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T parking rates going up
By adamg on Fri, 10/10/2008 - 9:14pm
By $2 a day as the MBTA tries to reconcile its budget.
Don Martelli tells the T what it can do with its increase:
... Thanks. I appreciate you bending me over the barrel once again and taking another few hundred bucks out of my wallet per year because there is really no other option. ...
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Comments
Just as I decide I wanted to
Just as I decide I wanted to try taking the train into work again, BAM they do this. Believe it or not 95 percent of the time its more economical for me to drive into work then to park in their lots and take the T in. I might as well take 15 minutes less to get there and have my pruvate box then to be cramed like a sardine for 15 minutes longer while paying a dollar more a day to get there.
Profit Center or Paying The Freight?
What does it cost to provide these spaces? Are they subsidized at $2 a day per space, or does the T just see this as a profit center given the recent increase in demand?
If they are simply reducing a subsidy, I think they should frame it that way.
Waaaaaaaah!
His argument makes perfect sense because, of course, the T is immune to the inflation everyone else experiences. But hey, if he wants to think parking costs went up to take advantage of *him*, I'm content to let him wallow in his victimhood. I only hope the conductors and drivers start wearing pink Red Sox hats too, to really personalize his oppression.
I love it when people grow a set and want to chest pump online
dot.lane,
So you remember my pink hat hatred? Nice. You know what's great about blogging? It provides an opportunity for anyone to provide their opinion on a wide variety of topics. It also allows people to grow a set of &$^@. As is this case with your comment. That's ok though. Any time you want to chime in with an original thought or provide constructive criticism on this topic like, "the mbta has been mismanaged for years and needs the $2 increase because they are losing their shirt. I know it stinks, but it's reality" then do so.
Point is, I understand why the MBTA is going to jack up the parking costs. It's business and they have the market cornered. My beef with this is the fact that there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. The MBTA could raise riding costs tomorrow to $5 a trip and we (as in commuters) would take it up the you know what because there are no other choices. Maybe driving in will be the cheaper alternative someday. But what's to say that parking garages in Boston won't jack up their prices because of the market opportunity. I realize that's how this works. That's inflation, as you say.
Consumers are getting squeezed, squeezed more and then squeezed some more. It's not just the MBTA. It's everything. Look at electricity rates. We have paid more in MA than the most of the country - by about 40%. The steady increases in cost of living in MA have zoomed past what the working class folks have earned in salary increases and COL adjustments. THAT'S my point. So I'm not bitching about inflation as much as I am how much it costs to live, work and raise and family in this state.
You don't understand *anything*
Point is, I understand why the MBTA is going to jack up the parking costs. It's business and they have the market cornered. My beef with this is the fact that there is absolutely nothing we can do about it.
What are you talking about? They are raising parking rates because they need to raise the money necessary to pay employees for back wages (as in the employee already did the work but they haven't been paid for it yet!). This isn't a profit play, the MBTA is in a huge DEBT right now. They won't be showing a profit for a long time, so this isn't the ploy of some sort of public transit monopoly. It's the taxation of commuters who use a resource and haven't paid a reasonable compensation for being able to get to it by car in over 5 years. Parking lots aren't free. There's maintenance, plowing, security, staffing...but it's been the same price for years now.
The choice here is to pay more for parking at the MBTA or not even have an MBTA and pay way more than $2/day in gas to sit in traffic as you jam the streets trying to get somewhere deep in the city to park (at a cost) instead.
What happened to $3????
Going from $2 to $4 is huge, what happened to $3?
Dan G says:
"Half a decade is certainly a long time between increases," he said.
Trying to make it seem longer than it is, Dan chooses the "half a decade" phrase.
it's called "negotiation"
could be that they're asking for $4 and hoping for $3. ask for the moon, then negotiate down.
As far as Don's complaints go...
Well, before I start, the first thing seems to be that the boston.com news link is broken...
Anyhow... I'm sympathetic to the plight of Don and other commuters who drive to the T. However, I think some of his statements are, in my humble opinion, not quite accurate... the MBTA is plagued by a tremendous amount of debt, and that's probably why they jacked up the price of parking. The T is hardly "more unpredictable than the weather", it is not perfect but it is reasonably reliable the vast majority of the time. It is not really "littered with trash", it's pretty clean as far as I can tell. The T is one of the safest public transit systems in the country; as the MBTA says: when you ride the T, you're never alone. As far as groping goes, the Transit Police have actually spent a significant amount of effort in combating this issue, and I think they should be lauded for taking it so seriously. And I've always been able to easily get help from a friendly human CSA whenever I've needed such help.
New link
Boston.com changed the URL of the original story. Read it here.
-Ms. Cynical
Thanks
for the new link.
De nada
You are welcome. :-)
-Ms. Cynical