MBTA GM Beverly Scott in T control center this morning. Photo by MBTA.
It's shuttle buses instead of trains between Braintree and JFK and those buses are going nowhere fast because they're on the same roads everybody else is using. Of course, first you have to get on a shuttle - Riley Foster shows us the line at Wollaston around 7:45:
The Orange Line is running just one train on only one track between Oak Grove and Wellington. Thomas photographred the platform at Wellington around 7:30:
There's a switch problem on the Blue Line.
Green Line service is allegedly normal.
Commuter rail? Ice, other trains, the usual slowing things down.
A 7 bus died at E. 4 and N, blocking traffic and other buses.
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Comments
Best T synopsis
By anon
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 7:46am
"We’ve had a perfect storm for decades, decades of serious disinvestment," the T’s chief said. "And every nondecision ultimately is a decision, figuring out through the years how to make it all work without having the investment — how to rob Peter to pay Paul." — source
That is probably the best and most succinct quote I've seen to describe the current T woes so far.
The sad thing is
By jaypee
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 8:03am
..Baker is probably itching to fire her so he can replace her with one of his golfing buddies. And he probably will, because she's exactly the person we need running the T. Someone with enough of a spine to stand up to people like Baker, one of the architects of the current funding debacle.
Can you explain how she is exactly the person we need?
By Nancy
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 8:54am
You say
Why? How has she stood up to Baker so far? By not communicating with him for three weeks?
Yes
By anon²
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 9:19am
The buck stops two rungs below the Guv'nah.
She hasn't seemed to have a problem coordinating with Marty Walsh, so the question is why is Bakers administration MIA?
Works well with Marty
By ChrisInEastie
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 9:16am
Isn't the best bullet point to put on your resume these days.
Sure it is, it'll get you a
By anon
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 10:11am
Sure it is, it'll get you a job with Boston 2024 ;)
The General Manager reports
By anon
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 11:05am
The General Manager reports to the Sec. of Transportation, who reports to the Gov.
Two Way Street
By cybah
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 9:33am
it's a two way street too. However, BAKER is to blame on this. He's at the top, so its his responsibility to talk to his staff.
And sorry, I don't by this "well she doesn't report to me" bullshit he's spewing. Yes she reports to the the T board, but we're all under the same umbrella.
When my CEO or an top level exec at my company asks me to do something or to give him a status update, I do that. I don't look at him and say "Sorry I don't report you, go shove it". The CEO.. or in this case.. baker is at the top of the food chain.
The way I interpreted the
By anon
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 12:39pm
The way I interpreted the news that she hadn't met with the Governor since he took office, was that he was snubbing her, not the other way around. Isn't it the incoming Governor's responsibility to go around and meet with all agency and department heads? That he ignored her says he didn't think the T was important enough to communicate directly with.
Baker was devious and clever
By Markk02474
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 10:08am
He selected anti-car, public transit advocate from Dukakis Center and formally CLF, Stephanie Pollack as his Secretary of Transportation. This is a mess CLF helped create, and now its hers to deal with!!! Ha, ha, ha! She owns it!
Baker really doesn't have authority to fire Scott or meddle in the MBTA, its the responsibility of the MBTA board. He instead gets to throw rocks from the sidelines and eat popcorn.
Keep on grinding that
By MattL
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 11:17am
Keep on grinding that (nonsensical) axe, Markk.
Or, better yet:
By Scratchie
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 11:27am
Don't.
Since the previous MBTA discussion got surplanted by this one...
By RhoninFire
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 11:30am
I'm leaving my response to your response on CLF and Forward Funding here.
Or he gets to be an adult.
By Irmo
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 12:30pm
This is Massachusetts. We are blessedly a small state, and so the governor is in essence a mayor. His job is to keep the lights on and the water running.
If he instead wants to engage in political theater like politicians in the rest of the country, then it's incumbent on us to make him regret this desire.
Actually,
By whyaduck
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 2:02pm
she said that it was he that had not communicated with her for three weeks.
Funny that he hasn't done
By anon
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 9:46am
Funny that he hasn't done that with any of his appointments yet.
Last years T budget
By RichM
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 8:40am
Was 1.75 BILLION!!!
That's serious disinvestment?
How much went to maintenance
By anon
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 8:51am
How much went to maintenance and replacement of equipment, vs. debt, pensions, health care costs, expansion projects ...?
Context is for LIBERALS!!!
By Nick L
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 8:55am
Some fancy-pants elitists might point out that $1.75bn is a useless data point without including facts like costs, revenues, etc., but Real Red-Blooded Americans know that "billion" is a big number and don't need egg-headed arithmetic to figure out what it means.
GAAP
By anon²
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 11:14am
GAAP is a librul conspiracy!
True
By bosguy22
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 9:03am
But they basically made up budgets in the early '90's so it looked as though they weren't in as bad a shape as they actually were (not budgeting for increases in health care costs/pension obligations). Now, they're a disaster.
Sure is
By anon²
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 9:20am
When you forgo 200 million a year in maintenance, for 20 years, due to being saddled with big dig debt and getting your revenue tied to the plunging sales tax during the last great recession.
Surely we can all agree that plan was for the state to move it's Big Dig and MBTA funding burden to the MBTA solely to shore up it's bonds, while burdening them with debt payments. Mass gets to keep it great bond ratings and good credit, and well, the MBTA is on it's own.
Yes, it is
By SeanM
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 9:11am
Of course it is. The annual GDP of the Boston area is $370 billion dollars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._metropol...
Just this one week of T disruption has likely taken a serious bite out of the $7billion that this region would have produced this week. Its complete madness to under-invest so heavily in the infrastructure that we need to make this whole economic engine work.
And the maintenance budget was?
By Waquiot
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 10:10am
From what I've seen, in past years it was whatever was left over at the end of the year before. Great budgeting, but I guess it's like Waquiot Jr.'s college fund (we are expecting a scholarship for him.)
Like white trash retirement plan
By Markk02474
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 10:59am
Lottery tickets. Hope, against all odds.
The T is Detroit
By EM Painter
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 11:19am
You're acting like if the state raised more money it would have gone to the T. The T budget isn't arrived at in a vacuum. Funding the T takes from health care, takes from education, takes from etc. Democrats have been in control of the state exclusively for 8 years. If they wanted to rebuild the T they would have done it!
The problem with this state is it has big liberal eyes and a conservative wallet. Beverly Scott was the perfect aspirational speaker for that attitude as long as she never had to call in the promises the T made.
For instance, how many people can the T really carry? Is there simply a throughput level at the chokepoints that can't be exceeded? Will expanding lines outward simply increase pressure at those chokepoints?
If this was a terrorist attack, how confident would you be in the T's emergency response plan?
If the T was a city, it would be Detroit. Maybe we should think about scrapping it and moving to a more flexible system.
Kinda
By cybah
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 11:40am
Outside of the "democrat" vs "republican" stuff you are spewing, which btw is pointless considering we've had REPUBLICAN Governors prior to Patrick who repeated axed a lot of funding the DEMOCRATS were trying to push thru. Your point about that is invalid.
And your comment about funding the T takes away from others, you'r partially right on a simplistic term. But the way the T is funded comes from different buckets than education and other state budgets. (and much of it comes from the Fed too)
Considering any anti-terrorism training came from the Fed and was funded by the Fed, I'd say it could be as expected for any public transit agency. Hell they even have a training facility in an abandoned rail tunnel in southie for this response.
(and of course we may not have trains that run but we had a ton of money ear marked for security!)
And scrap it for what? And what do we do in the mean time for transit? It's not like we can wave a magical wand and all new trains and rail lines appear. It would be just like the MBCR -> Keolis contract transfer. Same equipment. Same Employees. Same BullShit.
And before you even say "Privatization" please research private transit companies to see how well they fair these days. Not well.
*Cough* BERy *Cough*
By Boston Elevated...
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 12:40pm
Well I did a great job right up until Eisenhower subsidized the heck out of highways.
Privatization
By roadman
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 12:43pm
= Republican patronage
T needs to go bankrupt
By EM Painter
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 4:24pm
Shrink the system to something the state is willing to pay for.
Get out from adding additional expensive train extension they can't maintain.
Get out of runaway health care and retirement commitments.
Default on debt.
Pave over red/orange line for bus rapid transit and cancel order for new train cars.
Put smaller vans on underused bus routes. Use cheaper drivers for vans.
Robot drones.
Finally watched her presser
By relaxyapsycho
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 8:14am
Finally watched her presser last night. Amazed how many people were praising her on here yesterday. That was embarrassingly pathetic and unprofessional. She should have been fired before the presser ended. It's a tough job, sure, but you're paid 200K+ to answer the tough questions.
"I'll let the public decide" she says.
Disgraceful.
That's actually nnnnnot her job...
By Stomps
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 8:50am
If you believe that any current MBTA administration should be fired over this debacle, then you're near-sighted and misunderstood. The problems we're having today are a direct result of decisions made 20, 30, and 40 years ago. There is an army of MBTA workers set to "retire" at the age of 50 and collect a 70% pension from the state's transportation budget. On top of that, the mismanaged Big Dig debt, the one that was paying overtime for like 10 extra years to anyone who asks, got transferred right on to the lap of the MBTA.
Its not like they can just buy new trains tomorrow. The people who criticize the loudest often have no idea where money even comes from. They'll often times be the first to complain when taxes are raised...
Um
By cybah
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 9:07am
Because she has the balls to actually say what everyone has been thinking for decades about the T. And she's 100% correct.
So what? I think if I had been working non stop for 3 weeks and being blamed for something I had little to no control over. I'd go all postal on people too.
Too many GM's have been appointed "yes men", which is probably who Baker will replace her with. And what do "Yes Men" accomplish... nothing! They sit back and take the punches thrown at them until they either no longer can take it anymore, or get fired for problems that were out of their control. And how does this improve service? Nothing..
Maybe we need a leader who is going to say "What the fuck" and buck the system to force changes that the MBTA so desperately needs.
I agree. She can only do so
By bostonkid_316
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 9:23am
I agree. She can only do so much with what she has. I respect that she's being honest about it and expressing that she's pissed. One of the reporters asked her if she was going to resign over this and she said no--that frankly, if someone could step in and do a better job, they should step up. I don't see how anyone does a better job in this situation given what the MBTA has. I will agree they should've been honest about what service would actually be like earlier this week--they probably should've done the reverse and canceled service Monday and then run limited yesterday. But other than that, what else do you do?
Who says she hasn't?
By anon²
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 10:17am
Closed doors and all, the public message of the government isn't usually the same as what she's telling Walsh and Baker in meetings. For all we know that's exactly why she was so pissed off at being thrown under the bus; because she had been telling them exactly what was going to happen and to be prepared, and they were not prepared or willing to take the heat.
Who hasn't had a boss that expects blood from stone?
Agreed on that presser
By moxie
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 9:30am
Folksy aphorisms she had. Plenty of those. But her grasp of the technical details of running this system seems thirty feet wide and a half an inch deep. If I was delivering less than 10 per cent of what I signed on for this week and the boss and my clients wanted to know why, I damn well better do more than: "This isn't my first Rodeo!" and "We're gonna fly like an eagle!"
When you have the facts, pound the facts. When you don't, pound the table. She's absolutely killing that table.
Needham Line packed to capacity
By Anon
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 9:16am
7:58 A.M. train from Roslindale to Boston on the Needham commuter rail line was packed to capacity. Out of approximately 50+ people waiting for the train, maybe 15 got on. The conductor said the train doors were frozen shut, and he couldn't guarantee that the next train would be running.
Why not set up temporary bus-only lanes?
By Ron Newman
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 9:35am
for those JFK-Quincy-Braintree shuttle buses?
Because
By Michael
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 9:47am
We live in a country that doesn't give a damn about you if you aren't in a car.
That is very true
By Whogirl
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 10:16am
But why? Can't figure it out.
Because people in cars
By cleokid
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 11:18am
Because people in cars continue to vote down any additional money for public transit (even though it would mean less cars on the road and better commutes for them), which makes the public transit fall to hell (see: current MBTA status), which makes more people take cars, who don't want to pay any more money for public transit…. the cycle continues.
I must have missed that vote
By merlinmurph
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 11:33am
When did the public vote on this? I must have missed it.
The only people that allocate money are your state reps.
Gas tax indexing initiative
By ckd
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 12:10pm
Remember remember the 4th of November (2014), when 53% of voters decided that having the gas tax keep up with inflation was a bad idea?
^^ that. gas tax indexing. it
By cleokid
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 12:35pm
^^ that. gas tax indexing. it wouldn't have completely fixed the problem, but it sure wouldn't have hurt it either.
I believe thats called...
By ccd
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 12:41pm
...taxation without representation. How quickly you've forgotten history... It was simply to stop the tax from being indexed or increased whenever state legislators like. We live in a representative democracy. If the state wants to raise taxes, put it to a vote
"The Reason Foundation did a study in September about how much the states spend on highways. Massachusetts averages $675,000 per mile a year, versus a national average of $162,000. "
And you're saying, MA needs more tax payer dollars???
Useless to compare to national average. where is link to study?
By peter
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 1:18pm
Comparing something that is highly weather dependent to a national average doesn't make any sense. I bet we spend way more on fixing potholes caused by frost heaves and on snowplows than Florida does. What does that prove? At least *TRY* to make the comparison apples to apples.
No
By El Danimal
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 1:25pm
Just no, to all of your points above.
Indexed and increased whenever state legislators like are different from each other, in fact, they are actually the opposite. The reason you index taxes is so the politicians can't decide when to increase and decrease them, and they just move according to an appropriate benchmark. That way, your revenues move in line with your expenses, and everything works the way it should.
You may need to re-read those history books yourself. Taxation without representation is when a legislature levies taxes on you, and you have no representation in that legislature to speak for you. If you have gone through a process to elect the people in a legislature, and then they decide to implement a tax, you are actually being taxed with representation, which is how most democracies work.
All wrong
By RickW
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 4:31pm
The bunk catchphrase of taxation without representation has already thoroughly been discredited with another reply.
Every other tax you pay goes up with inflation, because it's a percentage. Gas tax can't be a percentage due to the wild volatility of gas prices, but when it doesn't keep up with inflation, then it goes DOWN by default.
The Reason Foundation study compares MassDOT money spent to MassDOT controlled road mileage. The problem is that Mass is unusual in having a very low percentage of state controlled roads. As a result, MassDOT spends a lot of money in the form of local assistance designing and reconstructing non-state roads. That money is not wasted, but in the pointless metric of total money spent/state road mileage, it appears to be wasted.
Such a small drop in the bucket
By merlinmurph
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 3:06pm
That is such a small drop in the bucket, it's insignificant.
I voted against that question because I don't think a tax should raise automatically just because. If the legislature wants money, they need to ask for it. Having an automatic raise is extremely lazy and they just want to make their job easier. Sorry, no dice.
Also, I have been an advocate of raising the gas tax a lot, like a dollar, and I'm an everyday driver. Of course, that would be political suicide for any politician. Even when Patrick tried to raise it 19 cents, it failed miserably.
Just because?
By Kaz
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 3:30pm
It was tied to inflation. It wasn't arbitrary (as "just because" denotes). Basically, pretend the tax is currently set to equal 0.01 pennies of every dollar you spend. In a few years, when your dollar is worth 10% less because of inflation, you shouldn't still be spending 0.009 pennies on the tax. You should still be spending 0.01 pennies of your dollar on the tax. It's going to cost that 10% more to pay for the supplies to do the work that the gas tax is paying for to fix roads and transit systems. So, don't pay relatively less money in tax as a result of nobody getting around to arguing over increasing the gas tax a portion of a penny to cover inflation.
It was also set to DECREASE the tax if inflation is negative in a given year (but only to a specifically declared minimum). But nobody ever talked about that seemingly positive aspect of the law which has now been killed by ballot question. The only reason not to index taxes to inflation is when salaries don't keep pace with inflation either. But whose fault is that?
Also, if letting taxes fluctuate with inflation is wrong, then why do we not set the sales tax to a specific amount per transaction or item or something? As consumer goods cost more (inflation), the sales tax keeps pace. Let's convert the gas tax to a percentage tax too. Let's put the gas tax at 6.25% of your total fuel cost instead of $0.24/gal. If fuel costs more, then it will automatically cost more in roads projects and transit projects that require fuel as well, so best to index the tax to the cost of gas and not just some arbitrary per gallon rate.
There, happy now?
November
By Ari O
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 5:10pm
http://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/ele14/pip141.htm
Thanks for paying attention to the political process? Or maybe that was sarcasm on your part. My Internet is very slow this week, sometimes the sarcasm doesn't come through.
Not worth it. Reserved lanes
By anon
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 9:48am
Not worth it. Reserved lanes are only worth setting up for IOC members and Olympics athletes
And Patriots players. And
By Lyndsay
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 1:03pm
And Patriots players. And knuckleball catchers.
C'Mon Ron
By John Costello
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 10:01am
Traffic, for those of us who do not want to stand in the Nanook Conga Line at Wollaston, would be backed up to North Andover to the north and Hanover to the south. Dorchester Avenue, East Milton, and West Quincy traffic would come to a standstill.
What would help are Staties at Morrissey and Freeport and Neponset Circle to regulate the light cycles, and then keep the buses on Newport Ave / Burgin Parkway, and not Hancock Street. The buses can then go to Quincy Adams then down Washington Street in Braintree. That would keep them off of Route 3 and the merge off from Burgin Parkway.
Also, would someone please explain why the Boat isn't running from Hingham? We have a Coast Guard, right? Charlie couldn't pick up the phone and have them do a few runs with a boat to keep the ice free? The CG was very good following the boat with their machine gun carrying zodiacs on a nice summer day whenever John Ashcroft got scared. How about stepping up today? That would have relieved a lot of congestion today.
Coasties don't listen to the
By anon
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 10:05am
Coasties don't listen to the governor. They are feds.
The governor is important.
By anon
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 12:05pm
The governor is important. If he calls the commander of the Boston Coast Guard installation, he'll get through.
The National Guard are feds
By dave davery
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 12:56pm
The National Guard are feds too and yet...
Not quite...
By Dot net
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 2:51pm
Not quite...
The State National Guard units are under the command of their home governor until activated by the National Command Authority (the President, Secretary of Defense, and so forth on down) for federal service.
See page 47 of this Powerpoint from the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs for detail: http://ra.defense.gov/Portals/56/Documents/OSDRACo...
Not quite.
By anon
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 3:09pm
Not quite.
The Coast Guard is a branch of the armed forces no different than the Navy or Air Force.
I thought coasties were DHS
By anon
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 6:44pm
I thought coasties were DHS now.
It's a complicated issue.
By Dot net
Thu, 02/12/2015 - 3:51pm
It's a complicated issue. They are an armed service of the US, so they are part of the military. Yet unlike everyone else in the military, they don't report to the Secretary of Defense, normally.
They are a part of the DHS, but they can also be assigned to the Dept of the Navy by order of the president or if it is a time of war, by the Congress. So they are unique.
Drivers won't give a lane to
By Kinopio
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 10:09am
Drivers won't give a lane to emergency vehicles and they treat the bike lane like its there personal parking spot so there is no way they'd be ok with a lane for buses.
Traffic sucks, too.
By Atwater Flinch
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 9:37am
Can we cry yet?
Traffic & public transportation
By Lily
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 9:48am
Let's all remember that traffic conditions could improve with better public transportation. Traffic today was horrible because people (like me) didn't trust the T to run reliably and drove in. If more people could trust the T - if it served more people - fewer people would drive and traffic would improve.
Go ahead.
By lbb
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 12:50pm
Scream! We're miles from where anyone could hear you!
What a mess
By anon
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 9:48am
http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_cov...
David D’Alessandro for next MBTA general manager?
By Ron Newman
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 11:16am
I could get behind that. Or how about you, Paul Levy?
Scott Brown
By bulgingbuick
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 11:24am
is available.
All buses and trains will be
By MattL
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 11:46am
All buses and trains will be scrapped. Instead, you will be issued a truck and a barn coat by the state. Make and model to be determined by the enthusiasm of your Tomahawk Chop.
Can you hear
By bulgingbuick
Wed, 02/11/2015 - 9:49am
the collective orgasm over at the Herald?
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