- Joined
- May 25, 2006
- Messages
- 6,997
- Reaction score
- 1,735
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos
Where is that "T under D" crowd when you need them?
Where is that "T under D" crowd when you need them?
Where is that "T under D" crowd when you need them?
Isn't ridership system-wide at an all-time high and climbing? How can they justify such drastic service cuts?
I think it's a shock-and-bait tactic to finally get the Legislature to hold some substantive hearings on the debt.
One appalling aspect of the plan is to eliminate ALL weekend commuter rail service! Could they not cut it down to one or two trips in each direction per day on weekends?
Of the 128,948,230 existing annual bus trips: 31,000,371 (24%) are on eliminated routes 97,947,859 (76%) are not on eliminated routes
This is why the state should form a new organization, funded by the state, to take on capital projects needed by the MBTA. This way, the MBTA itself wouldn't have to take on debt that it reduces through eliminations of service, even though it attained the debt in an effort to improve service. Double standard anyone?
I think it's a shock-and-bait tactic to finally get the Legislature to hold some substantive hearings on the debt. Davey's been pushing for that ever since he became GM, and now he's in a somewhat better position to do that. Beacon Hill has shown zero, nada interest in taking a serious look at it because of an iron rule of politics: you don't have to care if it's not a terror threat on your own turf (i.e. reelection and donors). Angry constituents with fire and pitchforks screaming over service cuts provokes slightly more urgency to do something other than a dog or pony show or have Tim Murray insert foot in mouth again. It's not nearly the terror threat that campaign $$$ are, but it's a better chance of seeing some action if Hingham is ready to go to war over its ferries.
It's always going to come down to labor. The reason it costs so much to build and operate these systems here is because there is a labor union somewhere with their hand out. I'm not against labor unions but the institutions that persist in Boston are the classically corrupt cartoons you'd think had died out with the Soviet Union.