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Grabauskas: MBTA broke, but ridership will increase next year
By adamg on Wed, 01/09/2008 - 11:49pm
One Fitchburg Line commuter was apparently too tired to write to the top so he or she wrote to the side of train 429. As Tom Wheaton's photo shows, the MBCR's response was to paint over just part of the message, so it wasn't quite so offensive. Now THAT's service.
Grabauskas explains how the T will increase ridership in a BostonNow interview. Making trains and buses run on time is a big part of it, he says, which will no doubt come as welcome news to Renee Walsh, who is fuming mad at continued commuter-rail suckage, such as her train being 45 minutes late today. Alas, for Renee, a bunch of new commuter-rail cars won't be delivered until 2011.
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Comments
The Reality Distortion Field Set To 110%
How can ridership increase if at least 40% of Green Line riders board for free, and the new $25,000 gates let in people five at a time on a regular basis?
I'd argue the ridership "drop" in 2007 was simply fare evasion.
Hidden Message
SH! SH! SH! Shhhhh!
Remember: Passenger complaints are our #1 problem! Sh! already.
Good time to post this
Good time to post this seeing that as of 8:30AM, there are SEVEN commuter rail alerts.
Also keep in mind that the site considers the following delay to be only one alert:
"Commuter Rail Framingham/Worcester #500 (6:05am inbound) experiencing over 60-70 minute delay. #502 (6:06a inbound from Worcester) will tack on to #500 and push to Boston, resulting in 40-45 minute delay for #500. All other inbound trains will be delayed 35-45 minutes 1/10/2008 8:13 AM"
I was one of those 7!
My train started "smoking" (nasty habit, there should be more anti-smoking PSAs for trains) about 1000ft from South Station!
Read all about it here including photos from when we had to switch trains!
*sigh*
Gotta love that "preventive maintenance" the MBTA/MBCR does.
And the train that usually
And the train that usually arrives in South Station at 9:02 (okay, not usually, is supposed to arrive at 9:02) was more than 30 minutes late because we got stuck pushing the (empty?) train into the station. Good times!
long T-Alerts
Yes, and when that came to my cell phone (twice), all I could read was "Commuter Rail Framingham/Worcester #500 (6:05am inbound) experiencing over 60-70 minute delay. #502 (6:06a inbound from Worcester) will t". So I still didn't know what was going on.
I mentioned that problem
I mentioned that problem when I sent an e-mail to the T about the T-alerts. I had been invited to fill out a survey on the new alerts, but alas, the web address was cut off in the message.
Yeah, I did that same
Yeah, I did that same survey, but forgot to add that comment. I'm glad someone did!
We will see how much they
We will see how much they value customer feedback. I might drop down dead if they actually make this change!
But will they pay?
Will this increase in ridership be from *paying* customers? Last night after the Celtics game I watched dozens of people slip through the fare gates at North Station without paying. 20 feet away, a uniformed Transit Police officer stood watching. Did he take action? Of course not. He was too busy chatting with his buddy.
FIRE DAN GRABAUSKAUS NOW
The MBTA has to be the WORST run mass-transit system in the United States. Maybe the world? Where is the accountability? Where is Gov Patrick???
Govenror Patrick and the T? C'mon!
Last time the words "Governor Patrick" and
"transportation" were mentioned in a sentence
it was about Cadillacs, not commuter rails.
Oh, yeah. Helicopters too.
Thank you for your helpful
Thank you for your helpful and totally not ad-hoc comment!
Hey--guy was asking where the Guv was on this
I was just pointing out that in his first
year Deval Patrick seems to have given a whole
lot more thought to Cadillacs and helicopters
than the MBTA. Or did they start running
the Green line thru Somerville, and I just missed
that?
Really Bob?
You must not live in a community involved in the Green Line extension then.
Yes... Really.
I think he was being sarcastic...
Is it his fault?
The T is fucked up, and he seems to at least recognize that. Is he to blame for this problem, or is he simply trying to answer for years and years of mismanagement coupled with political meddling that preceded him? His situation reminds me of the frustrated parking commissioner played by Jason Alexander in The Paper, who breaks down and finally shouts at Randy Quaid, "I know the parking department is fucked up! It was fucked up when I got here!"
Fundamentally the 'T suffers from a lack of revenue source that is in anyway connected to meeting required committments. Grabauskas didn't come up with the idea of connecting funding to the sales tax, don't blame him for the huge mess that has created.
I have my gripes about the 'T, but for the most part, it does the job of getting people from outlying areas to the core. That's a pretty big mission. Yes, it would be wonderful if it did more. Where is the cross town service? Why doesn't the orange line go to Roslindale and West Roxbury? Etc. But if we ever want expansion, first we need to fix the way operations are funded, which means an annual appropriation in the state budget, not a portion of a completely unrelated revenue stream.
A fun quote from Dan Grabauskas
From the BostonNow article:
Higher pay grades?
Thanks to the Herald's handy state payroll database, one can quickly learn that:
Grabauskas earned $255,000 last year.
Gov. Patrick? $140,535.
Sal DiMasi? $90,570.
So who is he talking about?
Rider Protest
Last night on the 9.15 outbound Needham train, (which incidentally, was running 10 minutes late) a passenger refused to pay his fare, as a protest to the poor service Commuter Rail passengers have been receiving lately.
Once we reached Forest Hills, the conductor announced that we would be waiting there for seven minutes until a certain passenger paid his fare. Well, the passenger did agree to pay and we were moving again a few minutes later. Still, I was surprised at how this played out. Is this standard practice for MBCR—to hold trains when passengers protest by refusing to pay?
I wish I could pull that stunt on a bus
Sadly, you pay when you board - even if there have been as many as three no-show buses in a 45 minute period. This happens a lot at Sullivan Station and at Wellington as well, but I don't see a single column inch devoted to it.
The commuter rail is just the tip of the stupidberg - it just gets the most press. All services run crappy, but I take the commuter rail whenever I can because it is vastly better than the alternative if it is only 20 minutes late.
The worst commuter-rail line in Massachusetts
Sorry, Worcester Line riders. You have nothing on the poor suffering souls of the Fitchburg Line, at least, according to the MBTA itself. Tom Wheaton found some interesting documents related to the T's planned $150-million upgrade of the Fitchburg line, which is due to start this year and run through 2011 (see Report 1 and Report 2 for the details):
The project will include improvements at grade crossings, double tracking in sections where there's now just one track and better signalling, with an estimated time savings of 10 minutes, Fitchburg to Boston, but also more reliability for the entire line. Part of the project would also include installation of a high-speed fiber-optic system to bring better broadband services to towns along the route.
Fitchburg Line
Wasn't part of the plan to eliminate Belmont and Waverley stations, replacing them by a single station halfway in between?
This is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard for any transit line, and I hope the idea has been killed and buried.
...all this may be rendered moot if Amtrak strikes
According to the Herald, the Amtrak signal workers are mulling a strike, coming on January 30...
Boston Herald article
Riders in the city stations would fare somewhat better than the suburbanites, as Hyde Park, JP, West Roxbury, Roslindale and Readville already get heavy trunk service. Outside of the city...much more difficult, especially for Route 128 Station riders who would either have to drive to Quincy Adams or Braintree to catch the Red Line, or drive all the way into Forest Hills to catch the Orange Line. North of the city is even worse, although there is frequent bus service in Lynn and Salem.
Last night I took the 7:45 to Hyde Park - didn't leave until 8:15, because they couldn't find a bloody train! And that's usually the train that's on time the most!
Don't totally panic here ...
Totally Squared wrote: ...North of the city is even worse, although there is frequent bus service in Lynn and Salem ...
A friendly reminder to those reading this thread that MBCR, not Amtrak, dispatches the trains out of North Station. Therefore, should the Amtrak strike happens, North Side commuter rail service will not be affected.
Oops ..
I meant to say "Clearly Squared wrote" - sorry for the goof.