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

Saw gas down at $1.999 along Rt 1 near Foxboro on Saturday. Prices are low right now.
 
whighlander said:
AL Prime -- where?
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Checking gasbuddy.com with your listed location of Lexington, it does seem your town (assuming you still live there) is on the more expensive side. The nearest cheap one I can find is Speedway that in along Mass Ave in Cambridge.
 
whighlander said:
Ant -- not the right example -- MBCR and any equivalent are not competing except once in a decade for the right to operate the CR for the T

I'm talking about either:
  • T puts some of the bus maintenance -- perhaps starting with the Ride out to bid for a year
  • T could put some bus operations out to bid with a private contractor -- again for a period of 1 year

These are small enough contracts that there might be more than 2 bidders -- and then we can see how things progress
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Well, ignoring the argument that I can point out that you didn't say that before - I can see the piecemeal approach could work de facto-ly in saving some cost. It can't scale because if you break it up to a ton of small ones so various operations can bid and it take it, the overhead will become massive. But I can see if you let a private group handle a smaller piece, it could work in practice. Theoretically it shouldn't, as theoretically the existing maintenance group should be able to assume the exact same practices and cut out the middle man taking in the cost to operate plus an amount to profit. But things rarely works to theory.

I do want to point out politics would likely get in the way of this as if it succeeds, someone gonna have the bright idea of expanding the thing to the whole operation... and thus leading to MBCR in the end.
 
whighlander said:
Jeff -- do you understand the word Aggregate -- & No I'm not talking about broken rock

And its Masters-level work we are talking about -- kinda 5th year

There are literally hundreds of bus operators -- Somehow and Someway -- they seem to get their buses serviced without the massive overhead, union waste-rules and burearucrapcy of the T

The new era which we are entering is the era of Uber versus the entrenched Taxi cartel, etc.

Buses are an area ripe for review and innovation -- the T has no monopoly on the technology, the infrastructure or the operations for buses -- rather than replicating what always worked at such and such a garage back in the days of the MTA -- the T is going to have to learn to take advantage of the modern world or it will one day just seize-up and stop
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Ok, but buses are not exactly created equal. Just because it is called a bus does not mean the entity know's anything about city buses (a few do -- granted).

An operator who maintains a long-haul coach fleet does not necessarily have the skills or facilities to maintain city buses.

I do not believe that there are any local private operators with 65 ft. articulated coaches (I could be wrong). The must come with special maintenance requirements.

I know there are no local private operators with dual mode 65 ft. articulated coaches.

Who else beside Massport runs CNG buses in the area?

Lots of specialized knowledge here. Also lots of capacity that does not exist that is needed. If you try to go with the outsource model, you also have to transfer the skills and capacity (people, maintenance facilities) -- or pay to have them created all over again. Which is why you would end up with something that looks like the MBCR.
 
I forgot in the other point to look at the other thing mentioned - "The Ride". I bet a huge part of the backlog and costs - and the part is unlikely to be outsource as no one would want to take it because I think that how private organizations don't have this problem - is the costs of maintenance with The Ride Fleet. Buses are expensive, but a bunch of small vans racing tons of miles for a few individuals at a time, has to be expensive. I speculate the backlog would look far less bad if The Ride was separate in this calculation.
 
ant8904 said:
I forgot in the other point to look at the other thing mentioned - "The Ride". I bet a huge part of the backlog and costs - and the part is unlikely to be outsource as no one would want to take it because I think that how private organizations don't have this problem - is the costs of maintenance with The Ride Fleet. Buses are expensive, but a bunch of small vans racing tons of miles for a few individuals at a time, has to be expensive. I speculate the backlog would look far less bad if The Ride was separate in this calculation.
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The other big part of the backlog is the fact that the T shifted billions in maintenance $ over the past 20 years over to station reconfiguration, to deal with the other side of the ADA UNFUNDED mandate. (And I am not suggesting that the station reconfiguration was not needed, or was done cost effectively; but it was unfunded work that took away from other maintenance priorities).

Unfunded mandates kill lots of public agency budgets.
 
JeffDowntown said:
...Unfunded mandates kill lots of public agency budgets.
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Lots of budgets in general!

The Ride is a noble entity. But we shouldn't saddle a public transportation agency with a public health entity and say, "pay for and deal with it." Especially not a public transportation entity that can't afford to provide basic, reliable public transportation for even the least subsidized trips!

If we want the T to operate The Ride, fine. If we want the T to maintain and store the fleet, fine. But, if it's deemed as a public health necessity and is the T's biggest money loser, it should be funded separately. This has two ways to view it:
  • It would enable The Ride to continue to operate even though our public transportation agency is financially insolvent.
  • It would enable The T rid itself of a massive money-loser that isn't really about "public" transportation (not for the general public) as it is about providing transportation services to the disabled and elderly.

Whether your desire to fund The Ride separately comes from protection of The Ride, or protection of the T, it hits on both points.

As is, there is a limited budget that is being fought over. It has to be divvied up between: the general public at a lower subsidy per passenger, or the disabled/elderly at a higher subsidy per passenger. This is an unfair dichotomy for everyone. If we believe the Ride should be funded as a public health entity, fund it as a public health entity. Why saddle our most financially insolvent organization with the duty of funding a public health entity?
 
I don't know the exact details of funding the Ride in the MBTA, but for WRTA, the Ride takes 1/4 of the budget while serving <5% of total trips.

If the MBTA is similar, that's a large amount of resources being 'inefficiently' used.
 
whighlander said:
AL Prime -- where?
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Medford, naturally (now down to $2.09) but AL Prime is low wherever one goes ($2.13 on Rt 60 in Revere)

Point is, the Saudis, like any good pusher of any addictive product, have offered targeted discounts to the US market to ensure that (1) we don't develop new domestic sources and (2) we don't switch to hybrids, electrics, or transit.

The smart thing for the government to do would be to capture just enough of the Saudi's money that (1) they'll keep it coming and (2) it actually will enable us to build out alternatives like hybrids, electrics and transit.

It has never been a good idea to let the Saudis--or any supplier-- dictate our transportation policy.
 
ant8904 said:
You really need to pull back your rhetoric style. A simple line would "If MA was able cancel the Southwest Expressway, then MA can find a way to cancel other projects already started". Telling to go google with rambling quote is just condescending and dick-y.



Not sure if you are making another snarky quip implying you are contesting the claim gas is more expensive or genuinely asking. From the previous posts, you have to realize it sounds like the former. But I'm going to keep civility and treat it like the later. Current average price has decline to $2.14 a gallon. That would mean many places has went lower than that. One place I know is Cumberland Farms - including one in Somerville going $2.11 last week and can be $2.01 if you pay through their membership card.
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Off-topic, but I pay $2.07 in Somerville...
 
Scalziand said:
I don't know the exact details of funding the Ride in the MBTA, but for WRTA, the Ride takes 1/4 of the budget while serving <5% of total trips.

If the MBTA is similar, that's a large amount of resources being 'inefficiently' used.
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It is a similar (but not as drastic) inefficient portion of the budget.
 
I did the research: The MBTA spends 7.5% of its budget on 0.5% of its trips (The Ride).

I also have another agency that the MBTA is paying for, but shouldn't:

Transit Police. It should/could easily be part of the State Police Department.

EDIT: Interestingly enough, the MBTA spends over $100M on The Ride, close to the amount of its operating deficit.
 
bigeman312 said:
I did the research: The MBTA spends 7.5% of its budget on 0.5% of its trips (The Ride).

I also have another agency that the MBTA is paying for, but shouldn't:

Transit Police. It should/could easily be part of the State Police Department.

EDIT: Interestingly enough, the MBTA spends over $100M on The Ride, close to the amount of its operating deficit.
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Transit Police is more complicated than that. Most large transit agencies have a police department, and most large private railroads have a police department (yes, even CSX and Pan Am have guys with badges and guns who can legally arrest you). State Police don't have the training to safely patrol some of the more dangerous transit infrastructure. Different story on a bus-only system, but if a suspect makes a getaway down the Red Line tunnel to slip out at one of the emergency exits you need the officers who have the training on doing a footchase on crossties 2 feet from a live third rail and has recall of every hiding place. Or know the layout of a yard when they're hopping between tracks doing a routine security pass around the sprawling South Station terminal district. An in-house PD just becomes a more necessary practicality the bigger the scale of the system. Most definitely if you have an established PD it's not wise to consider abolishing it or slashing it too far back, because State and Local PD's just don't end up filling the void because of the onerous safety training. NYC Subway has not fared well at all during past budget swings when they've let the MTA PD ranks atrophy with retirements in an attempt to save money. The T is a very, very safe system compared to NYC, Chicago, Philly, SF, etc. and any troubling upticks in crime tend to get stamped out pronto. It's one of the good things we've got going for us, so there should be great reluctance to mess with that.

Now, if they are too bloated in ranks (and we'd need to see some hard figures and comparisons with other systems to determine) there may be some shaving they can do on the bus side. But I really don't think you're talking more than pocket change because most bus depots and routes are spot patrols and any bus locations large enough to require semi-constant Transit Police tend to be at conjoined rapid transit stations.


The Ride...yes, that one I think has no business being entirely under their purview. It's too large a paratransit district to cover in-house, and there are enough private and municipal carriers providing same or similar general service that an outsource program subscribed to a common fare structure and interoperability clauses if one carrier has to cross districts to drop off a passenger would help a lot on the efficiency front. Paratransit is a very common loss leader for transit agencies; the T is hardly an outlier in being saddled with it. They tend to be legacy operations absorbed from similar private carriers as when the public agency cobbled together its bus district from formerly private carriers, and then the ADA's passage cemented it in place. But after 25 years of the ADA enough private paratransit service has infilled the auxiliary demand that the same circumstances that led the transit agencies to take on the task in the first place from lack of other options...no longer exist. Especially in an urban core, and especially where a whole ecosystem of private shuttle and personal transit operators have sprung up around the universities and medical centers.

That one just needs to have lawmakers craft up some legislation setting up a common fare program and creating the licensing rules and standards for Ride-spec service divvied up across the district...with no loss of cross-district mobility. It's not hard to do, but it's action only the Legislature can initiate. And, you know, "Reform Before Revenue" hasn't exactly gotten any show of hands in either chamber of volunteers willing to take the first crack at crafting a reform...any reform.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
The Ride...yes, that one I think has no business being entirely under their purview. It's too large a paratransit district to cover in-house, and there are enough private and municipal carriers providing same or similar general service that an outsource program subscribed to a common fare structure and interoperability clauses if one carrier has to cross districts to drop off a passenger would help a lot on the efficiency front. Paratransit is a very common loss leader for transit agencies; the T is hardly an outlier in being saddled with it. They tend to be legacy operations absorbed from similar private carriers as when the public agency cobbled together its bus district from formerly private carriers, and then the ADA's passage cemented it in place. But after 25 years of the ADA enough private paratransit service has infilled the auxiliary demand that the same circumstances that led the transit agencies to take on the task in the first place from lack of other options...no longer exist. Especially in an urban core, and especially where a whole ecosystem of private shuttle and personal transit operators have sprung up around the universities and medical centers.

That one just needs to have lawmakers craft up some legislation setting up a common fare program and creating the licensing rules and standards for Ride-spec service divvied up across the district...with no loss of cross-district mobility. It's not hard to do, but it's action only the Legislature can initiate. And, you know, "Reform Before Revenue" hasn't exactly gotten any show of hands in either chamber of volunteers willing to take the first crack at crafting a reform...any reform.
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Re: the ride.

I ask this half serious, and looking for opinions on this, as i don't know what demographics make up the ride in terms of ada, but why doesn't the state just give eligible riders unlimited uber/lyft credits?
 
palindrome said:
Re: the ride.

I ask this half serious, and looking for opinions on this, as i don't know what demographics make up the ride in terms of ada, but why doesn't the state just give eligible riders unlimited uber/lyft credits?
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What percentage of Uber/Lyft vehicles are wheelchair-accessible? What percentage of Uber/Lyft drivers are trained to assist handicapped patrons? Or be trusted/reliable enough to not incur liability costs that keep dinging the state's coffers for a loss?

Completely unsuitable to task. It has to be a qualified paratransit operator licensed to do that job with vehicles officially licensed to do that job. But we're living in a city where there's no shortage of those in the private sector to tap for covering the Ride's district. It's mainly just bureaucratic busywork to set up the interoperability so transition from the Ride is seamless, getting the licensing process codified, and officially taking it off the T's plate to whatever regulatory body is going to oversee the outsource. Takes Legislative action...especially the transferring it off T responsibility part. Someone has to file a bill, someone has to bring it out of committee, someone has to call a floor vote.
 
It might be worth noting, though, that NY MTA PD patrols LIRR and MNRR, but NYC Subway is patrolled by NYPD. Also, although there is a Metra PD that patrols Metra, the CTA is patrolled by CPD (plus the suburban PDs in the handful of suburbs that receive 'L' service). Also, LA Metro is patrolled by LASD. Not saying that's necessarily a model to follow, just that there are large urban transit systems that are not patrolled by transit police.

Given how many different municipalities are served by MBTA it would be very difficult to serve by local police. Perhaps setting up a State Police transit bureau/district (similar to how NYPD and CPD handle transit) would be an option. But, even then, I'd imagine it would be largely funded out of the transit budget.
 
I'm not really seeing how bureaucratic account transfers does anything to solve the problem. Taking MBTA Transit Police off the books will not free up funding for the MBTA, it will just transfer money to the State Police. It would lighten the books and maybe alleviate debt burden? It might be worthwhile for bureaucratic efficiency to have all state law-enforcement agencies under the same umbrella (enviro police too?) but it's not really a cost-cutting measure is it?
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
I'm not really seeing how bureaucratic account transfers does anything to solve the problem. Taking MBTA Transit Police off the books will not free up funding for the MBTA, it will just transfer money to the State Police. It would lighten the books and maybe alleviate debt burden? It might be worthwhile for bureaucratic efficiency to have all state law-enforcement agencies under the same umbrella (enviro police too?) but it's not really a cost-cutting measure is it?
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It cleans up the oversight and back-office in much the same way the reorganization of MassDOT put things on a path to a *little* more transparency by eliminating mundane administrative redundancies at the sub-agencies. But yeah...if you need transit-specialized security it's a purely lateral transaction that saves $0 off the T's budget because they'd be primary users. That might be something to consider once the MassDOT mothership consolidation hits its second decade and tightens the screws on some redundancies, but it's a 30th priority for troubleshooting the T's budget. And not a good idea to skimp on if we want to maintain Boston's rep for having a very crime-few transit system compared to its peers.


There's too many purely lateral moves like this that seem like busywork in the name of reform but really do nothing but shuffle paperwork in a circle. Certainly a full examination of the best way forward with The Ride is worth doing, but the list of potential admin consolidations and privatization possibilities gets very small indeed once you toss the treading-water substitues or the ones that have high probability of worsening the efficiency like mutating the commuter rail contractor setup to other modes.

No easy answers. Never were easy answers.
 
All the discussion of transfer of the Transit Police misses an important point. Transit Police are about the "lightest qualification" police force in the Commonwealth. Essentially none of the force are qualified to be Boston Municipal or State Troopers.
 
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