Red Line train dies, every rider sighs; commuter rail still a travail

everyone who has a smartphone and relies on T alerts should go out and buy a special pair of gloves which, by your own admission, may not even work well in terms of using the phone. Instead, what's so wrong with requiring that the T provide passenger information using the equipment (message signs) that is already installed at the stations.

For the record, I own a pair of those "smartphone friendly" gloves. Used them once, and discovered they are not the best for using the phone. More importantly, they don't insulate my hands on an average chilly day nearly as well as my older cloth ones do.

That's completely stupid and rude (announcing the extras only via twitter/alerts, I mean)! But in the end, I don't trust that what they say they'll add the night before will actually happen, and I don't want to get stuck on a sardine train, so I'd still err on the side of caution and take the earliest train possible.

But since there was already the usual 7:44, I was concerned it was a typo or wouldn't happen. Glad to see they're adding service, since they obviously NEED to if it was that full by CJ. Sigh. I'm still gonna stick with the CJ rather than risk it. Thanks!

Well, we can be broken train goddesses together. Since I started working in Cambridge last February, delays increased exponentially (or so reports my partner, who started working in Cambridge three months before that and experienced no such delays).

I didn't mean to suggest that he was on a vacation. I have absolutely no problem with the Governor's trip to D.C for the Governor's meeting or even if he had gone just to see his child. (I would note, however, that anything involving requests for storm relief money were add-ons to the trip, and certainly do not have to be made in person). I wouldn't even care in the abstract if he had spent the whole time running around with the RGA people and their K St. allies (he didn't) - he's a Republican, he's a Governor and that's politics.

What I was trying to point out was that the work that he demanded be undertaken in his absence on the commuter rail does not seem to have been accomplished, and I have heard no acknowledgement of that from him, Keolis or the T.

Hell, I don't ride the commuter rail, nor do I live in the commuter rail suburbs, but I though it interesting that the part of the transport system that serves the people who are generally considered to comprise his power base is the part of the system that is still in the worst shape.

He was a high ranking official in the Weld administration, and he uses public transit.

He could just shove it.

That Herald article makes it sound like CLF and friends have been advocating that the MBTA expand and NOT spend on maintenance. In fact they've been advocates for increased maintenance spending AND expansion - with the idea that if the system doesn't go out to where it is needed ridership will not go up, and along with that revenue. Whether doing both is possible, well there's a question there. The MTA gets people to where they need to go, when they need to go and parking in NYC is frequently not an (affordable) option, therefore huge ridership and revenue - it would be nice to see that here.

If people want to slam expansion like the Greenbush line go ahead. I'd gladly take that half a billion dollars and invest it in new switches and signaling equipment. The failure to do that is a valid criticism. The failure to maintain or buy new snow removal equipment - another valid one. Looking under the hood at salaries and pension benefits - a good exercise as it is unclear as to whether there are very real, valid criticisms there or if this is another case of people expecting public services just to run perfectly for free. Complaining about not enough highway capacity, or that bikes are to blame or that the Green Line returning to one of the densest populated cities in the country is an unneeded expansion - stupidity.

The differences between Bechtel and CLF is that Bechtel actually builds things while CLF just creates costs over and over again. Bechtel got paid and is done. CLF is looking for new ways to cost Mass residents with new debt for the MBTA and ever higher electricity prices (by demanding natural gas powered plants lower carbon dioxide (what we exhale) emissions. Both groups are happy about the natural gas pipeline shortage in Massachusetts which jacks up winter heating and electric costs to residents. I suppose they want people to sit in the cold and dark to offset China's increasing carbon footprint.

Do not donate a penny to MassPIRG or Conservation Law Foundation!

That's exactly what the T needs, more debt through more expansion in the most expensive place in the region to build.

Any thoughts as to where these new stations should go, and how much more in debt the T will go into to build them?

Conversely, are you going to say to the people on the Plymouth and Middleboro lines, along with the people out in Metro West/Worcester that the T has done nothing to make their commutes better, this recent SNFU aside?

How many new stations has Philly, Chicago, or NYC added in the same time period? What percentage of their system does the expansion represent? NYC has a much larger system than the MBTA serving millions more daily trips, though I hear that they are blowing billions of dollars on some new subway stations to replace existing bus service, oh, kinda like the GLX.

Boston has built ZERO major league baseball parks in 100 years, while other cities have. So what? One subway station is better than that!