MBTA Winter 2015: Failure and Recovery

Heard on the news today that Gov. Charlie Baker was about to submit his plan to try to get the T back on track with a plan to keep it out of the red, and to make sure that what just happened this winter, won't happen again next winter.

This was supposed to be at 1pm yesterday. Didn't hear anything yet.
 
^ He's lobbying the legislature, which has been reluctant on some of the key aspects of Baker's proposal.
 
And Baker's lobbying did not bring them around:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2...r-mbta-plan/cwIriJvnLDcQMbPuOtJWJP/story.html

The Globe's overview says that the Senate bill agrees with Baker that the state transportation board (DOT) should be expanded from 7 to 11 members, and also agrees that Baker's Sec of Transportation should have full hiring / firing authority over the T Director. Points of disagreement are: the Senate does not want to create the additional (temporary) fiscal board that Baker wants; the Senate wants to keep the Pacheco law for 3 years and then revisit; Senate bill would leave binding arbitration intact. Last but not least, the Senate does not want to move from the cap of the current 5% fare increase every other year.

I note again that this is the Globe's overview, for those of you who, like me, do not take any Globe overview as gospel. I haven't read thru the Senate bill myself yet.

(see additional issue two posts down...)
 
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He seems like a quiet and patient person who is willing to work WITH NOT AGAINST people to try to make things better for everyone. :cool:
 
I overlooked one important thing in my prior post, the Senate bill also leaves $500M of state T funding intact, which Baker had proposed to strip away.

From the Globe:

The governor, who has criticized the MBTA for poor cost containment, would eliminate a 2013 funding boost for the state’s transportation system, including the T, valued at $500 million over the next five years.

But Senator Karen Spilka, chairwoman of the Senate Ways and Means committee, said the chamber’s budget would keep the funding in place.

“I think they need the resources,” she said, adding that Beacon Hill is just at the start of a “broad discussion” about the funding and management of the T.
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That's a very important aspect of their plan that I missed in my earlier post. The Senate seems to be saying, "we'll give you the full authority you need on hiring and control, but leave the fares and funding alone for now, and figure out what you're going to change without inserting some new fiscal board."
 
Not sure if anybody is noticing but TRAFFIC already looks like an upcoming nightmare for this summer.

Boston is expanding and more and more people have cars.
The MBTA is completely outdated and its like driving in a dumpster.

I hope Charlie Baker has vision because the time is now to overhaul the entire MBTA Management along with the lifetime pension program and Dump billions of dollars in upgraded Infrastructure across the state. And encourage Amtrak to step up.

Or Boston will be heading the same path as LA in Traffic scenario. Especially with the CASINO being built in the middle of 93
 
TheRifleman said:
Not sure if anybody is noticing but TRAFFIC already looks like an upcoming nightmare for this summer.

Boston is expanding and more and more people have cars.
The MBTA is completely outdated and its like driving in a dumpster.

I hope Charlie Baker has vision because the time is now to overhaul the entire MBTA Management along with the lifetime pension program and Dump billions of dollars in upgraded Infrastructure across the state. And encourage Amtrak to step up.

Or Boston will be heading the same path as LA in Traffic scenario. Especially with the CASINO being built in the middle of 93
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Did we fill in some more marshland somewhere and I missed it?
 
After returning home from visiting a friend in the hospital, part of the trip back had included using the Orange Line, as did going over there.

Getting on at North Station & going to State Street Sta, I just couldn't help but notice the extremely deplorable condition of those rail cars! They are pretty much rusted & rotted through at the corners & roofs! Makes me doubt whether those cars would make it through another 5 years or so before we see the new cars come into revenue service!
 
And think...CNR hasn't even begun construction on their new Assembly facility in Springfield: necessary to be an "in-state" bid.
 
bigeman312 said:
And think...CNR hasn't even begun construction on their new Assembly facility in Springfield: necessary to be an "in-state" bid.
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From what I once read, they said that ground would be broken for the new assembly plant this coming fall.

But the supposedly pending lawsuit launched by the co's that lost out on the bid, could hinder or delay things. Also, a final rendering still has yet to surface as to how the new rail cars will officially look, inside & out.
 
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TheRifleman said:
Not sure if anybody is noticing but TRAFFIC already looks like an upcoming nightmare for this summer.

Boston is expanding and more and more people have cars.
The MBTA is completely outdated and its like driving in a dumpster.
Click to expand...

I've noticed that the extra capacity created by the Big Dig and the Great Recession seems to have disappeared in the last year, and the traffic view on google maps displays a prodigious amount of red inside(and along) 128.
 
Scalziand said:
I've noticed that the extra capacity created by the Big Dig and the Great Recession seems to have disappeared in the last year, and the traffic view on google maps displays a prodigious amount of red inside(and along) 128.
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Since when is that something that started happening last year?
 
Scalziand said:
I've noticed that the extra capacity created by the Big Dig and the Great Recession seems to have disappeared in the last year, and the traffic view on google maps displays a prodigious amount of red inside(and along) 128.
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IMHO, the only thing that the city did was take the world's largest parking that was upstairs and put it downstairs!

Getting anywhere through downtown on 93, north or south, can really be a pure hellacious nightmare. :mad:
 
I have to mention today is probably a bad day to measure for traffic inside 128. It's graduation at multiple schools.
 
Scalziand said:
I've noticed that the extra capacity created by the Big Dig and the Great Recession seems to have disappeared in the last year, and the traffic view on google maps displays a prodigious amount of red inside(and along) 128.
Click to expand...

Rode past a lot of stopped cars on Storrow on my way down to the North Station area, they all seemed to be waiting to get into the Central Artery/Tunnel.

Was the same two hours later when I returned.

Sucks to be them.
 
Scalziand said:
I've noticed that the extra capacity created by the Big Dig and the Great Recession seems to have disappeared in the last year, and the traffic view on google maps displays a prodigious amount of red inside(and along) 128.
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Peak has gotten a lot more congested. But 128 between 24 in Randolph and 2A in Lexington clears up very quickly at the end of rush. 9:00am on the dot it's pretty much free-and-clear except for whatever the construction crews are doing on a given day at that still-unfinished Route 109 overpass in Dedham. The flow improvement even carries over through the Highland Ave. stretch that hasn't been add-a-lane'd yet. So seems like the upgrades are doing exactly what's intended on the highway's resiliency.

Unfortunately MassDOT hasn't gotten it through their thick skulls that the SE Expressway needs full-size shoulders more than it needs more HOV capacity. Are they ever gonna put 2-and-2 together that the Expressway takes a full hour longer to un-stick than every single road that feeds traffic into it? That's a design problem, not a capacity problem.
 
Matthew said:
Rode past a lot of stopped cars on Storrow on my way down to the North Station area, they all seemed to be waiting to get into the Central Artery/Tunnel.

Was the same two hours later when I returned.

Sucks to be them.
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Whenever I spend a weekend at a friend's house out in Newton, I leave there by 0530 on the following Monday morning.

That way, the Mass Pike & Storrow Drive are not clogged with traffic, and I can breeze right through, getting back home by about 0630 or so. Nice! :cool:
 
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F-Line to Dudley said:
Peak has gotten a lot more congested. But 128 between 24 in Randolph and 2A in Lexington clears up very quickly at the end of rush. 9:00am on the dot it's pretty much free-and-clear except for whatever the construction crews are doing on a given day at that still-unfinished Route 109 overpass in Dedham. The flow improvement even carries over through the Highland Ave. stretch that hasn't been add-a-lane'd yet. So seems like the upgrades are doing exactly what's intended on the highway's resiliency.

Unfortunately MassDOT hasn't gotten it through their thick skulls that the SE Expressway needs full-size shoulders more than it needs more HOV capacity. Are they ever gonna put 2-and-2 together that the Expressway takes a full hour longer to un-stick than every single road that feeds traffic into it? That's a design problem, not a capacity problem.
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Honest question: How do full size shoulders help with capacity?
 
JeffDowntown said:
Broken down vehicles can get completely out of the travel lanes. One broken down vehicle today causes a huge backup.
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One engineering term is "side friction": stationary objects too close to the edge cause drivers to slow (particularly true of jersey barriers even if they don't technically narrow a lane) or panic-brake (particularly true of "point" obstructions like a disabled vehicles, utility poles, and bridge abutments.

The best way to get a disabled vehicle truly out of the way is for it to be pulled as far far to the right as possible, at least to the far edge of a ~10' shoulder, and ideally, parked in the gravel beyond the paved shoulder (think of the paved shoulder as the acceleration/decel lane for being off the road, not as a place where you should be directly stopped)
 
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