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Only you can prevent subway fires
By adamg on Mon, 02/28/2011 - 9:01am
State transportation officials and the Boston Fire Department are launching a campaign to reduce MBTA track fires by convincing people to stop throwing things on subway tracks. This is in addition to the existing PA announcements by BFD Commissioner Roderick Fraser.
The T says it now sees 10 to 15 trash-related fires a year, some of which require station evacuations in addition to shutdowns of entire subway lines.
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Comments
Today's T Fire Rating is...
...Hazardous.
Maybe we could have Singey the Rat who comes up onto the platform after someone tosses a wrapper or a Metro and tells them to shove it.
flame broiled
The first thought that flashes in mind when I glance at this poster is "Burger King".
Now I'm hungry. MBTA ruins my morning again!!!!
And how many of these fires
could have been prevented if the T would just bother to put enough trash cans on the subway platforms in consipcious places so people would use them?
Sadly, these "don't cause a track fire" announcements and posters are just another example of the T's "customer service" approach that doesn't properly fix the issue.
yes
Think of it as customer indentured service. Now if they would just let us conduct the trains...
However...
Happily, these "don't cause a track fire" announcements and posters cost close to nothing and are just another example of the T's "fiscal efficiency" approach that if it fixes even one out of every 10-15 incidents was worth the nearly zero dollars spent on it.
Right. Because we all know
it's more "fiscally efficient" to spend money on programs like the totally ineffective security theater than it is to spend a few hundred dollars on plastic trash cans (like the ones they had in most of the stations pre-9/11).
Perhaps they could take some of that money they saved from going to one-person operation on the Orange Line (which BTW management still hasn't acknowledged to the press or the public is actually taking place) to buy a few trash cans for the benefit of the people who pay the fares that fund running the system. Oh wait, those employees who were 'secondmen' on the trains are now working as 'flashlight men' in the stations instead - another "fiscally efficient" program.
Oh wait, the passengers will be glad to stuff the trash into their pockets until they can find a place to dispose of it. Silly me.
Don't knock your own strawmen down
I didn't say that the bag checks and other "security theater" that they do is more fiscally efficient than other options. Don't put words in my mouth.
GM Davey has made a pretty smart and clear effort to do things that return the greatest bang for the buck when it comes to trying to alter/nudge customer behavior. Releasing the bus/train data didn't come cost-free, but it was small potatoes compared to the cost of actually getting the schedules perfected. It doesn't cost them much time or money to inform the public better about what's going on at the T...but it fosters a certain level of acceptance when it comes to what they can and can't do as a public service with the funding and other constraints they find themselves in.
Look at the signage that they put up around Park St. to explain the improvements going into the elevators that's disrupting a number of the platforms currently. It took them a little time and effort to generate the information and put it in a digestible format, but the end result is that you can quickly realize the benefit of the work being done and accept that it's going to disrupt the platforms for a while. That's a far sight better than Kenmore, Copley, or Arlington where walls went up, entrances opened and closed seemingly randomly, and nobody could understand why it took years to complete (still unfinished in places).
Same thing here. They can't/won't (depending on your view of it) put in more trash cans just yet. But they can and did put it out there that these fires aren't totally random and that a small behavior change could make a huge difference to everyone's service (and really, we should expect people not to just throw trash on the floor no matter where else they have to put it until they can find a receptacle).
All good points Kaz.
However, in this case, I don't think it's a very realistic policy to tell people to change their behavior (in this case, throwing newspapers and trash into the subway pit) without providing them the means to help them change their behavior (placing trash cans on the platforms).
And I agree with you that the temporary signing at Park Street is really good (not sure the "Charlie workman" logo was necessary, but that's just me). Of course, given that that same entrance was recently blocked off for several months while they put the present stairway in, it would have made far more sense from both a customer service perspective and a fiscally efficient standpoint to have installed the new elevator at the same time as the stairway was being replaced.
True, that'd help
It's sort of a pitiful state of affairs we're in if it's unrealistic to expect people to hold onto their trash if they're reminded of the problems it could cause and there's no trash can around. I'm optimistic it will at least keep the people who thought "who cares if I just leave it on the bench" or "not my problem where it ends up" from leaving their trash around as easily. Sure, there's always going to be the dicks that will use the floor and tracks like their own personal trash can...but then again, I'm not sure those assholes would be bothered to use a receptacle even if they had to walk around it to get to the tracks.
We could always go the DC route and just ban food and drink from the stations and trains to hopefully reduce the amount of walkin'-around trash in people's hands.
I'm pretty sure the one
I'm pretty sure the one person operation on the Orange Line was mentioned in the Globe or Herald at some point as having been implemented. I don't think it has been any kind of secret. Most people just don't notice or care. The people with the flashlights on the platform has also been greatly reducd since last summer when it was first implemented. I don't think they laid anybody off, the savings has come gradually through attrition as people retire and fewer new people are hired. The flashlight jobs were probably temporary filler assignments as the work force gradually shrunk.
It has also been mentioned in recent articles about MBTA budget issues that the Red Line will be going to one-person next.
So, if it's not a secret, then why hasn't there
ever been any offical acknowledgement of the practice on the T's own web site since it was first adopted. If all the positive attributes of one person operation the T claims exist are really true, don't you think that management would want to publicize this latest "success story"?
And if the gradual reduction in force you claim is happening, which supports the current management's desire to be "fiscally efficient", then why hasn't the T acknowledged in public that this is happening as well?
I don't see any information
I don't see any information about any labor practices on the MBTA's web site, why would they start now? As noted in another story here, the MBTA GM is Tweeting that the Red Line is next. Where is the secret?
Here is a link to a news story which mentions the Orange Line is already one-person operation and they want to do the Red Line next.
http://www.dotnews.com/2011/t-boss-focuses-126m-bu...
So this means that we're
So this means that we're finally and officially past all the terrorist hysteria and can finally have nice things (e.g. trash cans) again? Thank God for the small things.
Why couldn't the T just pick
Why couldn't the T just pick up the track trash more often? Cities are "trashy"; there are thousands of places selling take-out and even more selling snacks; and there is alot of paper (like the Metro) you don't need to even pay for. I'm not defending litter, only being practical.
Third rail
They have to de-energize the third rail in order to clean out the trash on the track. They could possibly do it after-hours, assuming that no maintenance vehicles need to use the track, but I don't know how much it would cost to arrange a bunch of cleaning crews to work at 3-5am.
If this works
let's put up signs 'asking' people to keep to their right, use turn signals, not speak louder on cell phones than they would to a person alongside them and other common courtesies that one would expect in a civilized urban life.
...And get a new mayor for Dorchester.
Clean Tracks
Get the prisoners or community service people to walk the tracks with "idiot sticks" to pick up trash. I see them wasting their time doing 15 minutes of work on the side of the road.