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Mass. rail cheaper, but less reliable
84.5% of trains reported on time
By Noah Bierman
Globe Staff / December 9, 2007
Boston's commuter rail service runs more cheaply than the nation's four other large suburban rail systems, but the thriftiness comes with a price: the least reliable service.
Over the past four years, since the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Co. began operating the region's suburban rail service, the system has regularly trailed Chicago's Metra, New York's Metro-North, New Jersey Transit's commuter rail, and the Long Island Rail Road, in on-time performance, a Boston Globe review shows.
And since January, the system has posted its worst on-time performance yet: 84.5 percent of the commuter trains have been on time, compared to 94 percent or higher for rail lines in other states. Boston's rail operator counts trains as tardy if they are at least five minutes late; other lines define late as six minutes or more.
Tomorrow, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority board is scheduled to vote on whether to grant a long-term contract extension to Mass. Bay Commuter - a private consortium that has been under fire from commuters and legislators in recent months - or to entertain offers from other bidders.
According to two sources familiar with the negotiations, the MBTA staff is prepared to recommend a three-year extension, two years less than the company is seeking but more than the minimum necessary to make the transition to a new operator.
Even if dissatisfied with the service, the MBTA board will have to extend the contract at least another two years, because it would take that long to solicit and evaluate competitive bids on a new pact and then turn over the complex operation to a new operator, according to MBTA general manager Daniel A. Grabauskas.
"They're going to give these guys an extended contract? It's unbelievable," said Ned Abelson, 51, a Wellesley resident who said he drove to work Tuesday after 25 frustrating minutes on the platform that included two different posted reasons for train delays and a train that sped by without stopping.
Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad, whose management has historical ties to the MBTA and its chairman, operates the rail line at a cost of 29 cents per passenger mile, less than Chicago (31 cents), New Jersey (33 cents), Metro-North (46 cents), and LIRR (49 cents).
The most current national fare comparisons available, compiled in 2005, before a recent Boston increase, show Boston's commuter rail tickets are relatively inexpensive. Conductors collected about 13 cents for every passenger mile traveled, more than Chicago (12.8 cents) but less than New Jersey (15 cents), Long Island's (23 cents), and New York's Metro-North (28.2 cents).
Tomorrow's vote comes after Mass. Bay Commuter's worst two months on the job. Three in 10 trains were late in October and November, prompting rider unrest, accusations of worker delay tactics, and political infighting that has reached the highest levels at the State House.
"You haven't heard me screaming?" Governor Deval Patrick said, only half-jokingly, when asked about the late trains during a recent news conference.
James O'Leary, general manager and co-owner of the railroad company, acknowledges the recent problems, but said that Massachusetts Bay Commuter has performed well over the life of the contract, despite workforce problems and an old fleet of trains.
"You need to look at what we've accomplished over the last 4 1/2 years," O'Leary said. "We basically have achieved what the T has asked for."
When the MBTA board votes tomorrow, its chairman, Transportation Secretary Bernard Cohen, will not participate. For six months in 2003, he worked for O'Leary at Mass. Bay Commuter as it took over operations of the commuter rail system from Amtrak. After the Globe raised questions about those six months, a spokesman said that Cohen would abstain, to avoid an appearance of a conflict of interest.
The ties between the MBTA and Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad go back even further. O'Leary ran the MBTA for most of the 1980s, before joining two other companies in founding Mass. Bay Commuter. Cohen also worked for O'Leary at the MBTA as special assistant to the general manager.
The Boston region's commuter rail, which carries about 72,000 passengers round-trip every day, is the largest US service run by a private company. In mid-2003, Mass. Bay Commuter took over operations from Amtrak, which had operated the system for nearly two decades.
Under the terms of its five-year $1.07 billion contract, Mass. Bay Commuter has to maintain and operate the trains and most of the tracks, while the MBTA remains responsible for buying new trains and undertaking large-scale overhauls.
Since 2003, commuter trains have arrived within the five-minute on-time window 90.5 percent of the time, considerably lower than Metro-North and Chicago's Metra and slightly behind New Jersey Transit and the LIRR.
Under its contract, Mass. Bay Commuter is required to deliver trains within the five-minute window 95 percent of the time. But the contract also grants exceptions for late trains - for circumstances that are beyond the company's control - that other commuter lines would count as late. Taking into account these exemptions, the company has a 95.1 percent performance rate over the life of the contract. Still, the company must pay a fine for each train that is more than five minutes late. This has translated into $1.67 million in penalties since 2003.
Cohen called the delays in the last two months "completely unacceptable" and said he has been disappointed with Mass. Bay Commuter's record in refurbishing older coaches - an ongoing project that is a year behind schedule. But he said the company's performance needs to be judged over the life of the contract.
In considering a new contract, Cohen said, "we have to get some commitment from them." He did not elaborate on what that would include.
The recent delays were not the first time that the rail contractor has sparked the riders' ire. In summer 2006, canceled trains and a lack of air-conditioning on many trains left commuters sweating through their business suits and ultimately forced the resignation of the company's general manager. O'Leary, who already owned a stake in the company, then took over as general manager, and the number of trains lacking air-conditioning dropped from 40 to four last summer.
The problems that led to the recent delays are more complex: Old trains, worker retaliation against a new schedule, maintenance problems, shared tracks, and the completion of the Greenbush line have all been cited by the MBTA, Mass. Bay Commuter, and the unions. Grabauskas has pointed out repeatedly that Mass. Bay Commuter signed a contract knowing it had a complex system to run. And O'Leary also knew he would have to integrate new service to Scituate on the Greenbush line, added at the end of October.
But the MBTA's old fleet has complicated the contractor's job. Twenty-five of the system's 80 locomotives are 33 years old, past the MBTA's own recommended retirement age. A 1997 overhaul "certainly extended their life, but they're 33 years old," O'Leary said.
The MBTA, which also operates the city's subway system and buses, is financially strapped, with a multibillion dollar debt load and yearly deficits. This has made investments in new trains difficult. According to the most recent data collected by the American Public Transportation Association, the MBTA spent proportionately less than its peers on capital investments. Over the next two to four years, however, it has plans to purchase 28 locomotives with an option for another 28. That's down from an earlier pledge of 38 trains.
Beyond the quality of the trains, O'Leary said, another big hurdle is the lack of control over some of the tracks in the system. CSX rail controls traffic on the Worcester-Framingham line, where Mass. Bay Commuter has its worst on-time performance. That gives the commuter rail little power when CSX bumps its trains in favor of long freight trains.
But that is not unique. New Jersey Transit depends on Amtrak tracks for more than half of its daily trains to and from Penn Station in New York.
The key to keeping those trains on-time is slotting them correctly so they do not lose their spot in the order to an Amtrak train, said Dan Stessel, spokesman for NJ Transit.
O'Leary has also cited problems with his workers. He said workers were told in June they would have more difficult schedules, with shorter breaks between assignments, and some began silently retaliating by following the rules of their contract in ways that would deliberately slow down trains. Union leaders say that they have not sanctioned such actions and that O'Leary is trying to shift blame when the true problems are a lack of staffing and old trains.
Riders have complained in e-mails to the Globe that conductors are slow to pick up fares and in some cases had not been opening all the doors to let people in and out quickly. Some of those issues have since been resolved, and O'Leary said he has been working with union leadership.
Many commuters say they would pay higher fares if it meant better service. But the most recent hike, about 25 percent in January, preceded the worst on-time performance in at least four years.
That poor record, said Bill Litant, a 56-year-old MIT employee who has ridden the rail since 1980, is not acceptable: "If every time you got in your car, 10 of those times it didn't get you where you were supposed to go when you were supposed to get there, you'd get rid of the car."
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