"When people talk about our system and how bad it is, it is really not that bad." @marty_walsh on the MBTA
— Boston Public Radio (@BosPublicRadio) December 15, 2015
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No Marty
By cybah
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 1:09pm
It IS that bad.
How about you ride it every day for a few months? Make it your sole means of transportation.. you'll soon see how bad it really is.
So clueless.. so so clueless.
In addition
By fefu
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 1:12pm
After using the T for a few months, he should then experience transit systems in New York, London, and other places where they know what they're doing (though some might disagree about NY). And THEN try to tell us how "not bad" the T is.
Ten people on twitter
By Charac
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 1:51pm
Clearly it's just 10 people on twitter who think the T isn't bad.
He grew up in Boston
By anon
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 1:10pm
I'm sure he's taken the T.
Savin Hill
By anon
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 2:15pm
Marty may have taken the T in his life. Until recently he lived literally a one minute walk to Savin Hill Station, which I use 5-7 days a week.
But since I first became aware of him when he became a State Rep in the mid 90s through today, I never saw him taking the T from Savin Hill.
These trains were a lot
By maria c
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 5:51pm
These trains were a lot younger when Marty rode them. They weren't as prone to signal problems and broken budgets as they are now. At least for as long as remember (and I've been riding O, B, G, and R lines since 1984!
It used to be good, but Weld
By Christie-Baker 2016
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 2:15pm
It used to be good, but Weld-Cellucci-Romney and now Baker have saddled with it debt and starved it, making it more and more broken. Patrick, while not perfect, did some great things for the T (late night, buying new red and orange line trains, getting GLX going, ordering DMUs for Fairmount). Charlie has undone much of that though in less than a year. Marty doesn't really have a lot of power over the T, thats a Governor issue.
Uh, Patrick was responsible
By >>>>>>\{-_-}/<<<<<<
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 2:50pm
Uh, Patrick was responsible for the snowstorm failure last year and the current GLX mess. There was no accountability for labor or management which allowed things to continue to fall apart to what we have today.
that would be a lie
By Stevil
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 6:12pm
Examine the income statements and check back in. The state has showered the T with money and they have spent it all - on salaries and bennies. Very little on capital expenses and even that has only been in the last 2-3 years.
You're wrong.
By Wrong
Wed, 12/16/2015 - 3:55am
MBTA has $7,000,000,000 in state of good service backlog and a signal system on the Red Line that's broken, that contributed to a runaway train and could have killed 50 people riding it. The MBTA has been underfunded for over two decades. Stevil doesn't know shit about public transportation budgets.
oh really
By Stevil
Wed, 12/16/2015 - 7:46am
Go check their income statements and get back to us with some numbers. We all know they have a 7 billion dollar backlog. The question is how does this happen to an organization that has doubled revenues in 15 years? It doesn't happen by focusing resources on the backlog and that's not exactly "underfunding".
I don't need to know s£!t. I only need to know how to add.
hmmmmmmmmmm I wonder what
By tape
Sat, 12/19/2015 - 7:34pm
hmmmmmmmmmm I wonder what else happened about 15 years agOH I KNOW it was "forward funding" and transferring the Big Dig debt to the MBTA.
Yup
By Stevil
Sat, 12/19/2015 - 10:58pm
And they gave them a piece of the sales tax to pay for that. And when that wasn't enough, they let them jack up the rates. When that wasn't enough they gave them another state funded revenue stream. And when that wasn't enough they gave them a THIRD revenue stream. And it's STILL not enough - because instead of using that to fund debt that would pay for capital improvements, it went to salaries, bennies and pensions.
Of course what you're leaving
By eherot
Sun, 12/20/2015 - 12:00am
Of course what you're leaving out here is that at no point were any of these forward funding schemes actually expected to cover the full cost of running the T except with the absolute rosiest of all sales tax revenue predictions. Lo and behold, health care costs (for the entire COUNTRY) actually turned out to be MUCH more expensive than predicted, and to the surprise of no one, the sales tax RARELY met the projected expectations.
The T's current situation was entirely predictable 20+ years ago, and the legislature has no one to blame for it but themselves (and health care costs--but we should have covered those because they are not the T's fault).
and what you are ignoring
By Stevil
Sun, 12/20/2015 - 7:36am
Is that the T has DOUBLED its revenue in 15 years and still can't make ends meet. They are spending only slightly more on interest and principal today than they did 15 years ago. The T has plenty of money. They consciously CHOOSE to spend it on labor rather than necessary capital improvements.
I don't think you understand
By eherot
Wed, 12/23/2015 - 2:15pm
I don't think you understand very well how government pay is apportioned. Someone cannot simply elect to pay an employee 20% more for doing the same job. I suppose in theory you could opt to hire two people to do one person's job, but if the overtime pay situation is any indication, the MBTA seems to have the opposite problem. Pay is determined through union contracts and (primarily it seems in the MBTA's case) the amount of overtime pay. Overtime pay, in turn, is often itself the result of budget rules that make it nearly impossible to hire more than the bare minimum number of new full time employees, and strongly encourage the use of private contractors, even in cases where it makes little or no sense to do so.
I can't recall ever seeing any kind of report showing that the MBTA is overstaffed (maybe you have?), so it's not clear to me where they would save the amount of money on labor that it would cost to do capital improvements.
I grew up in Boston and took
By anon
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 2:20pm
I grew up in Boston and took the T as well. Current performance is way worse than it used to be, and for the past year, I've opted to drive instead. Which also sucks, but it sucks less than having to worry about your train breaking down every day.
Don't even have to go back that far
By ChrisInEastie
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 2:58pm
Hell, I've only lived here for 5 years and it's gotten significantly worse over that timeframe.
Agree
By anon
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 3:26pm
I have been taking the T on a regular basis since 1997 and I can tell you that the past 3-5 years in particular has gotten so much worse during this time-frame.
My opinion on Marty continues to go downhill. Will not vote for him again.
What is Marty thinking when he says stuff like this?
By Anonymous
Wed, 12/16/2015 - 4:58am
The T services 1.3 million passenger trips a day so it's not like we don't know what's going on. We ride it and know first hand its problems, of which it has many. Too often, it fails outright.
Instead of telling all disgruntled riders their complaints aren't shit, you'd think Walsh would speak up for Boston T riders and lobby the governor to rebuild the world class public transit system that our world class city deserves.
We could help finance it with the $800,000,000 million cost overrun built into the Boston2024 bid Marty Walsh pushed as the no public money Olympics.
Walsh is pals with Baker now and Baker ran on no new taxes platform. Walsh is carrying Baker's water when he makes the pitch, "it is really not that bad." He's out of touch. Someone should clue him in.
Folks who fought Boston2024 said they had four priorities
it's a good day when that is only rainwater....
By teric
Wed, 12/16/2015 - 3:33pm
To be fair
By ChrisInEastie
Wed, 12/16/2015 - 6:27pm
it wasn't the orange line.
Which more often than not, smells like some combination of urine, weed, and sadness.
Marty says he has always been
By Kinopio
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 2:26pm
Marty says he has always been a "car guy". Taking the T on a saturday to catch a concert or something downtown once in awhile is completely different from using it on a daily basis to get to your job on time.
He can drive his car to his next job after we elect a mayor who knows what he is doing and realizes that public transportation is crucial in large cities.
It's A Classist Attitude — Only The Riff-Raff Take The Ⓣ
By Elmer
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 3:56pm
[sup] So, for those people, it's not that bad.[/sup]
I don't think it's quite that
By chaosjake
Wed, 12/16/2015 - 3:22pm
I don't think it's quite that simple. In Boston, you have the super rich with their car services, and the techbros with Bridj or whatever, then everyone from the upper middle to the lower middle class takes the T. Once you start getting into the really poor, though, car use starts to tick up again, because they live and/or work too far from rapid transit. The T is only viable if you either work near the center of the system (DTX, Park, South Station, Back Bay, etc) or live near the Red/Blue/Green/Orange line. The more Commuter Rail fares, buses, or transfers you build into a route, the less people are able to count on the T.
Regrettably, for some, I think it IS like that.
By issacg
Wed, 12/16/2015 - 3:47pm
If I had a T fare for every time someone insisted that I call a cab rather than taking the T (to the extent that it matters to some, and it shouldn't, I'm a 6'3 male, about 200 lbs.), I'd have a lifetime pass. It was clear from the context that almost all of these people were saying this because that they held that belief (that the T is for the so-called "riff-raff"). I also regret to say that each of these people fell into a particular age cohort (about 55-70). So far as I could guess, their riding years (to the extent they ever rode the T) would have coincided with what must have been an even more horrible time for the T (and cities in general) from the mid-1970s to mid-1980s.
Did He Cite Any Other Transit Systems That Are Worse Than The Ⓣ?
By Elmer
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 1:16pm
The Montgomery Alabama Bus
By anon
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 2:44pm
The Montgomery Alabama Bus system?
!
By ninjers
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 7:47pm
Why ride the MAB when you can ride your cousin to work?!
Hating on the T is fun
By bgl
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 4:55pm
But let's be honest, it beats out pretty much everything other than Chicago and NYC in the country. Kind of sad.
Disagree. DC's system is better
By Chuckieee
Wed, 12/16/2015 - 10:00am
Washington DC has a system that reaches more outlying areas, is cleaner (albeit dimly lit), has fewer breakdowns, and does not consistently smell like piss.
The T is definitely in bad
By ZachAndTired
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 5:29pm
The T is definitely in bad shape and has gone way downhill over the past several years, but after living in Atlanta for a year I can say that MARTA is much worse than the T. At least the T goes places that people want/need to get to.
He is correct.
By whyaduck
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 1:17pm
The MBTA is really not that bad. It is worse. It sucks.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!
By >>>>>>\{-_-}/<<<<<<
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 1:18pm
Sweet baby Jeebus will someone please stop allowing him to eat paste on the job?
He's right, though. For all
By will
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 1:19pm
He's right, though. For all that the T could obviously be greatly improved, it's pretty damn good. Boston is probably in the top five cities in the US for public transit.
but really
By Malcolm Tucker
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 1:58pm
How many cities in the U.S. have public transit that consists of more than buses - i.e., public transit that includes subways and trains? According to Wikipedia (by no means the authoritative account, but useful for fact-checking), there are 11 in the continental U.S. We're probably better than Atlanta, I'll give you that - but not much more.
The MBTA drives me nuts at times, but....
By Michael Kerpan
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 2:02pm
... it is VASTLY better than MARTA (in Atlanta).
THIS ISN'T MADNESS!
By Malcolm Tucker
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 2:15pm
[img]http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/halo/images/d/...
Not a fair comparison
By Nancy
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 2:18pm
The MBTA is to MARTA as the Red Sox are to the Braves.
But we had the Braves first!
By kvn
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 2:21pm
But we had the Braves first!
And we had the MBTA before they had MARTA
By Nancy
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 2:37pm
One thing they both have in common is mic-dropping Bev.
I have a personal suspicion about that
By tachometer
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 2:59pm
Bev was cut out of all of the MEMA stuff and then newly inaugurated Gov Baker was talking tough and ripping the T during that notorious snowstorm press conference. My suspicion was that he was trying to line things up to fire her so that he could portray himself as the new "demand accountability and take action" governor. I think she realized this too and so she submitted her resignation before he could do that which left him in the "Oh shit, the T is my problem now" arena instead.
I have no inside information so this is just based on my read of the people involved and their actions as seen through the media but it certainly seems plausible to me.
No I agree
By cybah
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 3:04pm
No I agree with your statement. I think she knew her time was up.. so she left early to give Cholly a big FU and make the T his problem.
Dr Scott was a lot smarter than people gave her credit for.
She was fired from her job in
By >>>>>>\{-_-}/<<<<<<
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 3:25pm
She was fired from her job in Atlanta. The only thing she has going for her is that people in power like her and keep promoting her to higher administrative office each time she is fired.
*yawn*
By cybah
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 3:35pm
*yawn*
Just not gonna.. not in the mood today.
MARTA.. itsMARTA
By cybah
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 3:09pm
WORST.TAGLINE.EVER.
I agree. The T is better than MARTA.. at least it goes places. And doesn't stop at city or county lines because of voters who don't want the 'undesirables' in their communities.
Plus we have the commuter rail system. MARTA doesn't have that.. or anything comparable. Although they are desperately trying to build one between Athens and Atlanta, and Atlanta and Chattanooga.
Sad.. Marta has been building the Belt Line for far less time than the T has been building the GLX. It's gonna open sooner than the GLX (if the GLX ever gets built). Who says the south doesn't do anything right?
And doesn't stop at city or
By Scratchie
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 5:02pm
I'll have to introduce you to this little town called "Arlington" some time.
Hingham also held the line
By chaosjake
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 5:37pm
Hingham also held the line against the T for many years.
However
By cybah
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 6:10pm
Buses STILL go to Arlington and Hingham... in Atlanta.. MARTA.. Subway and bus service stops at the county and city lines.
Speaking of Atlanta...
By ChrisInEastie
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 3:17pm
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/atlanta-officia...
BeltLine
By cybah
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 3:19pm
Part of that is the Belt Line I talked about above.
At least Atlanta sees value in transit.. and down there, it's so desperately needed.
Grid Lock Traffic for miles......
That isn't saying anything.
By Kinopio
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 2:18pm
That isn't saying anything. Public transit in the US is a joke compared to Japan, Europe, etc and it will continue to be so until we stop prioritizing cars over transit.
Translation
By anon
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 1:27pm
His core supporters in the construction unions and public service unions don't take the T to work.
Marty doesn't care about the working class, poor or white collar workers of Boston because they are too fractured of a demographic to pose a threat to his voting bloc.
The people affected most can't vote for Mahty
By Cutriss
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 1:34pm
The further out you go from Boston, the more you're impacted by the poor/unavailable service.
Then it's someone else's problem.
Eggsactly. I live one stop outside of Boston on the Red Line
By Nancy
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 2:04pm
I can't vote for Mayor Marty and I'm very much affected by the Red Line problems. Quincy has a four stations filled with commuters from the Neponset River Bridge to the Cape.
Mayor Marty: do you want to know how bad the T is? I live right near the North Quincy Red Line Station and work near the Wellington Orange Line Station. On a normal day the commute time is so long and miserable by subway that I just drive on the Expressway (HA!) to commute. That's how much I don't want to be on the T.
oof
By Malcolm Tucker
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 3:09pm
I feel some of your pain: I used to live in Malden and work in Harvard Square, and the daily hellscape that was my commute drove my blood pressure through the roof.
I..
By cybah
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 3:10pm
I used to live in Medford near Wellington and Worked in Belmont. Grueling commute every day. Was faster to *walk* home via Route 60 than to take the T some days.
yes
By Malcolm Tucker
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 3:20pm
HUGE pain in the ass to try to get from one somewhat suburban location to another.
I don't want to delude anyone into thinking that the tram and train system in Melbourne is perfect, but look at how far-reaching it is. Every street in the CBD has at least one tram line running along it, and they splinter out to all the surrounding suburbs. Can you imagine if we had more than our four little colors going through the city and to points beyond?
Sad Part
By cybah
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 3:22pm
We USED to have such a system.. it went away when most of the streetcars went away in the 1940s..
You used to be able to take a streetcar all the way to Nashua NH and beyond...
But wait, we have a plan!
By GoSoxGo
Wed, 12/16/2015 - 7:38am
The Urban Ring -- estimated completion date Spring 2071!
They're planning CR to New
By anon
Wed, 12/16/2015 - 9:14am
They're planning CR to New Hampshire again by about 2020, probably serving Nashua, Manchester, and maybe all the way to Concord. http://www.nhrta.org/
Regularly used to not bother
By anon
Wed, 12/16/2015 - 9:12am
Regularly used to not bother waiting for the 77 bus from Harvard and just walk. Sometimes I'd catch up to the bus after the dozen-traffic-light nightmare that is Porter Square; sometimes I'd just walk all the way home.
I had the exact same commute
By anon
Wed, 12/16/2015 - 9:10am
I had the exact same commute ca. 2004/5. Highlights were nearly always riding the T outbound one stop to Oak Grove just to go in the other direction, because the T was already impossibly overcrowded inbound from Malden, and sometimes taking 2+ hours to get home if I didn't get to the OL before it switched to a "one-track operation" (9pm IIRC) due to signal work that went on for like two years.
Funny how Koch didn't seem to
By mungbean
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 8:18pm
Funny how Koch didn't seem to have much to say about it last winter, but coasted to re-election. I too take the Expressway from Quincy to avoid the T, and my neighbor who is in her forties and has never owned a car went out and bought one this year so she won't have to rely on the T this winter.
Quincy was treacherous!
By Lmo
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 10:02pm
Quincy was treacherous! Sometimes I go to a store on Atlantic St. It wasn't plowed for weeks; cruised on packed down snow.
Even in Boston though
By anon
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 2:35pm
If you live in the South End, Back Bay, North End or Fenway and work in the city, you are likely making good money working in a office/campus and the MBTA is a key part of your life, but one you can survive without intermittently. If you are working at a service job in Boston and live in Boston, you're probably living in Mattapan, Hyde Park, Rosi, etc... and when the T goes down, you can't get your kids from daycare or school or you start missing shifts, etc... and that's how a poorer person living close to the edge of financial ruin can easily fall off.
Marty's basically telling those people he doesn't care about their issues or opportunities.
FTFY
By lowrider
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 4:49pm
Marty's basically telling those people again he doesn't care about their issues or opportunities.
Yep
By SwirlyGrrl
Sun, 12/20/2015 - 12:18am
We all brought in camping gear (sleeping bag, cot, etc.) for our cleaning lady, as she was swing shift and sometimes could not make it home! We made sure that she had a towel, facecloth, hotel toiletries, and bedding.
Does Marty or Charlie give two shits about this? No.
Lot of work needed to get to "not that bad"
By Mjolnir
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 1:30pm
The service area of the MBTA is huge. I'm very impressed that I hop down to the Blue Hills trails via the CR and then an 8 minute Uber. I'm happy I can travel to Providence RI or Harvard Sq from anywhere in the city, I just wish both trips didn't take the same time. I'm glad I don't need to own a car, even if it would make certain trips (even in-city) vastly easier.
However, the condition of the system is kind of embarrassing. It's ridiculous that it's so overcrowded during predictable hours. It's a shame to the city that so much of our stations are crumbling, leaking, and pissed in. When a Red Line train rolls in to a dank station looking orange with rust, is delayed 20 minutes due to a broken-down train ahead of it, with a duct-taped closed door, that reflects on Boston.
And it's nice that we're slowly getting improvements and upgrades. The new Green Line cars
for the fantastic GLX projectlook great and remind me of [url=http://i.imgur.com/Dp1ANda.jpg]Dublin's LUAS[/url], a tram that belongs in the 21st century. And the new Green Line countdown signs underground are great to finally see. But both of these things still lag dramatically behind what other places do, and what we should. Again, many of Dublin's bus stops have signs like these:[img]http://i.imgur.com/wjjO3Ij.jpg[/img]
We produce this same data; why can't these sort of timers be deployed easily at Ruggles, Kenmore, Dudley, Haymarket, and other major bus terminals?
The MBTA system is certainly better than nothing. It's better than a lot of other places. But it needs a tremendous amount of upgrading and work to bring it into the realm of "not that bad" given the legacy of neglect. The goal should be an average day having no single train spontaneously fail and die. The goal should be 24-hour service. The goal should be modernization and system expansion, such as NSRL and Urban Ring. The goal should not be "not that bad", and an unmet one at that.
Forest Hills
By FootPad
Tue, 12/15/2015 - 1:42pm
Forest Hills version of that bus sign would look something like this:
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