What would you do to get the T out of its financial mess?

HenryAlan said:
Show me an electron that thinks for itself and improvises rather than following a distinct and rigid law, and then you can talk about electrical networks as a model for human traffic.
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Henry -- since about 1920 we've not had electrons following anything rigidly -- they do behave according to a law called Quantum Mechanics -- in fact its the very non-mechanistic behavior of electrons that enables me to be typing this and you and the others on the forum to read it. There would neither be transistors for the computers, nor the fiber-optics carrying the Internet to/from my house without the statistical nature of electron behavior

Similarly, when you've a bunch of people in a crowd, or drivers in cars on a highway - the best way to describe their collective behavior is to consider the system to be dominated by its statistical characteristics with metrics such as pressure and flow. Note that this even works fairly well in the uber-bizare world of Copoer-Pairs and Superconductivity
 
Oh my goodness, are we still talking about electrons? Let it go!
 
datadyne007 said:
Oh my goodness, are we still talking about electrons? Let it go!
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Data -- Actually to clarify things I should have pointed out that these general principles apply not just to electrons, but just as much to:
photons, protons, neutrons, cars, people, Red Line cars, and even the sexy new Commuter Rail Locomotives
Everything behaves as both a particle and a wave depending on how you observer it -- this the eponymous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

You can not simultaneously know to infinite precision both the position and the momentum of something -- whether the something is an electron or even a neutrino or something on the scale of planets and stars

Of course for practical purposes the wave nature of people, Red Line cars and stars is usually ignorable
 
And yet, they still don't apply to traffic modelling or human behavior. So to quote datadyne007, "let it go!"
 
HenryAlan said:
And yet, they still don't apply to traffic modelling or human behavior. So to quote datadyne007, "let it go!"
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Henry -- these models do exceptionally well at the dynamics of traffic -- why they don't seem to work as predictors of need for highways???

However, you don't need to take my word for it

Occasionally when you are driving you will see a huge traffic jam on the other side of the highway -- this may or may not be a primary traffic jam

Its quite possible that the original accident that triggered everything happened on your side and that jam caused rubber necking on the otherside -- producing a jam that propagated backward through the traffic much like a wave ("tsunami" -like behavior). Occasionally the original jam is even completely cleared and a tertiary jam occurs due to rubber-necking back on the original side

These types of behavior are easy to model in dynamic simulations
 
We're talking past each other here because we're talking about different things. Yes, the imminent effect of suddenly removing a lane is that the current cars on the road get squeezed.

But the rest of us are talking about what happens over the course of weeks, months and years. When a highway is expanded, people think about that when making plans. Not only day to day plans, but also long term. Perhaps they were on the edge of taking commuter rail vs driving. Highway expansion tips that in favor of the highway. Maybe they are choosing where to live. Highway expansion makes it possible to live on some far flung subdivision.

Lots of people make this decision separately. It makes sense individually. But they come together, and the road gets crowded again, and the congestion builds up again, and everybody's unhappy again. So, more expansion is planned. And then the whole process repeats itself.
 
Yep. The basic distinction regards whether a choice is made about following the path in the first place. Once on the path, then yes, what Whighlander is saying is reasonably accurate. It's the decision to either get on or stay off the path that matters regarding transportation planning. The electrons and water molecules can only model what happens after the decision is made.
 
HenryAlan said:
Yep. The basic distinction regards whether a choice is made about following the path in the first place. Once on the path, then yes, what Whighlander is saying is reasonably accurate. It's the decision to either get on or stay off the path that matters regarding transportation planning. The electrons and water molecules can only model what happens after the decision is made.
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OK -- I'm going to let this one pass on the following basis:

1) we can model dynamics of road networks as they adapt to weather, accidents, construction
2) we apparently can't model the dynamics of adding additional capacity because it might change the economy in the region for the better -- eventually encouraging people to build and grow and Lo and Behold congestion re-appears

Yea -- I'll agree with that -- But I think #2 means you did the right thing

I propose the construction of the modern version of Rt-128 in the 1940's as Exhibit A -- in its absence Boston might today be just another city with a brilliant past - but dead in the water
 
Ron Newman said:
CambridgeSide Galleria, Copley Place, and Prudential malls all charge for parking in their garages.
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Well there's nowhere to park. Who would want to take their chances with either a Boston or Cambridge meter-maid? It is better to pay the couple bucks an hour in the garage than to pay $20+ dollars (and/or a possible tow) for parking in Cambridge if you don't have a resident parking permit sticker. Beyond that, finding un metered parking in Boston? Priceless...
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
People generally didn't have a problem with the fare increases. It's the accountability. There is nothing here compelling them to clean up their own act.
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I agree with much of what you have said about structural problems, but I digress on your take on the fare increases. The increase in fares for suburbanites for commuter rail and parking are excessive. For example, if you live around Rte. 128 (not far at all from Boston, mabye 12 miles or so) you will likely soon be paying $17 a day to commute into boston (13.50 round trip CR fare plus $4 parking). That's a good chunk of $$ for just transportation especially given that suburbanites are not without cars and have car expenses to boot as well. You would think the state would make some attempt to incentivize use of public transit.

For those closer to Boston and on the subway network, the fare increase is much more palatable - a 30 cent increase in fare is not outrageous if it were to be accompanied by some longer term reform.
 
commuter guy said:
I agree with much of what you have said about structural problems, but I digress on your take on the fare increases. The increase in fares for suburbanites for commuter rail and parking are excessive. For example, if you live around Rte. 128 (not far at all from Boston, mabye 12 miles or so) you will likely soon be paying $17 a day to commute into boston (13.50 round trip CR fare plus $4 parking). That's a good chunk of $$ for just transportation especially given that suburbanites are not without cars and have car expenses to boot as well. You would think the state would make some attempt to incentivize use of public transit.

For those closer to Boston and on the subway network, the fare increase is much more palatable - a 30 cent increase in fare is not outrageous if it were to be accompanied by some longer term reform.
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Commute -- the problem is that they aren't fixing any of the fundamental problems they're doing the classic kick the can down the road. Next year's budget deficit is predicted to be even larger than this year's and there will be fewer one-time things available to plug the gap.

unfortunately, nothing will change fundamentally until a reform-minded governor is elected with a sufficient mandate to force some real change through the legislature.
 
cozzyd said:
whigh: are people bosons or fermions?
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Cozz -- they have a certain duality:

Sometimes they cluster and behave as a true Bose-Einstein Condensate:
a) Crowd outside Fenway opening day
b) 4th of July on the Esplanade


Other times they seem to be much more Fermionic matter with a certain arrogance, pushiness and being "down-right" unfriendly

There seems to be an intermediate state -- such as the Green Line at rush hour when they pack densely, but the behavior is decidedly coldish

If I had to hazard a theory it might be temperature dependent -- warm, sunny pleasant weather seems to improve every bodies' disposition
 
commuter guy said:
I agree with much of what you have said about structural problems, but I digress on your take on the fare increases. The increase in fares for suburbanites for commuter rail and parking are excessive. For example, if you live around Rte. 128 (not far at all from Boston, mabye 12 miles or so) you will likely soon be paying $17 a day to commute into boston (13.50 round trip CR fare plus $4 parking). That's a good chunk of $$ for just transportation especially given that suburbanites are not without cars and have car expenses to boot as well. You would think the state would make some attempt to incentivize use of public transit.

For those closer to Boston and on the subway network, the fare increase is much more palatable - a 30 cent increase in fare is not outrageous if it were to be accompanied by some longer term reform.
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Cost of living, for example housing, is much higher though, so I call it a wash.
 
If you were to sum up the reasons why the MBTA is not in a good financial position, how would you write it? As in, in a few sentences, why is the T screwed?
 
mass88 said:
If you were to sum up the reasons why the MBTA is not in a good financial position, how would you write it? As in, in a few sentences, why is the T screwed?
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Here are 9 words:

Debt it doesn't deserve. (Big Dig)
Failed legislature/politicians. (City, State, and Nat'l. No support for transit at all)
Broken promises. (Sales tax)
 
mass88 said:
If you were to sum up the reasons why the MBTA is not in a good financial position, how would you write it? As in, in a few sentences, why is the T screwed?
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Here are mine:
1) Excessive embedded costs due to fat Union and Upper echelon contracts -- this is the killer -- even if you dump the debt -- the costs exceed the revenues by a considerable amount
2) Excessive rate of expansion driven by "mitigation deals with CLF"
3) Davis-Bacon and similar state regulations favoring construction unions
4) Poorly designed financial structure -- including the transfer of debt to the T
5) Lack of any attempt to reduce unnecessary costs
6) no-proactive marketing to increase revenues such as nearly free parking on weekends
7) lack of coordination with other transportation agencies
8) poorly designed governance structure -- e.g. Advisory Board has no real power
 
There's no way to fix the Union mess, either, without picking from the following menu of poison choices:

1) Vote me for office: I'm the Union-busting Candidate!
2) Bankruptcy: It's not just for Rhode Island cities anymore!
3) "You either work with us, or we're cutting you off." (Maybe this even cycles back into #1!)
 
Default would be my choice -- follow the successful example of American Airlines, United, etc. and just extinguish the debt.
 
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