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Dr. McCoy takes the Red Line: It's dead, Jim
By adamg on Wed, 05/29/2013 - 8:15am
Major delays in both directions after a switch near Park Street mistakenly puts on a red shirt. Dr. McCoy can only sigh: "I'm a doctor, not a track worker!"
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Got to the North Quincy station around 8:15
Here's hoping I make my 10 am meeting Dowtown. Fingers crossed!
The MBTA is BROKEN
It's a broken system. The 'signal problems' are no longer amusing. The slow moving trains and streetcars are crippling the system. I'm only surprised more peed'ed off people haven't gone postal, and I'm not talking about spitting at T workers. T workers are the problem. Management is the problem. Undoubtedly union management are also a big problem. They mostly hide behind closed doors and tinted window SUVs and suburbans. It's so endemic I have to assume it's a concerted effort to brake the system for more funding? To write off debt?
My opinion
Personally I just get the impression management has stopped caring- yes, the system's collapsing around them. Maybe they could squeeze the union by cutting benefits to get more money, but it still wouldn't be enough, so what's the point? (And we already had one crash caused by a T employee working outside jobs) They could spend money on replacing one part of the signal system, but it doesn't change the fact that the rest is utterly fucked too, so just do the barebones to get a train moving even it had to go slow.
Honestly the T needs another total housecleaning like when the MTA became the MBTA in 1967. Bring in all new leadership willing to make dramatic changes, backed by a more functional funding system that gives the money needed to make them happen. But none of our politicians want to put in the effort to solve the problem...
I honestly think it'll take a major crash or infrastructure failure to make the legislature wake up here.
Why is the T spend billions
Why is the T spend billions of dollars on expansion of the green and purple lines instead of spending the money on maintenance of existing lines?
Wasting money on renovations
I work in the Goverment Center area (yes, I changed jobs) and somehow the T has millions and millions to shut down the Government Center station for two years to completely renovate it.
It seems to me that money could be better spent on making the (expletive deleted) trains run.
That's all well and good...
But the MBTA is not picking up the tab for Government Center's reconstruction (or extensions of anon's Green and purple lines). Pick a bone with the state on that one.
Federal funds cover about 80%
And from what I remember, the Government Center T stop has been in violation of the ADA guidelines for years and pays a fine everyday for this violation until it is resolved.
My Bad
My default position is to blame the MBTA.
It's still the T's fault. They're just not paying for most of it.
I don't understand
Crumbling stations are part of the problem. So... repairs and renovations are a good thing, aren't they? Government Center is a pit, and yes, ADA compliance is actually an important thing.
Wasteful, silly federal government regulations?
The ADA has cost taxpayer's a king's ransom. And been a gravytrain for contractors. There's a better way, a middle way. Yes, blowing a king's ransom on ONE STATION to make it ADA compatible is ridiculous, and part of the reason there's a lack of funding for sensible projects that benefit the maximum number of people. Like many government regulations and laws it's very wasteful and was designed to please a small handful of powerful lobbyist, not the general public or certainly not the taxpayers.
I used to take the commuter rail from Fairmount Ave. They renovated the station to make full ADA compliant at this time and built elaborate ramps and what-not. I used the station all the time, RARELY...VERY RARELY did I see disabled folks in wheelchairs use these ramps, and on the few occasions I did see folks in wheelchairs at the station, they used the sloping access road into the station, which is PERFECT for people in wheelchairs!
Still waiting for Hubway ADA compliance!
Not ALL stations are on MBTA transit stops. Bikes need motors for those who can't pedal!
Anon,
How many people with disabilities would you see at Fairmount Ave station if it were not ADA compliant? None, that's how many. And do you station yourself there 24/7 to see who gets on and off? I feel so relieved to know you're keeping count.
Did you fully read my post?
It has an access road that's perfectly suited for people in wheelchairs already there.
And yes, it's a waste of precious resources. The rules for ADA compliance are anal, which is part of the reason why it's expensive to become ADA compliant. If I didn't know anybody, I'd swear various industry lobbyist wrote the ADA compliance bill to primarily financially benefit them. No...what am I saying, that would never happen.
Wheelchair access
is just one part of access. My sister uses a walker, some people use canes, some people can't lift their feet up. Handrails are important too, as are textured bumpy strips to help guide those who can't see the edge of the platform. An access road is great, but how about platform access?
The Scollay Under platform
The Scollay Under platform will still reek of urine, regardless of how long they close Government Center or how many millions are spent on the station. I'm all for repairs and renovations, but the T spends too much money on building overly-fancy stations, and never enough to keep them clean and properly maintained.
That's because management is loathe to do
anything that requires maintaining a labor force.
Witness recent decisions like "we need to waste money on a smartphone app for people to pay their fares despite the fact we have people on the trains that can just as easily collect those fares" or "we need to waste money on expensive on-board announcement systems despite the fact that all trains and buses have operators that can just as easily make those announcements."
How about "we just got locomotives delivered in new paint, yet we need to hold a contest to develop a paint scheme for those same locomotives." Or "we have a perfectly functional system map, but let's hold a contest to develop a new one." The list of such "necessary" blunders could go on and on.
Sadly, as long as the majority of riders continue to request such bells and whistles, and as long as the media continues to accept and support such "customer service" measures, instead of demanding that the MBTA focus their time and money on basic repair and maintenance activities (without wasting time and money on the "necessary" years of studies and planning and public hearings and focus groups and the like), the basic culture at the MBTA will never change in our lifetime.
Smartphone apps
Don't get a pension when they don't work anymore.
1. "we need to waste money on
1.
2.
3.
----
1. Conductors can easily be too busy running around and operating doors to be making announcements. I believe the automated announcements are partially because of ADA requirements (for the blind), anyway. That way a conductor not being able to make announcements isn't a problem. The problem shouldn't be cost -- it should be pretty simple -- but the problem is how freakin' glitchy it can be... it's sad.
2. The two locomotives we got are NOT the same as the ones on order. The survey cost the MBTA *nothing* but an hour for some PR person to create a poll and later log the tabulated results and press release it. The locomotives we are getting are going to be pretty different from the ones we got from Utah Transit Authority.
3. The contest is free and the MBTA will not offer any compensation to the contestants. Would you rather they spend their own money on designing them? No, you'd complain about that, too! Sheesh!
Renovating stations in and of itself isn't the problem
The grandiose plan for the new Government Center and having it completely shut down for two years (which really means five) is.
Do we really need a station that looks like the one depicted in this article?
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/downtown/2012/...
It's a T stop, not the Louvre.
The headhouse isn't the
The headhouse isn't the time-consuming portion. I think two years is too much, but they do have a lot to do down there. They have to raise the entire Green Line floor eight inches, clean up the mess of electrical wiring, open a big hole in the ground and install four elevators into retrofitted shafts, all while trains continue to operate. They are also fixing a bit of the street above ground.
That's the first I've heard
That's the first I've heard about the T paying a daily fine for not building an elevator yet, and I follow this issue closely. Do you have a cite?
I know I saw it somewhere
But let me see if I can dig it up. I've seen the fine mentioned several times but only in comment threads more recently. I do recall reading though, might be the Globe or another local rag.
Well
I thought the Green Line extension was a legally binding mandate from the Big Dig era.
...also the Red-Blue
...also the Red-Blue connector and Blue Line extension to Lynn.
Not to mention
restoration of streetcar service to Arborway.
Given the sorry state the
Given the sorry state the already built parts of the T, couldn't the T go back into court and ask for a some relief. Are these court decisions so etched in stone that it is better that expansion proceed without regard for the safety and service levels of riders on the T now.
The two aren't connected!
If the T doesn't build the GLX, why would it get to keep the money assigned to build it? So then you're back at the same problem- at least if you build it Somerville will benefit.
First of all, GLX funds will
First of all, GLX funds will not go to the T otherwise. So there's nothing to be gained by dropping the extension.
Second, the GLX will benefit the existing Green Line in many ways. It means a whole new yard for maintenance. It brings with it brand new trains that will circulate all over the system. The new Lechmere station will see twice as many trains per day as the old one did, and North Station will see 50% more. The GLX balances the scheduling of trains more evenly, which should mean fewer trains "held" for headway adjustment.
There's a reason that the MTA planned this extension over 60 years ago. It's been a long time coming.
Funding is restricted
When monies are made available for expansion, the monies may only be used for that purpose. Restrictions of that nature are often a condition of getting such funds. The MBTA cannot simply take money earmarked for expansion or some other specific project, and spend it on something else.
So funds obtained for expansion of the Green Line, have to be used for that. Funds to fix Government Center station must be used for that.
And yes, it is a matter of fixing it. Gov't Center is one of the last stations in the system that is not fully ADA compliant, and they are under a court order to get it done in a certain time frame.
Welcome to the Party
Years ago, I first stumbled on UHub through blogs raging at the MBTA.
Years later, that blog (BadTransit) is long gone, but the problems remains. To be fair, I think the MBTA is off from its worst point. Thinking back to 2006 or so, they resisted showing train data, finances, and implementing convenient tech (still refusing signal priority, but at least releasing the data now). This is only a breather though, their finances has only gotten worse as they can't pay enough to cover interest and operations at the same time. And the most important part - the infrastructure and trains itself - has only gotten older.
Welcome to the party.
Can't Bones
...just synthesize a switch from that tribble he brought back to life?