Trying to improve the T from the outside

By adamg on Thu, 10/25/2018 - 3:44pm

Politico profiles two of the main movers behind Transit Matters, which is trying to push the T into becoming a better service.

One Sunday night two years ago, Marc Ebuña and Ari Ofsevit stayed up past 1 a.m. to watch the city’s transit system grind to a pointless halt.

Sitting in their respective apartments, they were monitoring a website that tracks Boston’s rapid-transit trains in real time. “I live-tweeted the late-night ballet, the last-trains ballet,” Ebuña says. Except what they were seeing was more of a citywide muscle spasm than an elegant dance.

The author focuses on them because they're young and so fit the author's conclusion that T improvement is something only Millennials could think of. A third major person behind the group, Jim Aloisi, is dismissed as "the token Baby Boomer," even though he has a bit of transit experience himself - as former secretary of transportation for the entire state.

Topics:

The T

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Comments

PULLLEAZE!

By mg on Thu, 10/25/2018 - 4:33pm.

Over many decades, every one generation that has moved here from a metro area with a strong public transit system, from NYC to Chicago to SF, is struck by how much the T needs improvement. It's often younger people, but that's just because so many come here for college. I moved here in the late 70s and we were griping back then and never stopped.

But, but, but

By Waquiot on Thu, 10/25/2018 - 5:07pm.

Sometimes little changes could help, like the one Adam pulled out of the story. A subtle tweaking of the last trains could make things a lot better.

You've heard the rumors that they are going to restructure the bus lines majorly. The reasoning is that Dallas (or maybe it was Houston) created a brand new bus system from scratch that made the system work better, using less resources and somehow drawing more riders. I'm curious to see how this is going to play out in Boston. My gut feeling is that the buses will stay mostly the same, since most feed in to the hub and spoke system as opposed to the Texas crosstown system. In my neighborhood, I see the 51 being changed and maybe more consolidation of the 40 and 50, but that's about it.

Buses in Houston

By Ari O on Thu, 10/25/2018 - 7:43pm.

Are very different than buses in Boston. (i.e. never full)

So it's Houston then

By Waquiot on Thu, 10/25/2018 - 8:40pm.

Thankfully, there is no one to offend by confusing them (and yes, I know they are as different as Los Angeles and San Francisco.)

Yes. This is nothing new

By anon on Thu, 10/25/2018 - 5:21pm.

I've only been here a few months and know the T is terrible. It's always important to speak up. However if you have every day and every hour to speak up. Well. There's a problem there.

Need more regionalization

By mg on Thu, 10/25/2018 - 5:29pm.

The biggest problem is that our entire system is hub-and-spoke, built under the assumption that its purpose is to bring people in and out of what is considered the core of Boston. We desperately need a system that allows east-west and north-south travel across multiple vertical and horizontal axes.

NYC and Chicago, sure

By bgl on Thu, 10/25/2018 - 5:54pm.

But SF's transit is pretty shitty, too. Also on that note - its not just transplants who have moved here who know the T sucks - us native Bostonians have been well aware of it for our entire lives.

I know natives also know it

By mg on Thu, 10/25/2018 - 6:06pm.

But we transplants know how much better it can be from personal experience.

Sure

By bgl on Thu, 10/25/2018 - 6:09pm.

Cause, us backwards natives never go to NYC or anywhere else. Also on that note - the MTA is pretty screwed nowadays, too.

As a transplant...

By fungwah on Thu, 10/25/2018 - 9:04pm.

I know it could be a whole lot worse. 90% of the country has nothing anywhere close to Boston for public transportation.

Plans for Improvements we have

By tedpk on Thu, 10/25/2018 - 6:03pm.

Don't be so egocentric, narcissistic, sumg and miso-T-nistic

The various and sundry historical entities running what is today's T have always had Big Plans for improvements -- didn't always work out as planned.

After all, outside of London and Budapest almost all innovations in public transit started here --
in Boston [

Tremont St. the oldest subway tunnel in North America and the third oldest worldwide to exclusively use electric traction (after the City and South London Railway in 1890, and the Budapest Metro's Line 1 in 1896), opening on September 1, 1897

]. .

We had electrified trains [West End Street Railway electrified in 1889]*1 while all of your aforementioned cities still had horse drawn trolleys on the streets or coal fired stinking trains suspended in the air.

We had a dedicated line providing a one-eat ride along Atlantic Ave from North to South Stations -- built just in time for the Great Molasses Flood

We had plans for lines running out to a nascent Rt-128 in the 1940's and again in the 1960's when Today's T was finally organized.

But as we all know sometimes the plans don't quite pan-out

1* Power System of Boston's Rapid Transit, 1889
IEEE Boston Section,
Dedication: 10 November 2004
https://ethw.org/Milestones:Power_System_of_Boston's_Rapid_Transit,_1889

Boston was the first city to build electric traction for a large-scale rapid transit system. The engineering challenge to design and construct safe, economically viable, and reliable electric power for Boston's rapid transit was met by the West End Street Railway Company, beginning in 1889. The company's pioneering efforts provided an important impetus to the adoption of mass transit systems nationwide.

The plaque may be viewed by the side of the door (left hand as you are facing it) of the northernmost of the two Park Street T stations at Park and Tremont Streets, 42.356478,-71.062507

2* In a few cases we even had not just plans but operational stuff such as the largest power plant in the world to power the various far flung trolly lines

Built from 1889 to 1891, the Central Power Station (CPS) was a huge engineering success. It was built by the street railway company to provide direct current electricity for the growing streetcar system in Boston. Located in downtown Boston, on Harrison Avenue and Albany Street, CPS was the largest electrical power station in the world at that time. …. At the time it was built, the 250 foot high stack was the tallest structure in Boston, taller than the Bunker Hill monument…..https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Elevated_Railway#/media/File:Centra...

By 1904, the system had 36 megawatts of generating capacity, 421 miles (678 km) of track serving a population of over 1,000,000 residents covering an area of almost 100 square miles. The cost to ride the “T” was 5 cents, and allowed free transfers to different lines with over 1550 street cars and some specialized elevated cars.

been one of those days

Oy, thanks

By adamg on Thu, 10/25/2018 - 8:22pm.

Fixed.