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Train nerd in charge of the MBTA
By adamg on Thu, 03/25/2010 - 8:32am
The T as tourist attraction: Why not? We've already got people who come from all over just to ride the Mattapan line. So as an amateur train nerd myself, I think it's cool that the new MBTA general manager wants to open up the inner workings of the T to train buffs.
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Comments
It's not coincidental that
It's not coincidental that Davey is just 36. He's part of a younger generation that looks to public transportation as the future, and not the decaying remnant of the past. Which has grown up in a period of revival and growth for mass transit, and not during massive disinvestment and cutbacks. Of urban renewal, and not suburban flight.
Here in Boston, of course, we've had both rising ridership and budgetary cutbacks. But they key to tackling the T's many problems is restoring faith in its promise. To the extent that voters regard it as an anachronism or a dysfunctional holdover, they're unlikely to support the sort of public investment that it's going to take to improve the level of service, maintenance, and operations. They tend to see it as throwing good money at an intractable problem. But with someone at the helm making the case that the T is something special, there's a chance we'll get the levels of investment and upgrades needed to continue its growth and its contributions to the local economy.
Davey rides the Green and Red Lines every day, and pays his own fare. His predecessor drove an T-owned SUV to the office. He turned around the performance of the commuter rail, after five years of poor performance following its privatization. And he understands what riders care about. Safety. Reliability. And communication. I'm more hopeful about the T than I've been in a long, long time. When was the last time we had a technocratic, and not a politician or career government employee, in charge of the agency?
Meanwhile, it's worth noting Eric Moskowitz's byline atop this story - despite its own cutbacks, the Globe has some fantastic young talent, none better than Eric.
I think making the T a
I think making the T a tourist destination is what I've been saying for years. Hell I even agreed with people when they said open a surface trolley on the green way as the North/South link.. Weekdays its useful for commuters, and on the weekends use it for tourist revenue. Even better use vintage mattapan PCC trolleys, very similar to what San Francisco does along the embarcadero.
I couldn't have said it
I couldn't have said it better myself!!
The T needs someone "young" (relatively - he's 36...) and fresh with new progressive ideas. Just the fact that he rides the T regularly and pays the fare is awesome. It tells you something about his character. Regarding his "lack of experience," do people not see what he did with the MBCR? The guy knows what he's doing and I can only hope the end of the bigotry within the MBTA is on the way to being over.
And like the case of Obama, you can't expect change to happen instantly. He's not the savior of the MBTA, but he will hopefully get the wheels rolling (pun intended) in the right direction.
toot toot!
It's inspiring to see that our new MBTA GM hasn't let his evidently severe case of Asperger's get in the way of his career!
Oh, get over yourself. When
Oh, get over yourself. When an official declares himself a car buff, it's generally taken as a sign of his common touch, not an inability to let go of adolescence. What's the source of your antipathy to mass transit? If some percentage of riders are also rail fans, why not leverage that enthusiasm? A third of workers in the city get to their jobs by mass transit. Without it, the city would grind to a halt. I don't see any problem with celebrating that.
New York City has an incredibly successful transit museum. It's a major tourist attraction, funded by a mix of arts budgets, private donations, and gate revenue. It boosts the image of transit, drives tourist revenues for the city as a whole, and doesn't cost riders a dime. If transit's not your thing, head over to Lars Anderson instead. But why begrudge others their passion?
Asperger's?
Do you know something we don't know? Because I was raised with an older brother with Asperger's, and, um, don't see it here. Enthusiasm != pathology.
His background at MBCR before
His background at MBCR before becoming their GM was as their general counsel since 2003
http://www.masstransitmag.com/web/online/People/MB...$3435
Excellent
I'm feeling better about the T's future. Remains to be seen that he'll get continual support for what he wants to do. If he doesn't, I suspect he'll get frustrated and leave.
I've been to NYC's subway museum in Brooklyn. It would be great if we had something similar here.
Definitely interesting
It's definitely interesting to see what this guy is thinking. Just being more open with customers will be a great first step even if in more practical, less showy ways than something symbolic like facility tours.
We'll see how it goes from here. In the end, there's also going to be only so much he can do with the short budget they've got available for him because of the high debt.
Links Broken?
Just a heads-up concerning the Mattapan Trolley page, Adam. It appears that the link (read more) is redirecting to a totally different thread. Also, the comments seem disabled?
I tried to post something (which it's entirely possible I posted before on that page, knowing me, but anyway...)
I grew up in Lower Mills, and my stop on the trolley was Central Avenue. Riding it, either to Ashmont, for a trip downtown, or to Mattapan, for local shopping, etc., was always a joy. If anyone has questions concerning things seen along the ride, I may be able to give some background, history, or explanation - I lived in the area for 37 years.
Thanks for the swell photos.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Apologies - Should Have Read More
The thread does refer to you being in the Mattapan yards. Sorry!
Well, I've long supported the
Well, I've long supported the idea of using old rolling stock as exhibits that can not only be looked at, but entered, sat in, etc.
But I'd prefer to remove the offices and storage in the south side of the Winter Street concourse (it being a never-used, and never usable trolley tunnel, what with it intersecting with the Orange Line and chopped off by the Dewey Sq. tunnel) and put the trolley museum there. The concourse could be cleaned up and improved in the process. Since you couldn't get to it without entering at Park St. or Downtown Crossing, visitors would have to pay a fare. It's also a new visitor attraction at Downtown Crossing, which could use the help.
And this would free up the southerly tracks at Boylston, hopefully allowing trolley service to the South End and South Boston to resume someday if tracks are installed and the Pleasant St. portal is rebuilt. Of course you'd also want to build another pair of tracks between Park St. and Government Center at least, to handle the additional traffic from adding two new trolley lines. And Park St. might need to be lengthened again or widened.
Transit Museum Indeed
I wasn't expecting my comment to make the 'paper' (did this article actually make it into the Globe?) but I'm glad to say my comment and that of another transit advocate to the GM at yesterday's roundtable got him on track to thinking about using a museum as a revenue stream and a means of encouraging Bostonians to gain a sense of ownership and pride over the system. Davey faces a big uphill PR battle, like the MTA in New York, and both he and his MTA counterpart, former Transport for London head Jay Wilder, recognize the challenge and understand that public image and credibility pose as the biggest factor keeping these agencies from gaining additional funding to fix the broken things and expand these systems for additional ridership capacity.
I just wish that it had been framed in the context as a museum for cultural enrichment, and not simply one for transit buffs. It marginalizes the very idea of a transit museum and doesn't do justice to its potential.
Mr. Davey mentioned at the meeting yesterday the idea of opening the gates to the PCCs at Boylston Street for the museum - this is considerably more visible and has a greater presence than the MTA museum in New York City, which is off the beaten path in an out of service station across the street from the MTA headquarters in Brooklyn. If the full MTA museum were in Grand Central (instead of the annex), or even Times Square, you'd be able to see the cultural impact of such an attraction as well as have no question about its potential as a revenue stream for cash-strapped pre-1970s transit agencies.