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

The requirements were:
Upgrade the Fairmount Line and add 4 stations
1000 new parking places
Red/Blue Connector - Design Only
Green Line Extension
 
Matthew said:
South Coast Rail isn't a mitigation project. And unless something radically changes about it, it is a terrible value proposition.
Click to expand...

Agreed, and it really pisses me off that commuter rail to Newport is somehow tied up in this money pit.

Semass said:
The requirements were:
Upgrade the Fairmount Line and add 4 stations
1000 new parking places
Red/Blue Connector - Design Only
Green Line Extension
Click to expand...

Hold up.

Does this mean that they were obligated, essentially, to THINK about doing Red/Blue but then not actually do it?
 
Projects mandated by the original "Memorandum of Understanding", signed 12/19/1990 (by in-service due date):

12/31/1992
-- North Station high platforms.
-- Lynn station: rebuilt commuter rail station, new bus station, new parking garage.
-- South Station Red Line access (station renovation).

12/31/1994
-- Ipswich Line commuter rail extension to Newburyport.
-- South Station Bus Terminal.
-- South Station track 12.

12/31/1996
-- Framingham Line commuter rail extension to Worcester.
-- Commuter rail to Plymouth, Middleboro, Greenbush.
-- Addition of 10,000 park-and-ride spaces systemwide.

12/31/1997
-- Restoration of Green Line E branch to Forest Hills.

12/31/1998
-- Blue Line station modernization, platform lengthening to 6 cars.

12/31/1999
-- Addition of 10,000 more park-and-ride spaces systemwide.

12/31/2001
-- "South Boston Piers Electric Bus Service"

12/31/2011
-- Green Line extension to Medford Hillside
-- Red-Blue Connector


Those are the whole-shebang builds. These are the ones they did not require full builds, but which did have mandated project milestone deadlines:

3/30/1992
-- North-South Rail Link Feasibility Study

9/30/1995
-- Urban Ring implementation plan

No firm deadline
-- Initiatives supporting 3-hour NYC-Boston high speed rail travel times.
-- Initiatives supporting implementation of Amtrak Inland Route intercity service between New Haven-Hartford-Springfield-Worcester-Boston.
-- Initiatives supporting implementation of intercity rail between Boston and Portland.



Granted, this thing was amended so many times the scope of projects changed dramatically...new stuff went into the commitments (note you don't see Fairmount at all in the 1990 settlement), other stuff was stripped out, stuff bore little resemblance to what it was originally proposed as. But we were led to believe that however it morphed the transit and environmental equity to affected areas would travel intact via way of substitutions and future amendments.
 
whighlander said:
Ant -- in so much as the T is a entity of the DOT and even before it was formally merged into the DOT - -the T was a creature of the Legislature -- where the debt went really was a matter of "robbing Peter to pay Paul" or perhaps "3 Card Monty"

I agree that ethically and morallly any borrowing unrealted to the transit operations should not be part of the balance sheet of the T. However, borrowing associated with the expansion of the T to comply with the CLF's "deal with the DOT" is part of the T's heritage. The Legislature just took a look at the immense cost of the Big Dig (some of which was due to the "mitigation projects") and freaked out -- thinking -- "this thing could cost me my cushy synecure." After calming down with a couple of adult beverages, someone in the "Great and General Court" conceived of the idea of "divide, hide and get away with it" -- they divided the Big Dig's immense costs into sub-projects and squireled parts away in various bins most significantly the T and Massport.

The long term solution as was pointed out by Thomas McGee, (D. Lynn) Chair of the Senate Transportation Commitee is to revamp all of the financial and management structures of the T -- that may include the Commonwealth refunding with its bonding authority some of the debt currently covered through the T's bonding (backed by revenues)

The fundamental problem with the T's financing is that as opposed to Massport that actually is a profitable enterprise taking nothing directly from the taxpayers -- the T is so ineffecient that even if you remove all of the debt service -- its operations cost more than the farebox revenues.

from a Globe Article on the Senate debate
Click to expand...

That's great you agree with my implied point that the T's debt should be removed. Could have been much more concise to make it much easier to understand, but I believe you are in agreement.

But I take trouble with this line:

the T is so ineffecient that even if you remove all of the debt service -- its operations cost more than the farebox revenues.
Click to expand...

I take trouble because you seem to be implying that the T should get that debt either never earned in the first place off (good thing), but you also seem to be implying that the T should be able to run at cost/at profit. But that's only a good thing if it is run that inefficient and what breaking the T is inefficiently than the face that transit in all forms isn't profitable.

Sure, there's inefficiencies that the T needs to fix, but it won't be reduced enough to make the T break even by the farebox.* It will always need another source of income.

If you look at the American Transit history or currently profitable transit systems. That remains true for them too. None of them break even or better by farebox. They make the budget by real estate. While it would nice if the T is able to capitalize on real estate, I'm going to assume for this argument that there's not enough value for the MBTA to make that segway. And unlike Massport, the MBTA doesn't have the same opportunities to make money like them.

*The one big expense that have any chance to me prove me wrong is the point-to-point service for the elderly and disabled, my understanding that's the biggest expense by far with negligible revenue.

whighlander said:
In current parlance -- that is not a "sustainable operation" !!!!
Click to expand...

You seem to have a habit of making true statements, but trying to use it to argue for things that doesn't imply that. In this case, it is not sustainable. But the guy arguing it wants to take that truth with a solution to give the MBTA the shaft while not applying the same thing to roads which they aren't paid by direct usage either. So are you just looking to make that statement that they are just kicking the can again? Or are you supporting him to take over the board which his idea is the gut the MBTA viewing railroads on a different standard versus roads?
 
Commuting Boston Student said:
Agreed, and it really pisses me off that commuter rail to Newport is somehow tied up in this money pit.



Hold up.

Does this mean that they were obligated, essentially, to THINK about doing Red/Blue but then not actually do it?
Click to expand...

No. This is design, EIS'ing, and engineering...not a study. That's a very significant chunk of the project cost and time right there, as the final EIS for South Coast Rail indicates. The Transit Commitments obviously couldn't spec a build date that dovetailed with CA/T project milestones when there was not even a prelim study determining what blockers may lurk under Cambridge St. But nobody with political/bureaucratic survival instincts presses forward to complete a final design and EIS on a project they have no intention of building. It's such a huge commitment of resources, labor, and commitment in itself to do all that nitty-gritty that--intent-wise--it's the point of no return. Yes, showstoppers in the final assessment can drive up the final price tag beyond the point of feasibility...and that can upend projects. But usually only when a whole lot of earlier red flags were ignored and the project was already of dubious value and on a whole lot of life support. But bad-faith final designs...that's enough of an anathema to the politically-connected for staying politically-connected and on the gravy train that it ends careers. So by getting a commitment for the design, they were getting their commitment for the intent-to-build.

No, if there's going to be a cut-and-run it usually happens well before this stage. T projects go to their passive-aggressive death in the space between the dog-and-pony showing of the feasibility study and the prelim design, like it did here. Of course, nobody was anticipating that they were just going to go *pffffbbt!* at the very notion of a legally binding date-dependent commitment. Speccing final design vs. opening date of service wasn't the loophole that got exploited..."my compliance is optional because I believe it so and don't fear the repercussions" was the loophole.
 
AmericanFolkLegend said:
So why hasn't the CLF been all up the state's asshole again?
Click to expand...

Oh, they are...at full force, too. They've threatened a lawsuit over the state's jurisdiction to remove Red-Blue from the list, and have provided crucial backing to STEP on GLX. But they have limited resources, and the state's been acting with impunity to ignore so many of these commitments that they're outgunned pretty much everywhere they don't have the toothiness of a STEP to partner with. So they've had to retreat to trying to preserve scraps, pick the winnable battles, and bitterly concede on stuff like Arborway where continuing to fight long odds there might've jeopardized a GLX via divide-and-conquer.

Ultimately they can only go as far as the Courts will enforce. And the state has absolutely nothing to fear there because it can simply drag out and abuse the substitution provisions in the original agreement to water everything down to the point where umpteen amendments and trade-ins later the projects functionally vanish and the regions they were initially targeting have no improvements at all (or worse than none, in the case of JP now having to breathe in bus garage fumes). Erosion through pressure and time, reaffirmed by precedent with each diluting amendment or negotiating extension. The commitments may have been worded "toothy" by 1990 standards but the courts are more top-to-bottom compromised by political interests and protection of political elites than they were 20 years ago. So the CLF gets sacked for a loss every time they they have to pester or cut another interim deal, by virtue of having to chase a deal. Regressive compromise became its own self-sustaining inertia. And, really, there's nothing the CLF can now do about it except shorten its bench and salvage the winnable ones like GLX.

The tide turned against them a long time ago when prior legal actions failed to reaffirm the "toothiness" of the original agreement. "We're broke" shouldn't even be a valid excuse when they signed a binding agreement to build regardless of present finances, but it's now not only framing the entire conversation on the state's terms but also framing it such that the Arborway surrender is the expected starting point for the CLF in negotiations. GLX was being set up to wilt that way too, but Somerville had some legal nukes of its own it was deadly serious about deploying plus a good political protection racket of its own. That's the only reason why that one is seemingly (we hope) going to have a happy ending. But look at the other stuff that is under active construction...we still don't know how many parking spots are going to be lopped further off the incredible shrinking-size/exploding-cost Salem and Beverly garages, and the service plan side of Fairmount has been watered down to so much uncertainty we STILL have no bloody clue what the actual schedules will be at those shiny new stops or what the metrics for successful completion now are (it's no longer DMU's or 20 minute headways, and with the foot dragging on South Station expansion the service goals are being gradually, artfully, and deliberately divorced from that key dependency...is this commitment any longer bound at all to running a much-increased schedule than what there is now?). Pressure and time, pressure and time...


Hey, everybody's lamenting now how the U.S. Supreme Court doesn't even pretend it isn't shilling for the same narrow interests the money that buys elected officials does. Well, that mentality doesn't exist in a vacuum...it bleeds all the way to the bottom of the judicial system at state and local level too. If political interests don't have anything to fear on the enforcement side of the law, it matters little what the letter of the law is.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Oh, they are...at full force, too. They've threatened a lawsuit over the state's jurisdiction to remove Red-Blue from the list, and have provided crucial backing to STEP on GLX. But they have limited resources, and the state's been acting with impunity to ignore so many of these commitments that they're outgunned pretty much everywhere they don't have the toothiness of a STEP to partner with. So they've had to retreat to trying to preserve scraps, pick the winnable battles, and bitterly concede on stuff like Arborway where continuing to fight long odds there might've jeopardized a GLX via divide-and-conquer.

Ultimately they can only go as far as the Courts will enforce. And the state has absolutely nothing to fear there because it can simply drag out and abuse the substitution provisions in the original agreement to water everything down to the point where umpteen amendments and trade-ins later the projects functionally vanish and the regions they were initially targeting have no improvements at all (or worse than none, in the case of JP now having to breathe in bus garage fumes). Erosion through pressure and time, reaffirmed by precedent with each diluting amendment or negotiating extension. The commitments may have been worded "toothy" by 1990 standards but the courts are more top-to-bottom compromised by political interests and protection of political elites than they were 20 years ago. So the CLF gets sacked for a loss every time they they have to pester or cut another interim deal, by virtue of having to chase a deal. Regressive compromise became its own self-sustaining inertia. And, really, there's nothing the CLF can now do about it except shorten its bench and salvage the winnable ones like GLX.

The tide turned against them a long time ago when prior legal actions failed to reaffirm the "toothiness" of the original agreement. "We're broke" shouldn't even be a valid excuse when they signed a binding agreement to build regardless of present finances, but it's now not only framing the entire conversation on the state's terms but also framing it such that the Arborway surrender is the expected starting point for the CLF in negotiations. GLX was being set up to wilt that way too, but Somerville had some legal nukes of its own it was deadly serious about deploying plus a good political protection racket of its own. That's the only reason why that one is seemingly (we hope) going to have a happy ending. But look at the other stuff that is under active construction...we still don't know how many parking spots are going to be lopped further off the incredible shrinking-size/exploding-cost Salem and Beverly garages, and the service plan side of Fairmount has been watered down to so much uncertainty we STILL have no bloody clue what the actual schedules will be at those shiny new stops or what the metrics for successful completion now are (it's no longer DMU's or 20 minute headways, and with the foot dragging on South Station expansion the service goals are being gradually, artfully, and deliberately divorced from that key dependency...is this commitment any longer bound at all to running a much-increased schedule than what there is now?). Pressure and time, pressure and time...


Hey, everybody's lamenting now how the U.S. Supreme Court doesn't even pretend it isn't shilling for the same narrow interests the money that buys elected officials does. Well, that mentality doesn't exist in a vacuum...it bleeds all the way to the bottom of the judicial system at state and local level too. If political interests don't have anything to fear on the enforcement side of the law, it matters little what the letter of the law is.
Click to expand...

F-Line it is really a lot more simple

The folks behind the CLF are the folks who elected and re-elected the current administration on Beacon Hill -- they will not act as long as it can be fodder for the next campaign - -soon to begin sotto voce

So the CLF bites its tongue and "keeps its powder dry" waiting for the next administration that they can sue with impunity

Meanwhile, after its own Solyndria (aka Evergreen Solar) the current administration is cautious with spending keeping the budget from growing much -- so the GLX, Red/Blue, Blue to Lynn and South Coast are all in the holding pattern. The only projects moving forward are those with $ already committed from outside (e.g. the Feds) such as the Commuter Rail stations on the Fitchburg or a privately funded in part such as Wonderland or Assembly Sq.

I'm beginning to wonder whether even the Gov't Center bunker rebuild will get underway in this decade
 
whighlander said:
The folks behind the CLF are the folks who elected and re-elected the current administration on Beacon Hill
Click to expand...

Wow! It's amazing that it only took the handful of people who work at CLF to elect an entire administration.
 
underground said:
Wow! It's amazing that it only took the handful of people who work at CLF to elect an entire administration.
Click to expand...

Meh...just resist the urge. Those are this week's thread-derail talking points. And if 3 pages from now we're 50 miles away from the what we were talking about it'll have worked just as well as last week's threadjack-a-thon.

I think the board's well-versed at this point on when whighlander is making a coherent point worth responding to and when he's bleating nonlinear whighlanderisms for shits and giggles. It's not worth getting bothered over.
 
Re: Banks petition

Sign the petition telling the big banks to return money to authorities like the MBTA.... The MBTA lost of a BOAT LOAD of money on Wall Street. Again it leads back to the fat-cats.

http://www.refundtransit.org/

I don't know why the Commonwealth put all that money on Wall Street....
I hope Congress gets its act together and clamps down on those banks.

----
MBTA needs better terms on interest swaps
EDITORIAL | EDITORIAL
THIS STORY APPEARED INJune 25, 2012
http://articles.boston.com/2012-06-25/editorials/32392020_1_transit-agency-interest-rates-swaps
 
What is most missing from the MBTA is having beneficiaries pay for services.

The major beneficiaries of the GLX replacing existing bus service are developers, land owners, and speculators. The losers are taxpayers and the poor who will get priced out as areas gentrify. Take the sound barriers out and make stations as simple as most Green Line and Commuter Rail stations. The whole project is a huge fleecing of taxpayers for bogus EPA claims. Why doesn't the EPA get on MassDOT and especially Cambridge and Somerville for allowing congested intersections below LOS C instead?

Second, I would change city and town assessments to be by service instead of population. Subway service should be the most expensive in terms of benefits and all the costs going to MBTA. Buses benefit riders and local economies less, and use town roads instead of MBTA rail ROW, hence should cost less to communities. Commuter rail already costs its users more proportionally to service than bus and subway, so city/town burden should be modest. Brookline and especially Cambridge get off too cheaply for all the transportation service they get from the MBTA.

Charging non-users is is simply unfair, starting with the 1% state-wide sales tax. Charging motorists and using safety inspection fees is equally unfair. Subway stations motivate economic development so those beneficiaries should be contributing to the MBTA one way or another, not motorists state wide. There are many cities and towns with little service from MBTA and paying too much. If cities paid for each bus stop, they would work with the MBTA to eliminate under used ones instead of fighting MBTA. Likewise, when MBTA reduces service, and trip counts, their income drops. They are motivated to raise service. When a bus stop is for the benefit of one facility, let them pay for it. If others want to pay for service, the system can expand and riders win.
 
He's the litigious crank from Arlington that loves 1950s transportation planning and wants all public transit, bikes, sidewalks, to be obliterated in favor of the glorious automobile.
 
The major beneficiaries of the GLX replacing existing bus service are
Click to expand...

people who live in Union Square, Inman Square, Gilman Square, Magoun Square, Ball Square, and other neighborhoods within 1/2 mile of the new stations. Given Somerville's density, that's a lot of people.
 
Lurker said:
He's the litigious crank from Arlington that loves 1950s transportation planning and wants all public transit, bikes, sidewalks, to be obliterated in favor of the glorious automobile.
Click to expand...

Oh. That's nice. Kahta has an friend now.
 
Nice to see that you lack rational responses and have to resort to personal attacks. Incurring a huge capitol debt with GLX to expand operational losses defies reason.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top