MBTA Winter 2015: Failure and Recovery

[datadyne007]

Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

Beverly Scott just won the press conference game and the internet.

 

[statler]

Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

I didn't see the press conference but this was on my FB page, so not everyone was impressed.

 

[datadyne007]

Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

Charlie Baker just blamed the T for having debt because of 80s transit extensions and tried to play down the Big Dig debt. Claimed 1/3 was 80s transit extensions in a very accusatory tone and then brushed over the Big Dig debt mentioning it was another 1/3.

The difference??? The RLX and OLX were FOR THE T.

 

[West]

Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

It seems to me the MBTA may be facing a double whammy of trouble. I think most participants on this forum agree at least generally about the first one, which has been building for decades: massive underinvestment in replacement of rolling stock and other equipment, coupled with a severe disconnect between revenue streams and operational / debt service needs, all exacerbated by a patronage system and (maybe) union rules and pension systems. We can have a nice long battle about the particulars, especially on the union/pension part of it, but I think we have agreement the T is billions of $ in the hole due to chronic underinvestment / neglect.

But I am worried there’s a second one looming, driven by climate changes. If the predictions are even half accurate, we’re going to see the T face far more frequent water assaults on the tunnel system from storm surges that happen to coincide with high tides. We’ll be more likely to get them from a nor’easter than a hurricane like Sandy, but they really might become more frequent (some argue that our recent near misses have in fact been the beginning). And from some of the climate models I’ve read about, for the northeast in winter we may see an increase of winter rains during some pats of winter (the more obvious impact of global warming), but conversely might see more of these massive sets of blizzards. As I imperfectly understand it, is has to do with the increase in moisture in the atmosphere, caused by the warming, interacting with the still-plentiful cold air – the warming won’t be enough to rid us of winter entirely. And in general, the northeast (and other northern climes, too) is predicted to have winters that settle in late with a mild December, then wallop us with blizzards, and then linger later. So the sort of winter we’ve had might become semi-typical, where it feels like almost no winter at all through about Christmas, and then an avalanche falls from the sky, and then he cold drags way deep into what used to be early spring.

Those climate change models are obviously highly speculative, so I certainly don’t claim we can know that this type of event will become common. But it might be premature to say “we’ll never see this again”.

As for addressing this double whammy of challenges, I think we obviously need to prioritize mostly on the known investment lag. We have underspent ourselves into a multi-billion-dollar backlog of really basic stuff that will have to get caught up whether we really do have climate change happening or not. So we get started on that, if Baker can lead and the legislature and taxpayers can follow. But I wouldn’t ignore the longer-term threat, because it might not be so long in the offing. Image if we were in year two of a ten-year turnaround plan, and the tunnels flooded from a storm surge. Think of the chaos that would create in the turnaround plan. Or, less dramatically, think if we started having these sorts of blizzard sets every third or fourth winter, instead of basically never. While I don’t think we have the bandwidth to plan for such climate change risks while trying to sort ourselves out on the backlog, I fear that these climate impacts will be hammering us before the end of our turnaround implementation (assuming for sunny optimism sake that we actually will launch one). So I guess I'm raging for a 95%/5% split of focus between the immediate crisis and the longer term one, with that ratio needing to shift over the course of a decade or two as we (hopefully) get caught up.

Lots of happy optimism this morning. Nothing like massive failure to focus the minds. In two months when the weather is better and the pols have all moved back into status quo ops, I'll be back to my usual pessimism.

 

[TheRifleman]

Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

^^^
This was a good post West.

As a taxpayer I have no problem with a massive long-term investment in the MBTA.
One of the major problems is the MBTA is a hotbed for political hookups with lifetime pensions deals. (Which now is under-fire since the entire pension fiasco is driving the T- into bankrupty)

Baker might need to clean house and launch an investigation on the MBTA. Charlie Baker is going to have some serious challenges upgrading this system.

 

[JumboBuc]

Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

I don't know about your claim that "no major transit system in the world has had ever to deal with 73 inches of snow in 17 days." What about Moscow? How do they handle it when they receive this type of winter weather: which, by the way, they do. How do they handle it when there are multiple feet of snow on the ground at all times, for months on end, every year? How does their transit system handle temperatures of -30, or even just a -15 degree morning?

I know we all like to pretend that Boston is a world-class city, and I love Boston more than any other place in the world, but I can't even imagine Boston handling this weather as well as Moscow, a city in what is essentially a 2nd world country. How does that fit with your claim that no city could deal with this?

EDIT: This is how a world-class, cold-weather city deals with the snow and cold: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/rbth/features/7361536/Moscow-spends-500m-roubles-a-year-on-battling-snow.html

That article about Moscow is aimed at a London-based British audience which has little to no experience with snow. Heathrow, Gatwick, and all the major roads in Greater London totally shut down once snowfall surpasses an inch or two.

Moscow spends 500m roubles a year on battling snow

At current exchange rates, 500m roubles is about $7.5 million. That's nothing. The current snow removal budget of Boston alone is $18 million and as of today Mayor Walsh has already spent $35 million, nearly double that. The rouble has been tanking lately (Thanks, Putin) but even at former exchange rates Moscow still spends far less than Boston on snow removal.

Forecasters were predicting a heavy fall of four to six inches. (Usually, falls are of between one and two inches and are easily manageable. All Muscovites know that the only way to prevent accidents on the road in winter is to have snow tires, keep one's distance from the car ahead, and drive slowly.)

Clearly, Moscow snow doesn't compare to Boston snow...

 

[Jahvon09]

Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

Charlie Baker just blamed the T for having debt because of 80s transit extensions and tried to play down the Big Dig debt. Claimed 1/3 was 80s transit extensions in a very accusatory tone and then brushed over the Big Dig debt mentioning it was another 1/3.

The difference??? The RLX and OLX were FOR THE T.

Well, speaking truthfully, the T was supposed to coincide with the Big Dig. It had signed agreements and made some promises that it didn't keep.

One of them was restoring the E Green Line for service back to Forest Hills (Arborway), which was killed back in the '80s and it never materialized.

Yet they skirted & snaked their way around that and it seems that nothing is being done to make them stick to that agreement!

 

[Arlington]

Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

Boston never [got] 70 inches. It [would have been] be fiscally irresponsible for us to be prepared for 70 inches

I'm with you, if you'll accept the tense-change. If Mass/Boston/T had been prepared for 70 inches, we'd have seen investigations into the politically-connected salt dealers and plow dealers who'd overcharged us for snow prep that sat unused.

More importantly, it isn't going to happen again in our lifetimes. I hope we spend ZERO DOLLARS trying to learn how to cope with 70 inches of snow. It will be a bigger waste than the economic losses of these past 2 weeks.

From a Bayesian standpoint, once something has happened, you have to re-assess that the odds that it is "caused" Nate Silver's example was: what did we think the odds were that someone would willfully fly a plane into the WTC were? Once we saw a plane fly in, we had to raise upward both the odds that it'd happen randomly and the odds that someone had done it "for cause". As soon as we saw the second WTC strike, we (basically) knew they were *both* caused.

By analogy, while before we might have said "The odds that climate change is a real threat that will bring us 70-inch months is 1 in 20,000" (Too remote to prep for). But now, having had such a month, the odds that it will "strike again" have to be assessed upwards. And so will our prep level.

True, prepping for a full 70 isn't the next prudent step up. 70 might still be a one-winter-in-10 level. Prepping for 50" (which seems a one-winter-in-3 level) is probably about right (we'd have done well until last Friday, and only failed on Monday...once instead of thrice)

but some higher level of prep is called for each time you get big events and/or they get closer together. Too many of our record snow falls are too recent. Our preparedness has to go up.

 

[pixelsand8]

Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

You are asking the wrong questions. How would San Francisco deal with a foot of snow? They would collapse as bad as we have with 70 inches. No one thinks SF should be able to deal with a foot of snow because they never get it. Boston never gets 70 inches. It would be fiscally irresponsible for us to be prepared for 70 inches. Why not prepare for 700 inches? Obviously that is preposterous, right? So was 70 inches until right now.

As an analogy, it isn't FLDOT's fault if you can't drive on A1A the day after a hurricane. There is only so much preparing you can do and you have to accept a certain level of recovery time from a catastrophic event. 70 inches in Boston is catastrophic even if it takes places over 2 weeks.

I don't think the San Francisco comparison is any good. There is pretty much zero chance they get 6 inches of snow let alone 70. It snows on average in SF about once every 15 years and they recently went 35 years between seeing snow. When it does snow they usually get about an inch. The Florida comparison is a bit better given how hurricanes are a fairly regular occurrence there. The difference I suppose is that a hurricane hits all at once where this snow event is going on for weeks.

I'm not saying the MBTA should be any more prepared than it is, but let's not kid ourselves. We all knew this kind of weather was a possibility. We gambled that it wouldn't happen the way it did, and we lost. I mean as much as we didn't expect or plan for this much snow it's not like you can say anybody is shocked that it's happening. This is New England. It snows here. Sometimes a lot. It's also cold sometimes for long periods, which can prevent the snow from melting. Right now we are just the victim of timing where a lot of this bad stuff is happening all at once. Taken in isolation, nothing that's happening here is all that surprising.

Consider that Boston gets 12-24 inch snow storms semi regularly. I don't have the numbers but I'm guessing it averages at least one of these stomrs per year, with some years getting several and other years getting none. Even if it's never happened before it's not exactly outlandish to think that we could get multiple 1-2 feet storms within the period of a couple weeks. You just do the math and 70" is absolutely a realistic number, where 700 is not.

I'm not saying we should of budgeted for 70, 80 or 100 inches. We set a lower number because it made more financial sense in the short term, but it forced us to take a risk and it blew up in our face. That's what "risk" is. It's silly to hear people pretend that "we just had no idea that it could snow so much". You knew, you just didn't want to think about it and instead hid your head in the sand (or rather snow).

More importantly, it isn't going to happen again in our lifetimes. I hope we spend ZERO DOLLARS trying to learn how to cope with 70 inches of snow. It will be a bigger waste than the economic losses of these past 2 weeks.

We can't really say for sure that we aren't going to regularly see this kind of snow in the future. We know that weather patterns are changing, we just can't predict them. Last year we had the polar vortex. The year before that we had a 2 foot mega blizzard. Four years ago we got 5-6 borderline blizzards in a six week period. Yes we've had some milder winters too but on the whole we've seen some pretty extreme patterns here of late. Could be the new normal, could be a fluke. I guess the question is, how many shitty winters in a row do we need to experience before it becomes "the new normal"? What if we get 70 inches in a month next year?

 

[George_Apley]

Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

Most municipalities low-ball their snow removal budgets because the state lets them kick the overrun into the next fiscal year, but the next year's snow budget can't go below the previous year's.

 

[Arlington]

Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

We can't really say for sure that we aren't going to regularly see this kind of snow in the future. We know that weather patterns are changing, we just can't predict them. Last year we had the polar vortex. The year before that we had a 2 foot mega blizzard. Four years ago we got 5-6 borderline blizzards in a six week period. Yes we've had some milder winters too but on the whole we've seen some pretty extreme patterns here of late. Could be the new normal, could be a fluke. I guess the question is, how many shitty winters in a row do we need to experience before it becomes "the new normal"? What if we get 70 inches in a month next year?

While we can't *know* that a particular winter will be snowy/snowier, the most logical (and not particularly alarmist) forecast is that New England winters have already gotten snowier and snowier will be the new normal--normal enough to spend some $ planning for it.

US Govt has been predicting since 2007 - 2009 (Bush & Obama) that much snowier winters are the new normal in the Northeast. It isn't a prediction that all winters will be snowy (periodic Polar Vortex will push the moisture away south of us). (see the Climate Change thread for details)

When we next get a Polar Vortex, are we ready for very cold and dry? For that, prep platform/bus-shelter heaters and be prepared for cracked CWR rails.

Unprotected by the vortex, prep for snow. Perhaps fewer cracked rails, but those shelter heaters would still be handy, and so'd more plowing / clearing /storing capacity.

Can't say how any particular winter will turn out, but we know to start building infrastructure now to store snow, move snow, and dump snow in the harbor, and yes, invest in platform heaters.

The best guess is that its either Polar Vortex or Big Snow for most winters for the next 50 years. There *will* be the rare warm-and-dry winter, during which people should feel grateful, not ripped off for being over-prepared.

And get a city that can work from home and not park as many cars in the street (Parking...and parking permits...are too cheap. See that thread too)

 

[FK4]

Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

Regardless of whether the MBTA should be able to handle this kind of storm series, the snow has highlighted systemic malfunction. #1, the T should have figured out that the system would shut down and just shut it down, rather than waiting all day yesterday and cancelling at the last minute. Sure, it's hard to predict but the overall management of the issue has itself been somewhat poorly done. #2, the T breaks down in the cold all the time and it should not. This is nothing more than one of the many problems with chronic disinvestment, discussed here ad nauseam. #3, fix the bloody T, fix the union problems, streamline workflows and make the nuts and bolts repairs that will prevent things from breaking down all the time. Just fucking do it. The public unfortunately is more wowed by shiny new stations that less flashy but more important work - but this is where the money needs to be redirected. #4, as has been said here already, the majority of transit extensions have been on the commuter rail, and it would be nice if politicians could just own this and stop filling up the pork barrel on far flung commuter rail projects that have a very high cost/new rider. In my very unpolitical opinion, fuck the suburbs, Boston brings in the money that the rest of the state gets. Take some tax money back to fix transit in the urban freakin core.

 

[West]

Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

I don't think the San Francisco comparison is any good. There is pretty much zero chance they get 6 inches of snow let alone 70. It snows on average in SF about once every 15 years and they recently went 35 years between seeing snow. When it does snow they usually get about an inch.

I lived in SF from 83 - 89 and experienced one of their rare snowstorms. As you say, it was about an inch, maybe two. As someone who grew up in Pennsylvania and thus knew snow, I cannot begin to describe the hilarity.

Some of those streets are too steep to be driven on with any quality of vehicle, with any skill of driver. Shoot, some are so steep that when I tried, for sport and a laugh, I couldn't even walk the sidewalks with vibram-soled boots that I was digging in edgewise on every step.

But did a few folks try to drive on those streets? They did. Nobody died or even got seriously hurt, but us transplanted easterners took great joy watching them make the effort. The SFPD shut the whole bloody city down at one point, except for the relatively flat part of downtown where there was sufficient traffic and ambient warmth to melt it as it fell. The rest of the city got shut down till it melted, in about three hours.

Your point stands that comparing Boston snowfall prep to SF isn't worth it. Moscow is kind of interesting in a vague sense, but their politics is even more whacked than ours (amazingly). I'm interested in learning more about Toronto's winter prep routines as a good comparable for Boston. As noted in prior posts, they really don't get as much snow as you'd guess (wrong side of the lake for lake-effect snow), though much worse cold, and from prior posts it seems they have a lot of fleet similarities.

 

[Equilibria]

Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

#4, as has been said here already, the majority of transit extensions have been on the commuter rail, and it would be nice if politicians could just own this and stop filling up the pork barrel on far flung commuter rail projects that have a very high cost/new rider. In my very unpolitical opinion, fuck the suburbs, Boston brings in the money that the rest of the state gets. Take some tax money back to fix transit in the urban freakin core.

As good as this sounds, part of the reason why extensions are provided for commuter rail is that they tend to be much less expensive than expansions or even improvements in the urban core. South Coast Rail is an outlier that throws off our assumptions about how expensive these things really are - they're measured in tens of millions. Subway improvements are measured in billions.

You can find $2.5B by canceling SCR, and by all means that should happen. Beyond that, though, the "expansions" you forgo are things like Red/Blue and GLX, projects that actually improve the functioning of the inner system by taking pressure off of existing core services.

Blaming the rest of the Commonwealth and demanding more from them only goes so far. At the end of the day, it's the urban dwellers that will need to pay for these improvements, both in higher fares and by putting off urban service enhancements. "Soak the suburbs" won't solve this, because that's not where the money is being spent.

 

[datadyne007]

Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

Cool graphic from the Globe:

https://twitter.com/BostonGlobe/status/565248973209079808

 

[whighlander]

Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

I agree that it would be foolish for the MBTA to be prepared for 70 inches of snow in 17 days, or whatever it is. I agree with everyone's point about needing to prepare Boston's transit for a climate one should expect from Boston.
....of handling those events. Can the T recover, in a day, from a 2-year or 5-year storm?

Let's say:

• 1.5 feet in a day.
• 2 feet in 3 days.
• 30 inches in 10 days.
• 3 feet in 2 weeks.
• 40 inches in 3 weeks.
• 50 inches in a month.
• 80 inches in a season.

...Those are the events Boston should be prepared for. I have no reason to believe the T can handle those events with a 24-hour post-storm recovery in 2015. That is the standard I believe we should strive for. The T's recovery from events like this has become longer and less efficient over the years.

Moscow Metro did not shut down from that storm. Moscow Metro can handle events like that. I am not saying we should be prepared for Moscow's winters. But your point about nobody's transit system being able to handle this weather is inaccurate, as Moscow's can.

Massport used to shut Logan fairly commonly --finally they decided to see how other airports in the northern climes do it -- principle called Best Available Practice and Best Available Technology -- it worked they spent some small money buying super plows

THE MIDDLE SEAT
Big, Bad Machine in Boston Keeps Runways Clear at Logan

By SCOTT MCCARTNEY
Updated Feb. 11, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET
If you want to keep an airport open through a massive snow storm, you better get a mighty big shovel. And that's what Boston's Logan Airport has.

Logan, which was spared heavy snow Wednesday, hasn't officially closed the airport since the Blizzard of '78, thanks in part to a massive snow mover called Vammas.

Manufactured in Finland and used by only a couple of airports in North America, the 68-foot-long machine has a huge blade on the front for plowing, a giant sweeper brush in its midsection and a blower in its tail that spits out air at 451 miles per hour. A staggered line of 10 Vammas machines can clean a runway down to bare pavement in about 10 to 20 minutes, depending on how heavy the snow is.

"It's a pretty unique piece of equipment," said Gary Tobin, director of facilities for the Massachusetts Port Authority, which operates Logan.

Why doesn't the T check with railroads and transit systems who regularly operate in worse weather conditions

Or they might sponsor a Mass Challenge to fund a start-up with a novel solution

For instance on the light and heavy rail one thing not lacking is accessible energy in large quantities -- what's wrong with a pack of heat guns mounted on a frame and deployed on trains in the winter to melt ice and snow off of the rails couple that with specialized brushes designed for the rail to rail separation and a snow blower -- or perhaps they should call Vamas

 

[FenwayResident]

Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

#3, fix the bloody T, fix the union problems, streamline workflows and make the nuts and bolts repairs that will prevent things from breaking down all the time. Just fucking do it.

I agree with the rest of your post (and the quoted part, in theory) but #3 is not as simple as "just fucking do it". It's really, really, really hard to break up an entrenched bureaucracy. Especially when the power structure is divided so that one group can not unilaterally change things.

Double especially when said group has the power to strike and bring an entire city to a halt if you do something they don't like. It'll take a lot of finesse and negotiation to fix the broken management and unions in the T, from multiple people.

 

[whighlander]

Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

It seems to me the MBTA may be facing a double whammy of trouble. I think most participants on this forum agree at least generally about the first one, which has been building for decades: massive underinvestment in replacement of rolling stock and other equipment, coupled with a severe disconnect between revenue streams and operational / debt service needs, all exacerbated by a patronage system and (maybe) union rules and pension systems. We can have a nice long battle about the particulars, especially on the union/pension part of it, but I think we have agreement the T is billions of $ in the hole due to chronic underinvestment / neglect.

But I am worried there’s a second one looming, driven by climate changes.......
Those climate change models are obviously highly speculative, so I certainly don’t claim we can know that this type of event will become common. But it might be premature to say “we’ll never see this again”.

As for addressing this double whammy of challenges, I think we obviously need to prioritize mostly on the known investment lag. We have underspent ourselves into a multi-billion-dollar backlog of really basic stuff that will have to get caught up whether we really do have climate change happening or not. So we get started on that, if Baker can lead and the legislature and taxpayers can follow. But I wouldn’t ignore the longer-term threat, because it might not be so long in the offing.

West -- If you plan to be around for more than a couple of years -- figure on more of this year's winter

For the next couple of decades at least we are returning to the type of winter we used to have in the 50's to 70's -- lots of snow, lots of cold

The T's solution to winter is simple -- find someone whose doing it right and copy them -- I'm sure Chicago or Toronto would be happy to share experience with the T

 

[datadyne007]

Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

West -- If you plan to be around for more than a couple of years -- figure on more of this year's winter

For the next couple of decades at least we are returning to the type of winter we used to have in the 50's to 70's -- lots of snow, lots of cold

The T's solution to winter is simple -- find someone whose doing it right and copy them -- I'm sure Chicago or Toronto would be happy to share experience with the T

Oldest rolling stock Chicago has in service: 1981
Oldest rolling stock Toronto has in service: 1982 (Line 3)/1995 (all subway)

I don't think we need Chicago or Toronto to tell us just to buy new damn trains.

 

[kz1000ps]

Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

This... this is beautiful. Zero punches pulled, zero fucks given... ladies and gentlemen, the gloves are off:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snjcWj8_usY