MBTA Winter 2015: Failure and Recovery

Re: Dr. Beverly Scott resigns

Mini-Me Deval bloated this state with high paying hack jobs that are going to drain us for years to come. As far as I am concerned, when the heat got turned up on her, she bailed out as fast as she could.
Sorry, but Head of the MBTA: A) isn't an unnecessary job; and B) certainly wasn't created by Gov Patrick. Nice job on the Howie Carr nickname though...

Yes, democracy is flawed in that we let politicians bribe us with our own money
I know this "bribing" language is popular now in fringe conservative circles, but it's nonsensical. Voters wanting something, politicians offering to give it to them, voters electing said politicians, and said politicians following through on their promise is hardly a subversion of Democracy.
 
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Re: Dr. Beverly Scott resigns

When did "Government spending money on things voters want," become "politicians bribing us with our own money"?
When? Around here sometime between 1740 and 1800 is a good guess.
God forbid voters want something, elect the people who promise that thing, and those elected then spend money on it.
When you call it simply "money", you're either being heedless or willful in overlooking that it's been coerced from other people, or you've received the reassurance that you'll mostly be bribed with other people's money.
 
Re: Dr. Beverly Scott resigns

MBTA fares are "de facto" indexed to inflation and will rise every 2 years. Actually, they will likely rise faster than inflation for the coming years.

Because the legislation limits the fare hikes to 5% every two years, the MBTA is basically forced to take it, or else miss out on an opportunity to raise fares in the future. So you will see, like clockwork, a proposal to raise fares by 5% every two years. July 2014 was the first case under the new rules. 5% every two years is higher than the current rate of inflation, which is under 2% annually.

But, of course, motorists deserve an automatic tax cut every year as the gas tax loses value due to inflation. Because freedom.
 
Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

Melting snow is no picnic though. Water has a very high specific heat. It takes a lot of energy to change its temperature.

Most of the energy would go into the heat of fusion, not the specific heat though. You can go from 0-80C for the price of melting.
 
Re: MBTA & Regular Driving May Be Shut Down During Coming Snowstorm!

You got me! I'm not a chemist :)

But yeah, it sucks.
 
Re: Dr. Beverly Scott resigns

"Coerced" is Libertarian babel. It's tax money turned into government services. Lay off the Rand.
 
Re: Dr. Beverly Scott resigns

"Coerced" is Libertarian babel. It's tax money turned into government services. Lay off the Rand.
Let's not dehumanize either the taxpayer or the beneficiary. The reality is that pretty much everyone takes govt money willingly but pays it in unwillingly. You have to respect that.

The government can only spend two kinds of money: yours and other peoples. There's no fun in only spending one's own (that's called buying stuff or user fees), and, any other way (but particularly for state employees) you eventually run out of other people's money (or they leave the state on you). Rich or poor, they know when their pocket is being picked under the guise of majority rule, and if what they get is noticeably less efficient than places they willingly spend.

We don't like the coercive power of monopolies (Rand was OK with 'em), including the monopoly to levy taxes.
 
Re: Dr. Beverly Scott resigns

The real tipoff that (at least some) MBTA jobs are overpaid is that they are awarded by lottery. There's no other way to interpret that as thousands of applicants telling us that these jobs are way better than are on offer based on comparable skills in the "real" economy.

Comparing two possible careers in the real world, applicants trade off things like working conditions, pay, fringes, advancement, and retirement. You agonize over things like that, and employers, for their part, calibrate their offer to be at competitive parity with your alternatives.

Regular employers who want to "win" a recruiting battle want to offer their workers "better" to but not "won the lottery" better.

An MBTA job is so vastly better than the alternatives that they are flooded with applicants. These aren't just good jobs, these are "won the lottery" jobs.

In a rational market--where either the pay was lower or the jobs were more demanding--there'd be just enough people willing to "settle" for an MBTA job that they'd just barely fill every slot.

The Lottery solves the problem political patronage (of only being able to apply if you got referred by a connection), but it leaves the evidence that it is a job that is so obviously superior that politicians would have loved to them out as patronage. We solved the corruption problem, but not the "too much better than reality" problem.
 
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Re: Dr. Beverly Scott resigns

And they claim that they're strapped for cash. Hogwash!
 
Re: Dr. Beverly Scott resigns

Mini-Me Deval bloated this state with high paying hack jobs that are going to drain us for years to come. As far as I am concerned, when the heat got turned up on her, she bailed out as fast as she could. She didn't say anything that every one didn't already know. She is a coward, nothing more. When you deal with old crap, you figure out a way to make it work, that's how real life/work is done. She didn't want to do that. Good riddance.

Anyone who thinks the rest of the Commonwealth is going is subsidize the T anymore than it already does after the Big Dig fiasco is going to be solely disappointed.

Honestly, if Massachusetts wanted to fix the MBTA, we should expand public transit across Massachusetts and increase ridership. Raise the Gas Tax, so people are discouraged to use cars and fund maintaining highways. More riders into the MBTA increases revenues. Also, Building development around existing MBTA stations fosters more riders. MBTA could cut fares by some % to attract even more riders.
 
Re: Dr. Beverly Scott resigns

Honestly, if Massachusetts wanted to fix the MBTA, we should expand public transit across Massachusetts and increase ridership.
That was basically the idea in the most recent gas tax & bond. Commuter service up the CT River from Springfield to Holyoke/Northampton/Greenfield (better thought of as service to New Haven and improved NYC access...likely contracted to Amtrak, CDOT, or a "Keolis"), and improved MBTA service Boston-Worcester and the start of Worcester-Springfield double-tracking on CSX (which is low bang for buck).

Only half-done was service to Pittsfield (they bought a line that sort of goes to NYC via CT but is crazy to actually do...better to go via Albany) and the Cape (where NIMBYs on-Cape give people pause about upgrading the Cape Flyer)

That leaves the dreaded South Coast Rail, which should probably be done instead as a shuttle to PVD and New Haven (no capacity New Haven - NYC, too expensive FR/NB to Taunton)

And Red/Orange being assembled in Springfield.

Really, they cut the spread-the-wealth deal as best they could. I suppose you could sprinkle in a little bit of Gateway Cities love like the Lowell streetcar expansion, and downtown circlulators in Pittsfield/FR/NB/Worcester, but almost anything else is either sprawly or wasted outside metro Boston.
 
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Re: Dr. Beverly Scott resigns

Let's not dehumanize either the taxpayer or the beneficiary.
What's dehumanizing is basing your politics around a poorly written children's fantasy book and not actual human reality.
 
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Re: Dr. Beverly Scott resigns

What's dehumanizing is basing your political beliefs around a poorly written children's fantasy book and not actual human reality.
You accuse me of being something I am not (not Randian) in order to forgive yourself for not caring that taxes "appropriate" other people's stuff.

Mao's "all power comes from the barrel of a gun" would presumably apply to taxes. The Constitutions ban on Bills of Attainder says that the founders knew you couldn't just take stuff from people under guise of majority rule. The early requirements that only property owners vote and all (federal) tax on the states be levied per person (repealed in order to permit income tax)also showed a fear that the many without property would be tempted to vote taxes on the few. Wide pre-Rand and anti-Randian agreement that the state can be coercive and that taxes particularly so.

On DailyKos they don't conclude that taxes aren't coercive, but rather shrug "so what? Lots of Government is?" So they and libertarians and Mao and Jefferson and Madison and Hamilton all agree that taxes are coercive and even folks like me who'd raise them on carbon and income (and core & road congestion) to pay for better transit have to admit that you are collecting property by majority vote but state power.
 
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Re: Dr. Beverly Scott resigns

Can we move this discussion back to reality please?
 
Re: Dr. Beverly Scott resigns

WHDH just reported that Beverly Scott has resigned from the MBTA... wow

I'm glad she only stuck around the 2 years so-as to not be Baker's whipping girl. Romney's crap is now beginning to surface. Lets see how much better Baker does with his pick. The MBTA is still the most indebted transit authority in the country since all of Romney's wall street deals. Congress will need to take those on and make the banks renegotiate or raise fares some more.
 
Re: Dr. Beverly Scott resigns

Any thoughts on this from the Boston Herald?

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_op...ding_soared_on_mbta_boss_beverly_scotts_watch

"Overall, the T payroll soared by nearly $80 million to $543.7 million last year, a 17 percent increase over the previous year."

Apparently, people earned more in the years under Scott than the previous head of the MBTA.
My only comment:
bostonherald.com

Typical and expected from them. The Herald is having a field day with these stories.

I was reading a related article and found this nugget from Pollack:
"Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack said she and Gov. Charlie Baker never intended for Scott to be a “scapegoat” for the T’s problems. But after yesterday’s MassDOT board meeting, she said she wants to know the T’s plans for “nursing these vehicles along” before they can be replaced by new subway cars in seven years.

“Dr. Scott mentioned today the Orange Line cars never had a mid-life overhaul. Why didn’t that happen?” Pollack asked. “Why did people think we could take these vehicles and make them last another five to eight years, or was there a plan?”"

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_op...cott_spared_no_expense_on_trips_record_review
 
Re: Dr. Beverly Scott resigns

The MBTA is still the most indebted transit authority in the country since all of Romney's wall street deals.
The MBTA was also, by some measures, the fasting growing transit system (expensive, underused, sprawly Commuter Rail), thanks to Dukakis-Salvucci-Weld-Foy deals.

Issuing debt to fund long term growth and repaid from taxes on the people who experience the long-term benefits is exactly what progressive governments with good credit ratings should do. Problem is, we spent too much and got to few new MBTA believers (e.g. the underused Greenbush line).

Too much rail was thrown into places with too few riders in the marginally successful attempt to build wider political support. Those (South Shore) votes were bought at too high a price. That's a Dukakis-Salvucci-Weld-Foy problem. Romney's role was to reshuffle. Patrick's role was to spend *8 years* trying to put together a fix, not because of anything particularly "Romney" but because of the state's political geography and suburban anti-tax voters.

It is only considered "too much" debt because the dedicated funding was over-estimated and there (understandably) isn't a statewide desire to "bail out" what mostly benefited one region (the MBTA district).
 
Re: Dr. Beverly Scott resigns

My only comment:
bostonherald.com

Typical and expected from them. The Herald is having a field day with these stories.

I was reading a related article and found this nugget from Pollack:

[Original quote stated that MBTA payroll increased 17% last year over previous year.] Are you saying this is a concocted fact? Just because the Herald is a conservative tabloid doesnt make this fact (which may or may not be true; I havent looked into the real details) untrue....
 
Re: Dr. Beverly Scott resigns

^ So it is 109 for Late Night service, and 60 operators to increase bus & Green Line to comply with the SIP (the ongoing need to deliver on the Salvucci-Foy CLF Big Dig deal of 1990). In this case, those 60 operators were added to operate increased off-peak service to GL Lechmere and on Somerville buses like the 80, 87, 91, 94, etc, as an offset for the GLX being late.

There's a problem on both sides. Underground acts like it matters not that somebody's going to have to pay for these goodies, and the Herald acts like they got nothing for it.

The current complaint boils down to: we expanded Late Night and Somerville service, but that didn't help in 70" of snow.

In general, these expansion-first, maintenance-later stories burn a lot of cash and political capital and end badly.
 

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