact that deferred maintenance typically allows whoever made the decision (Baker in this case) to get away with it, and put the blame on the next administration(s) (Healey).

An argument can be made about whether Healey should have done more for transportation than what she actually did (the most significant contribution being hiring Eng), but that alone does not explain the poll results.

 

[kingofsheeba]

This is not even fair! She hasn't been in office that long, yet Baker was in 0ffice for about two terms. Poftak about the same. All this crap that happened is on HIS shoulders. It manifested into a monster when HE was in office, not Healey!! The shortcomings with the GLX happened during Baker's term in office.

Healey polling lower than Baker on transportation - CommonWealth Beacon

For her handling of the T specifically, about as many gave Healey a D (17 percent), or an F (13 percent) as gave her an A (6 percent) or B (24 percent).

commonwealthbeacon.org

Is that an animus towards Healey? Or the two-party duopoly that has eroded the public’s trust?

 

[Brattle Loop]

Is that an animus towards Healey? Or the two-party duopoly that has eroded the public’s trust?

Neither. The T is - viscerally - broken. Most people don't really care who's fault that is, they just want it fixed. It's not a Healey thing or a partisan thing, she just happens to be the incumbent at a time when things are bad. (Same as how presidents get blamed for bad economies even if it was the other guys' fault; if you're in office, you get blamed.)

 

[kingofsheeba]

Neither. The T is - viscerally - broken. Most people don't really care who's fault that is, they just want it fixed. It's not a Healey thing or a partisan thing, she just happens to be the incumbent at a time when things are bad. (Same as how presidents get blamed for bad economies even if it was the other guys' fault; if you're in office, you get blamed.)

So then we would circle back to my earlier point about the two-party duopoly. Because both parties are responsible for the T’s shortcomings.

 

[Brattle Loop]

So then we would circle back to my earlier point about the two-party duopoly. Because both parties are responsible for the T’s shortcomings.

Kinda. It's not really a partisan thing. (It's really more a structural thing with how the state House works, in that the Republicans have no power and the Democrats have no spine, so if the speaker of the day doesn't care, nothing gets done. But "blaming the governor" is more intuitive than "blaming the internal power structure of the House".)