General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

[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".)

 

[kingofsheeba]

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".)

I getcha. However, I think that people are slowly waking up to this foolishness and the power structure that upholds this Mesopotamia that we call Beacon Hill.

 

[Brattle Loop]

I getcha. However, I think that people are slowly waking up to this foolishness and the power structure that upholds this Mesopotamia that we call Beacon Hill.

One hopes so...

 

[FK4]

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".)

We live in an age with the electorate being composed largely of utter idiots distracted by shiny things, which politically speaking are “leaders” with simplistic ideas, rather than any appreciation for legislators or the complexity of legislative process. Immense power has concentrated in the executive branches across the country; most people, if they vote at all, only vote for the executive branch. And that’s allowed the executive to encroach more and more to be exactly what it was NOT ever supposed to be, which is above the courts and legislative branch.

The MA legislature is an utter joke. It’s beyond disgusting what we have allowed to happen. We have one party dominating, witch, combined with the fact that Massachusetts is one of the richest groups of people in the history of the planet, should mean we have incredible public works projects across the land… and yet, we waste so much money on everything, and can’t even get anything substantive done. Since the “assembly” model where each legislator represents some tiny area so “even your small voice can be heard!” clearly hasn’t worked, what we need to unseat these blimps like Mariano and his graft predecessor DeLeo is really a smaller body of legislators—so you can’t just hide in anonymity. If we had, say, 6 senators and 10 reps, they’d get a little more eyes on them, even in an era where media is utterly asleep on the job and essentially reduced, at best, to reprinting press releases of the pols of the party they happen to like.

But yes, to blame the governor, even Big Bad Baker, is totally ignoring the fact that we literally had the opposite party in total power during his admin, and they haven’t ever done shit for the T. Literally ever. However, I’d not let Healey be innocent in this either: she’s been in office for nearly a year, and where in the fuck has her voice been in all this? She wants to go national and like all of them, she doesn’t want to own this problem. But the degree of crisis we are facing compared to the minuscule amount of actually publicly speaking to what she intends to do on this problem that actually effects the real quality of life of millions of working people in our commonwealth is also despicable. She has shown zero leadership on this, and this is not acceptable, even if it’s not a problem she caused.

 

[Delvin4519]

The MBTA used to give about a 10 - 15 day notice that schedules would be changing. Since mid-2022, the MBTA has only been giving the notice for new schedule changes only 5 days before the schedule change.

I guess we'll have to wait until Tuesday afternoon on December 12th, 2023 to get the new MBTA winter 2024 schedule changes for bus and subway.

Graph below shows the number of days the MBTA gives for a heads-up notice before schedules change for bus and subway since 2009 (note, some early dates are missing data).

 

[Jahvon09]

We live in an age with the electorate being composed largely of utter idiots distracted by shiny things, which politically speaking are “leaders” with simplistic ideas, rather than any appreciation for legislators or the complexity of legislative process. Immense power has concentrated in the executive branches across the country; most people, if they vote at all, only vote for the executive branch. And that’s allowed the executive to encroach more and more to be exactly what it was NOT ever supposed to be, which is above the courts and legislative branch.

The MA legislature is an utter joke. It’s beyond disgusting what we have allowed to happen. We have one party dominating, witch, combined with the fact that Massachusetts is one of the richest groups of people in the history of the planet, should mean we have incredible public works projects across the land… and yet, we waste so much money on everything, and can’t even get anything substantive done. Since the “assembly” model where each legislator represents some tiny area so “even your small voice can be heard!” clearly hasn’t worked, what we need to unseat these blimps like Mariano and his graft predecessor DeLeo is really a smaller body of legislators—so you can’t just hide in anonymity. If we had, say, 6 senators and 10 reps, they’d get a little more eyes on them, even in an era where media is utterly asleep on the job and essentially reduced, at best, to reprinting press releases of the pols of the party they happen to like.

But yes, to blame the governor, even Big Bad Baker, is totally ignoring the fact that we literally had the opposite party in total power during his admin, and they haven’t ever done shit for the T. Literally ever. However, I’d not let Healey be innocent in this either: she’s been in office for nearly a year, and where in the fuck has her voice been in all this? She wants to go national and like all of them, she doesn’t want to own this problem. But the degree of crisis we are facing compared to the minuscule amount of actually publicly speaking to what she intends to do on this problem that actually effects the real quality of life of millions of working people in our commonwealth is also despicable. She has shown zero leadership on this, and this is not acceptable, even if it’s not a problem she caused.

Yeah, remember the time when just before the new railcars went into service on the Red & Orange Lines, "Big Bad Baker" had promised that the new cars will be the best thing to come along in years? But then when the ones on the OL kept on breaking down, & every time that they did, ALL of the new trains were yanked from service, giving the old Hawkers the chance to stay in service much longer!! We NEVER thought that we'd see the new railcars ever run again. But then we learn that the new cars weren't inspected properly. & that things weren't done right at the CRRC plant in Springfield!! That was happening on HIS watch!! He was in a damn rush to get the trains in service regardless of whether they were properly inspected or not!! All to make him & Poftak look good so as to make people think that he was doing a good job!!

 

[Koopzilla24]

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.)

This and way too many people believe the government spending money on anything is very bad. Baker’s whole transportation platform was “proving” you can spend less money on transportation and have it function the same or better. Under his leadership the T’s budget decreased and employees would quit or retire as wages stagnated despite rising costs of living and working conditions got worse. Yet his administration had the T run normal service levels with unsafe infrastructure and working conditions to give the illusion of “look how we can do the same thing with less money!” But here were are living the proof that underinvestment does not work.

 

[Koopzilla24]

However, I’d not let Healey be innocent in this either: she’s been in office for nearly a year, and where in the fuck has her voice been in all this? She wants to go national and like all of them, she doesn’t want to own this problem. But the degree of crisis we are facing compared to the minuscule amount of actually publicly speaking to what she intends to do on this problem that actually effects the real quality of life of millions of working people in our commonwealth is also despicable. She has shown zero leadership on this, and this is not acceptable, even if it’s not a problem she caused.

To play devil’s advocate: Can’t she be credited with bringing on Eng and the rippling positive progress we’ve seen since his management has taken over? She also appointed Dukakis’ GM Glynn as chair and signed on giving a seat on the board to a Boston mayoral appointee, Roberts. Not to mention Tibbits-Nutt to MassDOT. While Healey herself may be somewhat staying directly out of MBTA matters, shes brought in some key figures that show to at least be concerned with doing things right. Add on top of these appointments, the labor Union deal greatly increasing operator wages is a key move in bringing the T out of its operational woes.

I used to work driving buses for MASCO and most of my coworkers were either current or former T employees as well. A couple of the things I heard from them were as follows:

The big thing with the T during Baker was everyone was trying to get their pension and get out. He changed the conditions of the pension to be from just years of service to both years of service and a retirement age causing a lot of people to jump ship early and collect less pension now but still work driving for a smaller private bus company like MASCO or Yankee as they didn’t see it worthwhile to stay at the T.

I met a quite few people who couldn’t afford to live in Boston and were hoping to be able to move here through making money at the T. But their seniority wage increases didn’t keep up with cost of living and they went back to drive for RTAs closer to home like BAT, SCRTA, and GATRA where they had easier work, were paid the same or better, and were closer to home.

 

[FK4]

This and way too many people believe the government spending money on anything is very bad. Baker’s whole transportation platform was “proving” you can spend less money on transportation and have it function the same or better. Under his leadership the T’s budget decreased and employees would quit or retire as wages stagnated despite rising costs of living and working conditions got worse. Yet his administration had the T run normal service levels with unsafe infrastructure and working conditions to give the illusion of “look how we can do the same thing with less money!” But here were are living the proof that underinvestment does not work.

Blaming Baker for the MBTA problems is a serious issue on this board and amongst the average left wing Mass citizen. He didn’t help, but the entire state government for decades bears the blame for this. This isn’t just Weld and Baker which is a nice scapegoating narrative that obscures the fact that neither the state legislature nor any governor since Dukakis have done anything meaningful for the T. This isn’t about party politics (in this state at least): the Dems have had either a lot or all the power for years and have come up with bupkis for the T. This problem took many decades to develop, focusing on the last eight years misses the point, and until the reality is reckoned with, a real answer will remain elusive.

 

[bigpicture7]

Blaming Baker for the MBTA problems is a serious issue on this board and amongst the average left wing Mass citizen. He didn’t help, but the entire state government for decades bears the blame for this. This isn’t just Weld and Baker which is a nice scapegoating narrative that obscures the fact that neither the state legislature nor any governor since Dukakis have done anything meaningful for the T. This isn’t about party politics (in this state at least): the Dems have had either a lot or all the power for years and have come up with bupkis for the T. This problem took many decades to develop, focusing on the last eight years misses the point, and until the reality is reckoned with, a real answer will remain elusive.

I'm with you on the Dems have done nothing to help the situation since Dukakis. Case in point: have you tried raising the gas tax in this Dem-majority state to fund transit?
Where I disagree is with Baker. I think he's way craftier than people give him credit for and his centrist image is simply a Massachusetts survival strategy. I wouldn't put it past him that he and Poftak were actually intentionally trying to sabotage the T through the mechanism of: can we get away with making it perform so bad, under the guise of "it's SO unreasonably expensive to manage it that we're just doing keep-the-lights-on level of expense," knowing that doing such would tank the ridership, which would then provide fodder for cutting the T's scope significantly. In other words: was Baker's strategy all along to wean the state off of transit as part of "keeping its costs under control"

 

[bakgwailo]

Blaming Baker for the MBTA problems is a serious issue on this board and amongst the average left wing Mass citizen. He didn’t help, but the entire state government for decades bears the blame for this. This isn’t just Weld and Baker which is a nice scapegoating narrative that obscures the fact that neither the state legislature nor any governor since Dukakis have done anything meaningful for the T. This isn’t about party politics (in this state at least): the Dems have had either a lot or all the power for years and have come up with bupkis for the T. This problem took many decades to develop, focusing on the last eight years misses the point, and until the reality is reckoned with, a real answer will remain elusive.

I generally agree with you in that the death of the T transcends party lines (and let's be honest, here in MA, party lines are pretty arbitrary at least as far as electable officials). I do think Baker is a bit special, though, as he did make a pretty big thing about being Mr. Fix The T after the winter that I will not name, and not only failed on that but left the T in a worse state than it was. He also gets the special honors, as you allude to, of being the financial wizard of the Big Dig under Weld/Cellucci which rather screwed the MBTA many years ago by taking all of the legally required environmental remediation projects off of the Big Dig's books and onto the T's without funding sources allocated.

Don't get me wrong, I generally like Baker (excluding the T and the current state of Harvard Pilgrim/Vanguard/Atrius Health/whatever it's called). But, say Mit Romney never made fixing the T a thing: in fact, it was pretty obvious it didn't matter too much to his admin. At least Deval made a last-ditch effort to improve things even if it failed (and his other effort with rolling stock replacement certainly hasn't been great). So I wouldn't say putting the MBTA's problems on Baker unfairly because of his political party, it's more so the promises he made, and the pretty obvious job of sweeping major issues under the rug that we have seen in the past year.

 

[HenryAlan]

Blaming Baker for the MBTA problems is a serious issue on this board and amongst the average left wing Mass citizen. He didn’t help, but the entire state government for decades bears the blame for this. This isn’t just Weld and Baker which is a nice scapegoating narrative that obscures the fact that neither the state legislature nor any governor since Dukakis have done anything meaningful for the T. This isn’t about party politics (in this state at least): the Dems have had either a lot or all the power for years and have come up with bupkis for the T. This problem took many decades to develop, focusing on the last eight years misses the point, and until the reality is reckoned with, a real answer will remain elusive.

Valid, though I think a lot of people on this board at least (though not elsewhere), do indeed also blame the legislature just as much as we blame Baker. Mariano is particularly bad on this issue, and he controls the votes.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Valid, though I think a lot of people on this board at least (though not elsewhere), do indeed also blame the legislature just as much as we blame Baker. Mariano is particularly bad on this issue, and he controls the votes.

Exactly. Governors in Massachusetts can push, prod and bully pulpit an issue. Speakers have the power to actually fund activities and get them done. The power point in Massachusetts is the Speaker of the House.

 

[bigeman312]

In my estimation, the biggest thing a governor can do with respect to the MBTA is appoint a GM.

Baker appointed Poftak, which in and of itself was a hostile move to the MBTA. On that assignment, worth a big portion of your grade, Baker gets an F. Other governors post-Dukakis get D and C range grades on their appointees, with maybe a couple B-range ones like Bev Scott mixed in, speaking of scape goats.

Meanwhile, so far I’d give the Eng appointment an A-range grade and on that alone, I give Healey a ton of credit. She knew she needed an industry expert, not a political hack like Poftak. She went out and got one.

Compare that to Baker who brought in someone with no experience and no knowledge, who is actively hostile to mass transit on a philosophical level, to starve the beast. I can’t see giving Baker higher than a D overall with that big fat F on that assignment.

Compare the to Deval who brought in Bev Scott, an experienced person, yet a bit more of a political appointment. Still, if we had Bev Scott’s stated focus on safety during the Baker years, Eng would have likely inherited a better system. Deval initiated the much-needed Orange/Red transformations, yet kneecapped it by demanding it be built in Massachusetts, causing more reputable manufacturers to bid high, and therefore causing us lots of headaches. Some good. Some bad. Lip service with some politically-caused errors. I’d give him a C for not being actively anti-transit. Hard to argue Patrick/Scott was worse than Baker/Poftak.

But at this early juncture, oh man is Healey/Eng running laps around their predecessors in terms of competence.

 

[Koopzilla24]

Blaming Baker for the MBTA problems is a serious issue on this board and amongst the average left wing Mass citizen. He didn’t help, but the entire state government for decades bears the blame for this. This isn’t just Weld and Baker which is a nice scapegoating narrative that obscures the fact that neither the state legislature nor any governor since Dukakis have done anything meaningful for the T. This isn’t about party politics (in this state at least): the Dems have had either a lot or all the power for years and have come up with bupkis for the T. This problem took many decades to develop, focusing on the last eight years misses the point, and until the reality is reckoned with, a real answer will remain elusive.

You’re right, there’s a lot of recency bias in this forum that I’m guilty of. I met Charlie Baker in high school prior to his inauguration so he’s been the Governor for my entire adult life til now and the most prevalent one in my mind. But the reality is Baker is not a scapegoat, his policy was quite literally decreasing spending. His focus was on capital expenditure and projects not on operations and maintenance which he stated “could be outsourced to save on costs.” He also hoped to give the T more power to override union arbitrations and raise fares beyond 5%. Charlie Baker was indeed not the worst factor in the T getting to where it is now. He sure didn’t do anything to make the situation better but instead contributed to making it worse. The honor, or dishonor, of that goes to Swift and in part Weld.

Patrick’s whole plan was ignoring the T and letting it deal with itself, though he put some alright people in charge of that.
Saddling the T with the Big Dig debt happened under Swift. (The GBH Big Dig series on podcatchers and YouTube is phenomenal for learning exactly how this nonsense happened). And Weld had skin in the automobile game so his priorities were focused there.

It just so happens that the only Democratic Governor, til now, since Dukakis was Patrick, and the Governor is the big boss that gets ire directed at them, so it gives the impression that Republicans are being singled out.

 

[FK4]

You’re right, there’s a lot of recency bias in this forum that I’m guilty of. I met Charlie Baker in high school prior to his inauguration so he’s been the Governor for my entire adult life til now and the most prevalent one in my mind. But the reality is Baker is not a scapegoat, his policy was quite literally decreasing spending. His focus was on capital expenditure and projects not on operations and maintenance which he stated “could be outsourced to save on costs.” He also hoped to give the T more power to override union arbitrations and raise fares beyond 5%. Charlie Baker was indeed not the worst factor in the T getting to where it is now. He sure didn’t do anything to make the situation better but instead contributed to making it worse. The honor, or dishonor, of that goes to Swift and in part Weld.

Patrick’s whole plan was ignoring the T and letting it deal with itself, though he put some alright people in charge of that.
Saddling the T with the Big Dig debt happened under Swift. (The GBH Big Dig series on podcatchers and YouTube is phenomenal for learning exactly how this nonsense happened). And Weld had skin in the automobile game so his priorities were focused there.

It just so happens that the only Democratic Governor, til now, since Dukakis was Patrick, and the Governor is the big boss that gets ire directed at them, so it gives the impression that Republicans are being singled out.

People don’t trash Patrick anywhere near as much and the anti republican bias is very clear and strong both here and in the state. Not saying this as some R apologist. I’m saying this as someone always concerned at simple explanations that are driven by biases and feelings rather than sober facts. And no offense, but it’s absurd to suggest that there isn’t a political element to the ire against Baker. That may be understandable but that only clouds the way toward a solution. To fix the T, the problem has to be identified and fully unearthed which means a full acceptance of the responsibility for and collusion in the catastrophic disintegration of the T over the last 30 years, which is squarely on nearly every politician in this state. Doesn’t matter who did what even worse than someone else. The entire government shares the blame and nothing will change substantively until the entire government is held responsible and the entire government works to fix the problem.

 

[Jahvon09]

You’re right, there’s a lot of recency bias in this forum that I’m guilty of. I met Charlie Baker in high school prior to his inauguration so he’s been the Governor for my entire adult life til now and the most prevalent one in my mind. But the reality is Baker is not a scapegoat, his policy was quite literally decreasing spending. His focus was on capital expenditure and projects not on operations and maintenance which he stated “could be outsourced to save on costs.” He also hoped to give the T more power to override union arbitrations and raise fares beyond 5%. Charlie Baker was indeed not the worst factor in the T getting to where it is now. He sure didn’t do anything to make the situation better but instead contributed to making it worse. The honor, or dishonor, of that goes to Swift and in part Weld.

Patrick’s whole plan was ignoring the T and letting it deal with itself, though he put some alright people in charge of that.
Saddling the T with the Big Dig debt happened under Swift. (The GBH Big Dig series on podcatchers and YouTube is phenomenal for learning exactly how this nonsense happened). And Weld had skin in the automobile game so his priorities were focused there.

It just so happens that the only Democratic Governor, til now, since Dukakis was Patrick, and the Governor is the big boss that gets ire directed at them, so it gives the impression that Republicans are being singled out.

Trust me, I'm not trying to single him out. I once voted for him when he ran for his 2nd term in office because I thought that he was doing a good job. That was back then, but now, Hmm, well, let's just say that I beg to differ. Hah!!!!

 

[Koopzilla24]

People don’t trash Patrick anywhere near as much and the anti republican bias is very clear and strong both here and in the state. Not saying this as some R apologist. I’m saying this as someone always concerned at simple explanations that are driven by biases and feelings rather than sober facts. And no offense, but it’s absurd to suggest that there isn’t a political element to the ire against Baker. That may be understandable but that only clouds the way toward a solution. To fix the T, the problem has to be identified and fully unearthed which means a full acceptance of the responsibility for and collusion in the catastrophic disintegration of the T over the last 30 years, which is squarely on nearly every politician in this state. Doesn’t matter who did what even worse than someone else. The entire government shares the blame and nothing will change substantively until the entire government is held responsible and the entire government works to fix the problem.

Never said there wasn’t political motivation and bias for being upset with Baker just that his party isn’t being singled out. Yes, the state legislature doesn’t boil down to a single be all and end all person but that governing body is represented by an individual, the Governor. Holding them accountable is holding the whole government accountable. The current admin with Eng is doing exactly that in admitting that the state has gotten this wrong for decades and they’re not singling out Baker or any one figure in doing so.

Bigeman summarizes it great above why the ire directed at Baker’s admin is a bit justified and why Patrick was more a mixed bag than an outright bad. The Patrick board also attempted to procure DMUs for the Fairmount I’ll add as a rolling stock enjoyer.

Remember there’s a whole state of affairs outside the T that the Governor needs to be properly on top of so the best way for them to do their part with the T is put a strong GM in charge. The progress with East-West Rail and RTA funding being nearly doubled is another ball in the Healy admin court on public transportation. We also have strong support for doing things right in other figures like Senator Crighton who pushed to get Lynn CR service restored by years end and repeatedly calls for the Fairmount to be electrified ASAP despite it not being his district.

 

[Koopzilla24]

Moving away from politics and back to

General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)​

my 65 commute this morning had 3 back to back to back buses two of which being full seating and standing and one being full seating (the one I strategically got on). The MBTA’s bendy bus fleet is slim and dedicated to few routes. I know a lot of this is due to space constraints but surely there should be ways to work around things like this and overcrowding on routes like the 66 and 23.

In particular with the 66 the only real constraint I can think of is the turn from Eliot onto Western Ave leaving Cambridge which should be able to be fixed by changing the lane configuration. As the third highest ridership route in the system this should be a top priority for the T to increase capacity yet the next route to get bendy’s will be (reasonably) the 32.