Train Rider muses:

I must say - the media loves MBTA GM Dan Grabauskas. I just don't get the love affair? Why are they so hard on other elected officials and public leaders, but they just give Dan softballs everytime?

As a recovering reporter, I think the answer's actually fairly simple: Grabauskas gives reporters and editors what they crave: Access - or, at least, the appearance of access. Imagine how the current "We're going to die!" fare-increase story would have played out if, oh, a Globe reporter had ferreted out the possibility of massive increases in some obscure document related to the Green Line expansion project (maybe in some appendix on financing the work). There'd be outrage, outrage! Instead, Grabauskas simply arranged a series of interviews with local media types and got in front of the story. It's good media management.

The Outraged Liberal explains why, if you're going to get upset about raises at the T in times like these, you should direct your ire toward Dan Grabauskas and his incompetent managers, because they knew the union would likely be awarded a raise in arbitration and yet did nothing to try to budget for it:

... Yakking on about the concessions he has obtained as part of those talks can't hide the act that Grabauskas and his team failed basic accounting.

Did they really think the arbitrator would not award salary increases and make them retroactive to the start of negotiations?

And we're not talking about excessive compensation. We are talking about roughly 3 percent annually, which I would venture is probably par for the course in just about every business. ...

One person's love for the T general manager.

It's become a most unpleasant part of my daily commute: the smell of commuter train brakes. When I get off the train, I flinch at the odor, which puts me in the mind of week-old diapers on fire.

I don't think it was this bad a year ago, and I notice I'm not the only one who's asking why. To a Wilmington commuter, The T's Dan Grabauskas suggested:

You can't make this stuff up. The Herald reports:

Top MBTA officials acknowledge that for years the agency has been secretly cutting thousands of bus and train trips from published schedules to lower costs - a practice that has left legions of customers waiting for rides that arrived late or not at all.

It's good the Globe has a transportation reporter again, maybe they'll stop getting scooped by BostonNow by a month. Compare today's Globe story on how Dan Grabauskas says the T is broke with BostonNow's Jan. 9 story on how Dan Grabauskas says the T is broke.

But speaking of our bankrupt transportation authority, the Outraged Liberal says it's time to stick a fork in Grabauskas. TJIC doesn't express much sympathy for him, either.

Spatch is willing to accept that trains break down and fires break out. What he can't deal with is the way the MBTA wanted to force people to sit in overheated trains for more than an hour during Friday's Red Line meltdown:

By most accounts, he did as good a job at the Registry as he isn't doing at the T. Josh Ourisman reports on how things have fallen apart since Grabauskas left the RMV:

David reports on the mood at his commuter-rail stop around 8:30 this morning - when some people had been there since before 8, thanks to a train that just never showed:

... Man (to a friend on the platform, as a commuter rail train blows by us): "Yeah, that's about the third train I've seen go by without stopping, so I'm not holding out much hope for the next one."

Second Man (to a friend on the platform): "Grabauskas, man. I want to find that guy and kill him." ...