MBTA Winter 2015: Failure and Recovery

[datadyne007]

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

The whole thing was beautiful. The whole press conference she was walking around the front of the room away from the podium like a preacher. SHE was poetry in motion.

At one point, someone asked her about the Big Dig debt and she went "Oh, Lord Jesus!"

She's by far the most vocal we've had in recent history about the T's real underlying problems. She's doing what a manager should actually be doing - caring about the integrity of her system and the people her system serves. I think a really profound statement was when she mentioned that she instructed that not just the bus stops on Boylston were shoveled, but also those in Dudley.

 

[FenwayResident]

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

I'm not sure if that's her normal cadence or if she was just really frustrated, but it was really hard to follow what she was trying to say. However I agree with her point... it's good to hear public officials acknowledging how broken, old and underfunded our system is.

 

[datadyne007]

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

I'm not sure if that's her normal cadence or if she was just really frustrated, but it was really hard to follow what she was trying to say. However I agree with her point... it's good to hear public officials acknowledging how broken, old and underfunded our system is.

That's not her usual demeanor. She doesn't have a Chris Christie combative demeanor typically, but what we all witnessed at that press conference was passion for the people her system employs and serves. She cares a lot.

It is important to note that the reporter at the beginning asked her if she should resign from this. WCVB cut that off when they uploaded the video.

 

[jass]

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

Why are people looking at Moscow, San Francisco, etc etc when trying to compare snow?

Cant anyone think of a city that gets hit with the SAME storms Boston gets?

A city with an extensive transit network?

A city that has received 56 inches this year? Less then Boston, yes, but not much less?

 

[Matthew]

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

Montreal Metro is entirely covered, due to the use of rubber-tyred vehicles.

 

[whighlander]

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

I'm not sure if that's her normal cadence or if she was just really frustrated, but it was really hard to follow what she was trying to say. However I agree with her point... it's good to hear public officials acknowledging how broken, old and underfunded our system is.

Fenway -- perhaps you are too young or were not here when the Consent Agreement was signed [about 1992] that has driven the expansion of the T without the Legislature doing anything about the organizational structure

Later the Legislature cobbled together a pastiche or collage or something of various agencies, authorities and miscellaneous offices into the Department of Transportation -- retaining essentially intact, the T's weird political compromise [of an earlier restructuring] of letting the new governor only have one vote on the T's Board

Note however that the T was given sole access to 1 of the pennies of the nearly 6 pennies of the Massachusetts Sales Tax + a good fraction of the Gasoline Tax [which rose last year]

No -- the argument that the T is underfunded is unsubstantiated

What we do know for a fact is that the T is:

• poorly managed,
• ineffecient in essentially everything it does,
• grossly burdened with Archaic Union Work Rules
• beset with a Byzantine Pension system -- which is still a secret to the taxpayers

and then on top of the above there was superimposed the record setting series of storms over the past month

recipe for Epic Fail which we just witnessed

The good news is that Baker will do the analysis of the problems -- that's his forte

The bad news is that as a prefered client / plaything of the Legislative Leadership -- the necessary changes will be hard to get enacted

 

[George_Apley]

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

^ You are utterly convinced that the MBTA's problems will disappear if they gut the union and the pension, aren't you? That wouldn't scratch the surface.

 

[jass]

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

Montreal Metro is entirely covered, due to the use of rubber-tyred vehicles.

I thought one line went above ground. I know a proposed extension was above ground.

They have buses, though, how do those work.

How about Calgary? Arent they snowland? And they have above ground light rail all over the place.

 

[FK4]

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

It's kind of annoying how the Globe is fomenting conflict between Baker and Beverly Scott - two articles in two days specifically about the possibility of her being fired, and nearly constant requoting of him using the word 'unacceptable' as if that actually means anything...

 

[Jahvon09]

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

This latest incident, in addition to all the other snafus or mishaps that has occurred with the MBTA, especially on the Red Line, IS exasperating and inexcusable.

They KNEW that those old aging rail cars on both the Orange & Red Lines are just about as old as the dinosaurs. They KNEW that they should've long since been ordered & implemented a plan to replace those cars long time ago. They KNEW the problems that they were having with them. And finally, they KNEW that those cars have now become way too old and very problematic. The dough spent on getting and keeping them repaired could have gone toward ordering and getting new cars.

They are forcing commuters into playing Russian Roulette with their jobs & their lives. Even the newest cars on the Red Line have been crippled by the snow, and people want answers as to why the aging system has gone from worst to ridiculous.

The lessons learnt here is probably an expensive one in terms of equipment failures, breakdowns, extremely cold weather & snow and staying on top of things during what is probably the most brutal winter that we've had in years.

Just like the old Blue Line trains that were in service for nearly 30 years. They were so problematic that they made Logan Airport employees late for work and travelers late catching their flights, as well as employees working in the downtown area late for work.

There is the old saying that if it isn't broken, don't fix it. Well, in THIS case, the system IS broken and something needs to be done about it.

 

[datadyne007]

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

It's kind of annoying how the Globe is fomenting conflict between Baker and Beverly Scott - two articles in two days specifically about the possibility of her being fired, and nearly constant requoting of him using the word 'unacceptable' as if that actually means anything...

Channel 4, 5 & 7 aren't helping either.

 

[choo]

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

This latest incident, in addition to all the other snafus or mishaps that has occurred with the MBTA, especially on the Red Line, IS exasperating and inexcusable.

They KNEW that those old aging rail cars on both the Orange & Red Lines are just about as old as the dinosaurs. They KNEW that they should've long since been ordered & implemented a plan to replace those cars long time ago. They KNEW the problems that they were having with them. And finally, they KNEW that those cars have now become way too old and very problematic. The dough spent on getting and keeping them repaired could have gone toward ordering and getting new cars.

They are forcing commuters into playing Russian Roulette with their jobs & their lives. Even the newest cars on the Red Line have been crippled by the snow, and people want answers as to why the aging system has gone from worst to ridiculous.

The lessons learnt here is probably an expensive one in terms of equipment failures, breakdowns, extremely cold weather & snow and staying on top of things during what is probably the most brutal winter that we've had in years.

Just like the old Blue Line trains that were in service for nearly 30 years. They were so problematic that they made Logan Airport employees late for work and travelers late catching their flights, as well as employees working in the downtown area late for work.

There is the old saying that if it isn't broken, don't fix it. Well, in THIS case, the system IS broken and something needs to be done about it.

Yes, and unfortunately, to get such investment the MBTA needs to go grovel for money at the state house to a bunch of suburban reps. There needs to be some sustainable transit funding with a realization that this is about critical state infrastructure. In the light of the opportunity cost and single point of failure for the regional economy that the MBTA is, there really needs a statewide focus on bringing the T to solid condition and having it work for all. Unfortunately, the voters repealed gas tax indexing that would have funded some of this just a few months ago.

What is the lost economic value of shutting down the T for the entire day to the MA economy? A billion? What about the people who paid for parking and drove in versus the normal T commute, is that an additional $30.

 

[George_Apley]

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

It's kind of annoying how the Globe is fomenting conflict between Baker and Beverly Scott - two articles in two days specifically about the possibility of her being fired, and nearly constant requoting of him using the word 'unacceptable' as if that actually means anything...

Times like these are when the media thrives on ginning up conflict. The Globe is channeling people's anger by turning the government officials against one another.

 

[Equilibria]

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

I thought one line went above ground. I know a proposed extension was above ground.

They have buses, though, how do those work.

How about Calgary? Arent they snowland? And they have above ground light rail all over the place.

Someone else made this point earlier, but it bears repeating: if Boston got hit with a Category III hurricane this coming August and the T shut down for a week (which it might) due to flooding, would you all be saying "Well, Hong Kong and Taipei get typhoons bigger than this all the time, how can they do it when we can't?"

Looking to other cities with these experiences for best practices is certainly reasonable at this point, but three weeks ago the chance that Boston would receive 70 inches of snow in this period were like the chances it would get hit by a magnitude 7 earthquake - it's conceivable that it could happen, but it's not worth spending an enormous amount of money to prepare for it and it's certainly not reasonable to blame the T's management for not being entirely prepared for it.

Again, this snowfall event is without precedent. Ever. In any city with a large transit system (Buffalo doesn't count). There's actually more historical precedent for the earthquake, because at least we know that's happened before in the last 400 years. We're getting blinded by the fact that "it's just snow" and that it we were personally warned and prepared well enough that our lives aren't on hold for it, but this is a first-time weather phenomenon in recorded history. Asking the T to be ready to run without fail because "it's just snow" is silly.

 

[FK4]

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

I think there's a couple different issues here - the t is old and falling apart and overall the performance would probably have been less affected if it actually in shipshape. This is separate from the fact that in a true blizzard it is understandable that it may fail briefly.

However, it also fails in the cold and this should never happen. While we may not get daily blizzards, this is a cold city and the t should be be able to handle that without any issue.

Also, although the first blizzard was unprecedented, the subsequent two storms were rather large but still typical boston blizzards that otherwise wouldnt have shut down the trains. So what exactly was the problem? 4 years ago we had three back to back storms with less, but still a comparable, quantity of snow and the T didnt shut down. Is the sole problem here that there was so much snow in the banks on both sides of the track that more snow just couldnt be plowed or moved? Or is this a multifactorial issue, with the snow being one component but multiple equipment issues also playing a role? i think it's likely the latter, yes?

 

[underground]

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

Note however that the T was given sole access to 1 of the pennies of the nearly 6 pennies of the Massachusetts Sales Tax

Which has then proceeded to never come anywhere close to meeting any of the projections that were assumed when the bill was passed. But yeah, unions, pensions, and other extreme right wing boogiemen are to blame...

 

[datadyne007]

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

I had posted this in the Customer Service thread, but we're talking about budgets and such here more. Here are official numbers so we can all stop speculating.

http://www.mbtareview.com/MBTA_Review_2009.pdf

Recognizing the reality that a certain level of state subsidy is necessary to
sustain a transit system, Forward Funding dedicated 20% of statewide sales
tax collections to the MBTA. At the same time, the MBTA was expected to
increase its system-generated revenues from sources such as fares, parking,
real estate and advertising. The following three charts compare FY01
through FY08 actual results to the Finance Plan’s projections.

The Finance Plan projected that dedicated sales tax revenue would
grow by 3% per year from FY01 through FY08.
• In reality, sales tax revenue grew only an average of 1% per year.
• This fell short of the Finance Plan target by a cumulative $460M.

The shortfall in sales tax collections was not this dramatic, however,
because the Forward Funding enabling legislation established a revenue
floor for the MBTA in the event that sales tax revenue growth was
diminished. As the chart shows, the difference between the 3% growth
rate and the actual amount of sales tax revenue guaranteed by the
enabling legislation was $150M short of the Finance Plan’s expectations.

Despite widely held opinions, the shortfall in sales tax revenue has not
by itself accounted for the MBTA’s growing deficits, as evidenced by
this review.

 

[Jahvon09]

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

They should've implemented a Winter Alert system, where, from October to April, a plan would be in place to handle situations dealing with bad winter weather by doing a system check, such as by keeping the third rail & tracks clear of any snow & ice, run maintenance checks on the trains to keep them in good working order, check the signaling system to make sure that it is working properly, and the same thing with the buses.

If they did all this from the jump, then chances are that they'd would've been ahead of the game, instead of going on; "Oh. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." It is much too little, too bloody late by then!

 

[George_Apley]

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

They should've implemented a Winter Alert system, where, from October to April, a plan would be in place to handle situations dealing with bad winter weather by doing a system check, such as by keeping the third rail & tracks clear of any snow & ice, run maintenance checks on the trains to keep them in good working order, check the signaling system to make sure that it is working properly, and the same thing with the buses.

If they did all this from the jump, then chances are that they'd would've been ahead of the game, instead of going on; "Oh. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." It is much too little, too bloody late by then!

Welcome to democratic society. It's really hard to convince voters to allow governments to financially plan for the future.

 

[Shepard]

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

What's been especially galling to me has been the repeated calls to "fix the system before expanding it" - that's been echoed from Globe op-eds to Uhub comments.

The T can and should be both bigger AND better. Better obviously enables bigger, but bigger also leads to better: more people on transit, more reasons to fix and maintain the system.