General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

I think the Fairmount Line not being equipped with handheld Charlie Card readers is the T's single greatest (current) failing.
 
JumboBuc said:
I think the Fairmount Line not being equipped with handheld Charlie Card readers is the T's single greatest (current) failing.
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As mentioned, the CC isn't accepted. You need a 1A pass.
 
jklo said:
As mentioned, the CC isn't accepted. You need a 1A pass.
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Yeah, I know. But there's no good reason why Charlie isn't accepted on the Fairmount Line. The cost to add it as a valid fare option would be close to zero, and the benefit to riders would be significant.
 
JumboBuc said:
Yeah, I know. But there's no good reason why Charlie isn't accepted on the Fairmount Line. The cost to add it as a valid fare option would be close to zero, and the benefit to riders would be significant.
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I'm assuming it's for accounting reasons. Having a 1A pass means you intend to actually use the CR.
 
Since I haven't seen it posted on this site:

https://commonwealthmagazine.org/transportation/old-locomotives-getting-27m-overhaul/

"THE MBTA’S FISCAL AND MANAGEMENT Control Board voted on Monday to spend $26.9 million overhauling 10 commuter rail locomotives that are already about 30 years old."

More details from NETransit:

"On 06/19/17, the MBTA FMCB voted on a $26.8 million contract with Motive Power Industries to overhaul 10 F40PH-2C and F40PHM-2C locomotives. Contract includes options to overhaul up to 26 additional units. The five units stored in Kingston MA will be the first shipped to Boise. First completed unit is due back in March 2018."

If the options get exercised, that's the full fleet of them.
 
jklo said:
I'm assuming it's for accounting reasons. Having a 1A pass means you intend to actually use the CR.
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That doesn't qualify as a good reason.

I haven't taken the CR since probably January but I still buy a 1A every month. They're the same price and they both cover subway and bus, but the 1A gives me the option of taking the CR to Porter or Yawkey (or other stations) whenever it may be more convenient. Since 1A is fully accepted on Charlie but Charlie is not accepted on 1A, and they're the same price, it doesn't seem to make much sense to me to buy Charlie. The only downside is that I get a new physical card every month instead of just a new pass on my existing card.

So in practice, for people who plan for these things, 1A and Charlie are 100% fully interchangeable. But for people who don't buy monthly passes with this in mind, they're not. This distinction between 1A and Charlie only works in one direction. This is stupid, and we should accommodate people who don't buy monthly 1As. For them, paying CR fares (even on the Fairmount Line) is needlessly inconvenient and expensive.

In the ideal world, every CR train would be equipped with Charlie readers for people travelling within 1A who don't have 1A passes. But there's a cost to equipping every train with Charlie readers, both in the price of the readers themselves and the hassle of having conductors carry them around for the small percentage of people making intra-1A trips without passes. So I get why that isn't worth it. But Fairmount is a much smaller set of trains and conductors to equip, and every trip is intra-1A. The line doesn't reach any other zones!

We have one fare system designed for intra-city trips across lines and busses, and another fare system designed for inter-city trips across zones. But then for some reason, on one of our intra-city lines, we use the system designed for inter-city trips and we don't accept the intra-city system. That makes absolutely no sense! And it could all be fixed with little more than a policy change on paper and the use of existing technology. This wouldn't require some massive undertaking.
 
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I haven't taken the CR since probably January but I still buy a 1A every month. They're the same price and they both cover subway and bus, but the 1A gives me the option of taking the CR to Porter or Yawkey (or other stations) whenever it may be more convenient. Since 1A is fully accepted on Charlie but Charlie is not accepted on 1A, and they're the same price, it doesn't seem to make much sense to me to buy Charlie. The only downside is that I get a new physical card every month instead of just a new pass on my existing card.
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Yeah but I imagine you are in the minority. If you buy a 1A pass you are going to use the CR as a primary commuting option.

By "accounting reasons" I mean 1A vs CC probably affects CR funding and of course how much Keolis gets paid. Or maybe there's FRA regulations they have to do it this way and it's a fringe benefit that you get subway and bus and ferry for 'free'.
 
jklo said:
Yeah but I imagine you are in the minority. If you buy a 1A pass you are going to use the CR as a primary commuting option.

By "accounting reasons" I mean 1A vs CC probably affects CR funding and of course how much Keolis gets paid. Or maybe there's FRA regulations they have to do it this way and it's a fringe benefit that you get subway and bus and ferry for 'free'.
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I'm for sure in the minority wrt how little I take CR, but 1A is targeted at people who live at Porter / Yawkey / JFK UMass / Ruggles / Forest Hills etc, as well as Fairmount. These are not "commuters" in the traditional sense; they're urban residents who likely use multiple modes of MBTA transportation. I used to take CR every day from Porter to NS for work at an old job, but even then I still used my 1A on bus and subway multiple days a week. I suspect that pattern of use is pretty typical for 1A holders.

I could be wrong on this, but I'm pretty sure I've heard that fare collection is not connected to Keolis's compensation. This has been brought up as a point of contention in that Keolis has no incentive to encourage CR conductors collect tolls. But even if it were tied, that's still not a reason good enough to prevent Charlie from being accepted on Fairmount.

I suspect the real reason is that nobody in power at the T cares enough about Fairmount to even give it a thought.
 
chmeeee said:
I don't understand why they don't just start putting future employees into the state fund following the same rules as all other state and municipal workers. It's still very generous while being far more fiscally responsible than what they do now.
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If future employees are moved to a different fund then there will be nobody paying into the current system. This would set the T up on a better financial footing decades in the future, but until we get there we'd have to come up with billions to cover the benefits of all the current employees for their lifetimes.

“He’s taking Social Security away. Let’s call a spade a spade,” O’Brien said. “I don’t know why he preys on the most vulnerable people, which is senior citizens.”
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That is some of the worst kind of rhetoric. The T's pension fund does not affect senior citizens in the general sense, it only affects senior citizens who have T pensions. And senior citizens who have T pensions are far from "the most vulnerable people".
 
Currently on board a Scottrail DMU. Holy Jesus can this thing go. I can see what all the fuss is about now.
 
So I understand why they don't want to run two cars on Sundays on the green line due to low demand but what is the reasoning for running a single car during Saturday when there's a lot of passengers using the green line?
 
Quick question: Does the MBTA have any plans to upgrade any at-grade crossings, so that they're not long at-grade?
 
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