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State selects Atlantan to head the MBTA
By adamg on Mon, 09/24/2012 - 3:20pm
The Globe's Eric Moskowitz tweets the state Department of Transportation unanimously named the head of Atlanta's public-transportation authority as the new general manager of the MBTA.
Beverly Scott beat out her second-in-command - Dwight Ferrell - to permanently replace Richard Davey, who moved up from the MBTA to transportation secretary.
Scott will have experience that could come in handy at the T: In 2010, MARTA slashed services and the authority wants to build a new trolley line.
But MARTA also has some significant differences from the T: The state gives it no money at all. Earlier this year, Atlanta-area voters rejected a proposed 1% sales tax that would have funded $7.5 billion worth of transit projects.
Scott announced last year she would be retiring from MARTA. Until a couple weeks ago, Ferrell was a candidate to replace her, but did not make a final cut reducing the number of prospective replacements to two.
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Comments
I like some of his
I like some of his cuts.
Is that a threat or a promise?
great
someone from one of the states with the highest number of cycling deaths in the country. Just swell.
MBTA bus drivers are going to LOVE her. Especially the ones on the 39 route, who have been responsible for the city's only fatal bus-on-bicyclist crashes in recent memory.
Remember, folks: if you hit a cyclist with your bus, it's OK to just leave her for dead, and continue your route like normal. And lie to police and your supervisors...
enough with
the bike comments, the only people who care about bikers are bikers. Learn to respect the rules of the road and maybe people with show you some respect back. But for now maybe you can do us all a favor and stop whining like a brat
not true
I'm not a cyclist, and I care about cyclists. I'm not a motorist, and I care about motorists.
We're all in this together folks, and we all need to work together to change this culture of "fuck you" we have around here. Comments like this aren't going to help.
enough with the victim blaming
Look we get it, you think every biker breaks the law. We don't. Of course there are accidents/deaths caused by drivers breaking the law too but lets not call silly statistics into this. I'm sure you'll conjure up some farcical tale that'll brings nothing new to the table other than an anecdotal, confirmation bias laden post. Awesome.
The real issue is your demand that bikers respect the rules of the road or face some very vague, anonymous threats. What exactly encompasses "respect" from you in terms of safety directed to all cyclists on the road? I follow all the rules of the road when I bike. So do I not warrant your "respect" when I'm on the road because of the scofflaw behavior of some of my peers? Do I have to worry about getting run over, right-hooked and/or tailgated by you because you saw a another biker run a red light? I just love that you tell us that maybe, just maybe if we are good and respectful and that day is treating you well, you'll find it in your heart to respect us too.
Earlier tonight...
I was at a red traffic signal in Davis Square when a bike went past me on the right and proceeded into the middle of the intersection with total disregard for the Route 87 bus that was exiting the busway on a green light. My daughter & I were amazed that the bicyclist made it past the bus w/o getting killed. I'm sure there'd be a lot of things for a bus driver to watch for as they enter that intersection, but bikes running red lights shouldn't be one of them.
what we see
and yesterday i was at the intersection of Ruggles Street and the SW Corridor, where i watched about 12 cyclists wait patiently for the 'walk signal', but when I got to intersection of Tremont and Berkeley there was the typical 2-3 cars running the red.
Beverly Scott was also the
Beverly Scott was also the head of RIPTA in Rhode Island for awhile before she went to Atlanta. At some point in her career she was also in charge of bus operations for MTA in New York City.
Don't forget...
I've made a post about this elsewhere but..
Some not so well know facts about MARTA..
- MARTA does not receive funding from the Georgia State Assembly (Essentially the State). The only funding it gets is a 1% sales tax in Fulton and Dekalb Counties (essentially inside I-285) and fare revenue.
- MARTA recently was under attack when upper management was found using company credit cards for personal reasons. (Not sure if Ms Scott was involved or was under her watch)
- MARTA is a private entity. It is a business, not a public service. When ridership drops, service drops. Ask any Atlantan about taking a bus after 8pm on a weeknight. its almost non existent.
- MARTA has such a bad reputation in Atlanta, that the GA State Assembly created a new division to manage public transit projects like the "C Loop" "Beltway Loop" and Commuter Rail Projects (to Athens, GA and Chattanooga, TN).
- Due to MARTA's reputation, every few years a 1% sales tax is voted upon in counties where MARTA does not exist (but needs to) (i.e. Cobb, Gwinnette, & Clayton Counties) but gets voted down every time due to MARTAs miss management (and the thought that MARTA will bring "undesirables" to their counties). And its needed, many of these counties operate their own bus services which are maxed to capacity. They just don't want MARTA in their county.
I really wonder what she has in store for the T. The T is a very different beast than MARTA and many of the mentalities of MARTA just will not work here.
I think their definition of Commuter Rail is different than ours
A commuter rail would be a train that goes to Cobb, Clayton, Gwinett, DeKalb, etc. Sucks to be a suburbanite in Atlanta I guess.
I went to the University of Georgia and people do not commute from Athens to Atlanta. That would be the equivalent of taking a train from Boston to Newport, RI. It's a destination for a weekend or going away to school, not a daily commute.
Not sure where you'r getting
Not sure where you'r getting your information about MARTA from, but it is not a private entity.
According to the FTA's 2010 profile of MARTA:
http://www.ntdprogram.gov/ntdprogram/pubs/profiles...
It gets 21% of its operating funds from fares, 56% from "local" (county, city, or town), 0% from the state, 19% from the feds, and 4% from "other" (leases, advertsiing, etc).
That 1% sales tax from the counties generates the majority of MARTA's funding, not fares.
Beverly Scott has worked at a lot of other agencies before she came to MARTA. She is not an "up the ranks" MARTA employee who spent her entire career in Atlanta. Like any transit manager, she had to work with what she was given. The whole anti-city, anti-MARTA attitude from the Atlanta suburbs was established long before she ever got there.
She has a pretty good reputation from her years running RIPTA in Providence. I'm sure she has some idea of what was going on in that state just to the north.
MARTA?
What? Couldn't the T find a crummier public transportation system to hire someone from?
This paragraph from the linked article makes me think I'm in for a bumpy Red Line ride
Wow! A whopping 142,000 passengers per day? I think the MBTA has over a million. That's quite a leap.
And I look forward to a public transit system that aims to provide a whopping 86% of their consumers with the services they need.
For the record, MARTA's daily
For the record, MARTA's daily ridership is closer to 500,000--not 142,000. Additionally, the fact that the state contributes zero dollars to the system's operation is a huge factor that undermines MARTA's ability to realize its true potential.
Beverly Scott's departure from MARTA is a huge blessing for Atlanta and MARTA.
Almost five years ago, Scott came to MARTA with a big resume, big persona and a big voice. Optimism was high among management and labor. However, in less than two years after assuming the helm at MARTA, it became very apparent that Scott lacks the vision, management skills, or discipline to lead the 9th largest transit system in America. All talk--no responsible or positive action. Lots of excuses.
She neither solved nor improved any of MARTA's internal management issues, but did create a panoply of problems that did not exist before her arrival and exacerbated those that were already there.
In Atlanta Scott continued the bad habits she had at RIPTA and in Sacramento, an inability to listen to reason, pandering to the union for her own purposes, and"spending money like a drunken sailor", as one RIPTA bus operator aptly described her tenure there. At MARTA, she has shamelessly interfered with, and trampled over management to coddle the labor union (ATU) and irresponsibly placed its interests above those of MARTA and the public that the Authority serves.
Under Scott MARTA management's ability to manage the operation has been severely compromised by her bizarre and unhealthy alliance with the extremely dysfunctional and irresponsible ATU Local.
With Scott's departure from MARTA, there can be no tears shed by management--only be a collective sigh of relief. Maybe now, unencumbered by Scott's oppressively dysfunctional policies, practices and anti-management sympathies, MARTA can move forward under new leadership.
Scott is not leaving MARTA better than she found it. Without question, the downturn in the economy has played a large role in derailing potential growth and development, however Beverly Scott's own negative contribution to MARTA's well-being cannot be dismissed. Her "leadership" has set MARTA back. It will take years for the Authority to recover, but at least now, the company can look forward to getting on with that process.
Condolences to MBTA. The T deserves better. So did RIPTA, Sacramento, and MARTA.
I thought the headline said
I thought the headline said "Atlantean", and I was like "Namor would be a TERRIBLE leader for the MBTA! He'd replace the unions with an army of giant seahorses, the trains would only run underwater, and he'd periodically flood the cars to get rid of us unpure land-walkers!"
Sounds like an improvement
I'll take it.
It would help with the track
It would help with the track fire problem.
Good luck, Ms. Scott
Welcome to Boston. Good luck.
I hope that Ms. Scott proves the governor right in his notion that you can pay markedly below-market salaries to people who run important pieces of public transport infrastructure and still get the best people.
After all, who wouldn't want to move to one of the nation's highest cost of living areas for a below market salary?
If you didn't notice, and haven't seen me complain about this before, I'm a little concerned that the Governor is dead wrong on this and how he views the authorities in general.
I am sincere, however, in wishing Ms. Scott luck and hoping that she has come because she truly wants to make a difference, and that she is wildly successful in doing so.
$$$$
I thought I'd seen somewhere that the salary of the next GM & Massport CEO would be more in line w/salaries of their counterparts in similar sized agencies
Massport CEO salary NOT in line with comparables.
That is definitely not the case with Massport. In fact, the new CEO of Massport will be making $45K less than his predecessor (whose salary was still well below market).
The new Massport CEO (Tom Glynn) salary is $250K. The market for comparable positions is $400-500K (and some of those salaries are not even at authorities - they are in divisions of city government, e.g., Chicago and Atlanta, although they are generally paid out of airport revenues). Many of those higher salaries are also paid in areas where the cost of living is significantly lower.
Mr. Glynn was able to take this position, in part, because he has been the COO of Partners Health Care for a while. Hence, he is probably not hurting for cash.
I do not have the numbers on how the T stacks up w/r/t other transit agencies. However, I did not get the feeling that Ms. Scott was coming from a high paying private sector job like Mr. Glynn, but I do not know that.
$250 K
So, that's hurting for cash?
Really?
Congratulations
To the new scapegoat^Wgeneral manager.
How much money will the MBTA
How much money will the MBTA (wastefully) spend to rebrand every piece of literature, signage, project boards and such with her likeness?
Cripes
Knowing the MBTA said changes
Knowing the MBTA said changes will be made with a half dried out sharpie.
Atlanta/Boston
And the MBTA/MARTA are as different as night and day. Atlanta is a big suburb with low population density. Boston is a real city, highly urban, with a big population density. MARTA carries a fraction of the riders the MBTA [4th largest in the country] carries per day.
Just saying.
Transit systems
She has worked in Providence, NYC and other locations as well. Hopefully she'll be able to "scale up." She's proven she can scale down, as she's going from a $310K salary to $220K, which is still more than the $150K that Davey earns as her boss.
For an expensive town we do expect people to work for less than what they might make in an equivalent job elsewhere or in the private sector. Either we're low-balling everything and making these jobs a case of noblesse oblige, or maybe honcho salaries in general ought to come back down to earth.
It looked like she was also
It looked like she was also getting ready to retire otherwise when she announced she was leaving MARTA last year before the MBTA opportunity came up. She might not have been interested in taking the salary reduction had she planned on staying at MARTA. It seems like she is willing to work for less money to cap her public service career at a large agency. If she does well at a larger authority like the T, she can perhaps earn even more as a consultant once she eventually retires from public sector work.
Or...
...if she gets torn to shreds by the riders/politicians/talk show hosts/general media environment in Boston, she can become an analyst for ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball.