General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

I don't think most people realize that Poftak was one of Baker's ideological "fellow travelers" at the Pioneer Institute from way back… I can't believe we didn't raise more of a ruckus when Poftak was first appointed.

bigeman312 said:
He took pressure off of Baker and painted Baker in a good light, while helping ensure that public transit was not viewed as a worthwhile investment. That was his job and he did it well. He has made the Pioneer Institute proud.
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Steve H said:
I don't think most people realize that Poftak was one of Baker's ideological "fellow travelers" at the Pioneer Institute from way back… I can't believe we didn't raise more of a ruckus when Poftak was first appointed.
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Poftak should be viewed in the same light as Andrew Wheeler and Scott Pruitt, both controversial picks by Trump to head the EPA. Wheeler, an ex-coal lobbyist, and Pruitt, who made a career suing the EPA, are textbook examples of putting foxes in charge of the henhouse. It's like when Trump appointed Betsy DeVos, a stalwart champion of private and charter schools, to be in charge of the Department of Education. And remember James Watt? Reagan put him, a commercial development enthusiast, at the helm of the Interior Department. Following this same playbook, Poftak, appointed by a member of the GOP, wreaked real havoc during his tenure at the MBTA, raising serious questions about their intentions for public transportation in Massachusetts.
 
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Great points all. Indeed, Baker has had it in for public transit since he was Weld's (and then Celluci's) Director of Administration & Finance, from which perch he concocted a scheme to saddle the MBTA with billions in debt from the Big Dig… only to finally end up running the agency and decrying its poor financial condition! Reminds me of the old GOP strategist Grover Norquist's quote: "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

"Mission Accomplished," to quote another "great" Republican of the 21st century.

bigeman312 said:
Poftak should be viewed in the same light as Andrew Wheeler and Scott Pruitt, both controversial picks by Trump to head the EPA. Wheeler, an ex-coal lobbyist, and Pruitt, who made a career suing the EPA, are textbook examples of putting foxes in charge of the henhouse. It's like when Trump appointed Betsy DeVos, a stalwart champion of private and charter schools, to be in charge of the Department of Education. And remember James Watt? Reagan put him, a commercial development enthusiast, at the helm of the Interior Department. Following this same playbook, Poftak, appointed by a member of the GOP, wreaked real havoc during his tenure at the MBTA, raising serious questions about their intentions for public transportation in Massachusetts.
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Each day during the Sumner tunnel closing, the MBTA has been tweeting info on ways to avoid the tunnel. And they've been tweeting hourly updates each morning for how full various MBTA parking lots are. Here's what it looked like today, 10am on a Monday, which is pretty representative of what I've been seeing. Some four story parking garages are sitting two-thirds empty every day. I'd be really curious to see more of this data, especially pre-covid, but today these look like really massive wastes of space and concrete.

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ritchiew said:
Each day during the Sumner tunnel closing, the MBTA has been tweeting info on ways to avoid the tunnel. And they've been tweeting hourly updates each morning for how full various MBTA parking lots are. Here's what it looked like today, 10am on a Monday, which is pretty representative of what I've been seeing. Some four story parking garages are sitting two-thirds empty every day. I'd be really curious to see more of this data, especially pre-covid, but today these look like really massive wastes of space and concrete.
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Pre-Covid utilization was better for most with Beverly + Lynn being the big underperformers for garages. Average occupancy in 6/2018 (before some parking price changes intended to improve utilization/distribution) was:

Wonderland Garage: 91%
Salem Garage: 76%
Beverly Garage: 56%
Newburyport: 26%
Swampscott: 100%
Orient Heights: 77%
Beachmont: 63%
Lynn Garage: 21%

https://cdn.mbta.com/sites/default/...6-18-fmcb-parking-pricing-implementation.pptx

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Wonderland at least could probably be pretty easily marketed as ultra-economy airport parking. I recently used it for 1.5 weeks for that. (overnight parking is allowed although they make it confusing to do more than 5 days - but not prohibited that I can find). Hard to complain about what's currently $2/day and a 10min ride on the Blue Line. Vastly more convenient in that sense to me than Logan Express is.

Maybe do a "Station Landing Garage" and have certain floors for long-term vs short-term usage if usage gets high enough to actually be a daily commuter conflict.
 
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Depressing realization: with South Coast Rail still scheduled for a late 2023 opening, 2024 is set to be the first full year in the MBTA era where there are no new rail stations under active construction.

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The EGE said:
Depressing realization: with South Coast Rail still scheduled for a late 2023 opening, 2024 is set to be the first full year in the MBTA era where there are no new rail stations under active construction.

View attachment 41149
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Sounds like the perfect time to get shovels in the ground for an Orange Line Extension to Roslindale.
HenryAlan said:
That station is 21 years old, how can it possibly already need major renovations?
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I use this station about 20 times per year. It’s in embarrassing shape. I’m often picked up or dropped off by a friend who primarily drives and she was shocked when I told her that it opened in the 2000s. Based on the shape it’s in, you’d guess it was built in the 1970s or earlier.
 
The EGE said:
Depressing realization: with South Coast Rail still scheduled for a late 2023 opening, 2024 is set to be the first full year in the MBTA era where there are no new rail stations under active construction.

View attachment 41149
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You would have thought they could at least work on a temporary Lynn station, but here we are.
 
kingofsheeba said:
Have you seen Alewife recently? That’s thirty-eight years old and it looks like it’s sixty
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Alewife is a huge multi-acre concourse, retail, busway, and garage complex. Ashland is this:
799px-Ashland_MBTA_station%2C_March_2022.JPG


The amount of preventative maintenance required to keep Ashland from falling apart is trivial, and yet they're still utterly inept at doing it.
 
HenryAlan said:
That station is 21 years old, how can it possibly already need major renovations?
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To answer your question, I point to F-Line's photo:
F-Line to Dudley said:
Alewife is a huge multi-acre concourse, retail, busway, and garage complex. Ashland is this:
799px-Ashland_MBTA_station%2C_March_2022.JPG


The amount of preventative maintenance required to keep Ashland from falling apart is trivial, and yet they're still utterly inept at doing it.
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Check out the rust on the pedestrian overpass. I imagine it's similar to the deterioration at South Attleboro -- just hopefully caught earlier on.

Also, unrelated, but it's still shocking to me that only 21 years ago we built a station without full-high platforms.
 
Riverside said:
Also, unrelated, but it's still shocking to me that only 21 years ago we built a station without full-high platforms.
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Conrail gave the T the option of tri-tracking the whole works back in the 90's when Framingham-Worcester restoration and the intermediates were being negotiated on what was then their property, but that would've been extreme overkill for outer Worcester Line traffic levels (even for future Regional Rail). As that's a route that has lots of high-and-wide freight traffic, there's really no other way to do 2-track only stations. Post- accessibility lawsuit settlement, the Mass Architectural Board probably would've mandated full-highs any which way on infill stations and required tri-track or gauntlets here, but those toughened regs only cover stations that went into initial design within the last 17 years. The early 2000's were indeed a different accessibility era for Massachusetts.
 
Riverside said:
To answer your question, I point to F-Line's photo:

Check out the rust on the pedestrian overpass. I imagine it's similar to the deterioration at South Attleboro -- just hopefully caught earlier on.

Also, unrelated, but it's still shocking to me that only 21 years ago we built a station without full-high platforms.
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Also, the one at Suffolk Downs Station before it was rehabbed. :(
 
I swear there's something about the 90s-to-early-2000s overpass designs that just did not age well. South Attleboro (1990), Canton Junction (2000), and the Worcester Line infills (2000 and 2002) are all falling apart - Canton Junction needed major work in 2015. Meanwhile, the Old Colony stations without overpasses are more or less okay.
 
Riverside said:
To answer your question, I point to F-Line's photo:

Check out the rust on the pedestrian overpass. I imagine it's similar to the deterioration at South Attleboro -- just hopefully caught earlier on.

Also, unrelated, but it's still shocking to me that only 21 years ago we built a station without full-high platforms.
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I understand why it needs to be rebuilt, I do not understand how it reached that point in barely 20 years time.
 
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