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Baker panel: Don't invest in the T; just crack down on its spending
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So more of the same
So I see this as
"more of the same" from the T. Nothing will change. Great.
Not surprised hearing this from Baker's 'committee'. Baker could give two shits if the T stopped tomorrow, so he doesn't care. So more of the same...
Time to think about re-investigate buying a car before next winter..
Belt-tightening for all!
Well, not exactly all.
Amazing
It took over a month to come up with "do nothing". I guess they did some serious fact-finding and deduced that it probably wouldn't snow during the summer of 2024, when things will actually matter.
I agree
I was saying this too the roommate on the ride in this morning. I bet if we all supported the Olympics, things would be done instantly and will full and proper funding. No questions asked.
Goes to show people that the 'rich' only care about the T when their bottom line is on the line...
They're playing games with us
I agree, especially as low-income Bostonians have been displaced to the city fringes for years now. Whyever would *those people* in north Somerville or Mattapan want better/any service? And after all that blather about T funding not being tied to the Olympics, well, we shall see.
If you are on twitter, I tweeted a challenge to the governor to take the T for a year. Of course he won't, but please feel free to retweet & amplify it.
done
done and followed. Created my own also.
What about organizing a Black
What about organizing a Black Lives Matter-style blockade protest of the entrance to the Legislature parking lot?
You'd have to find a day they are working
Otherwise, no problem for them. Expect police to clear protesters faster than at onramps. They know who's in charge of pay and pensions!
Baker made it clear on day one...
Baker was clearly against any funding increase for the T from the start. So his panel knows better than to recommend any new investment or revenue.
Panel member Jane Garvey says "We certainly acknowledge that chronic underinvestment has been an issue, but we need to right the ship first." So expect the funding issue to get kicked down the road while Baker rearranges the deck chairs, putting the squeeze on the T wherever possible.
I don't expect it will be hard to find some inefficiencies but it's pretty ridiculous to rule out any funding increase. There is no way that penny-pinching alone is going to resolve the T's massive debt burden.
This old T
"We certainly acknowledge that chronic underinvestment has been an issue, but we need to right the ship first."
Jane, your house is full of termites and your roof is leaking. But you want to deal with that by having the housecleaner do the rugs again?
No
We want you to do that by paying for an exterminator and hiring a roofer. What, you can't afford it? Well then drop the gym membership, cable TV and the two nights a week out with the girls Jane.
See below - there is no shortage of revenue that has doubled over 14 years. It's a misallocation of that revenue into operating expenses rather than capital.
You forgot the loan
Remember that Jane woke up to find that someone had taken out a second mortgage on her house without her permission.
You forgot the annuity
That they gave Jane so she could pay the second mortgage with money left over.
Wasn't that annuity suppose
Wasn't that annuity that was suppose to cover the payments with some left over turns out it far less than calculated so she is taking funds for other stuff to make payments?
Nope
Because even if it was less - so was the payment on the adjustable mortgage which went down along with all interest rates. Plus then they gave her two more annuities - one in 2010 and one last year - just for good measure. Her annuity payments now exceed that second mortgage payment by a factor of about 10-1.
Trite analogies abound
No, our house is full of spendthrifts, profligates, alcoholics, and addicts. Let's cure their problem before we throw more money at them, eh?
Stop belittling the State Legislature
A few of them aren't alcoholics.
I agree
Yup, stuck on the platform or not even being able to take the T at all my first thought was that the T is obviously spending too much money and needs to cut back.
The T has been trying to cut every corner possible which is why no money had previously been spent on any spare parts or snow removal that would have made the system more usable this winter.
I'd readily agree that the T needs to cut costs -- right after they figure out how to make the system run as designed.
Oh well. Guess we have major service cuts to look forward to. They can't cut labor (Unions), they can't cut fuel/health costs, and they can't raise money. So the only thing left is drastically cutting back on services.
yup
This is what I love.. they've tried to cut costs, but there are some costs that cannot be trimmed anymore. hello.. this is why we've had deferred maintenance on so much equipment because they have cut costs so much already.
Not sure what else there is to cut except start cut back on service.
I recall how the conversation used to go in Philly...
...when I was a kid and SEPTA was living from starvation budget to starvation budget. Every couple years there were threats of massive system cuts. I can recall at least a couple instances of threatened massive Regional Rail (commuter rail) cuts, to the extent of eliminating entire lines.
Sometimes the idea was floated that instead of trimming the system line by line, SEPTA management should just run the system for as many days as funding allows, and then shut down. No picking who's service is more important than others, just full stop.
Then again, I guess we sorta tried that here this winter.
Go back and look at the income statement
The T's revenues have doubled in 14 years - about double the rate of inflation - while interest costs have plummeted. What did they do? Invest in capital projects? No. Mostly they gave everybody raises every year and continued overly generous fringes.
The T does not have a revenue problem - they have a spending problem. When you double revenues and cut debt service from 30% to 20% of your budget in an extremely capital intensive business that's a recipe for disaster of your own making.
Wait, what?
Doesn't the article directly contradict you?
You're saying that revenue increased at double the rate of inflation. So... whose numbers are right here?
Here
Go to CKD's post here (about 1/3 of the way down the first page of the thread):
http://www.universalhub.com/2015/sorry-charlie-mbta-general-manager-quits
and click on the link where it says (source) - I believe these numbers to be accurate. What I think they are talking about are OPERATING revenues and OPERATING costs. It gets a little convoluted because they have outsourced some operations, got additional revenue streams etc. - but you can see the rest.
I'm doing this from memory -but the numbers were $1 billion total revenue in 2001 and $2 billion in 2015. Debt service increased from $290 million to $425 million. The rest is mostly operating costs - or contracted services.
This
This is how deferred maintenance works. You strike the costs from the book earlier and take the credit, then it all blows up down the road, and is MUCH more expensive.
Baker himself sort of did the same thing by moving the big dig debt to the MBTA, but forgot the last step... getting the hell out of Dodge. Granted, that also was about not wrecking the states bond ratings, and ONLY wrecking the MBTA's. But that's not the argument they put forth, and we've seen the consequences now.
Romney and Deval should be raked over the coals for continuing the farce and praying the outcome didn't become apparent during their administrations. But why would you expect them to change anything when they're getting the plus side.
Time for Baker to put up and shut up and lead on this issue. How many billions in lost revenue and productivity hit the region in Feb? Do we really need to see the economic data of what doing nothing will entail?
They aren't doing nothing
They are going to do something - but it won't be popular with the unions. Reading between the lines I think they are going to start getting very tough with collective bargaining. I don't think anybody's going to get cut - they just won't get increases either until we "get the system back on its feet". The additional $100 million they get next year (assuming another 5% revenue increase) won't be going to wages, benefits and pensions. It will be going to new equipment, snowfighting equipment, insulating the electric motors, switch heaters, station improvements, etc. etc. The pendulum will swing eventually - but for now they will scale back operating expense increases and scale up debt servicing for capital expenditures.
Ah yes
The old "we created a crisis and now we will bust unions as a solution".
Nice two-front war on the middle class, that.
Perhaps Baker should look to Brownback and Walker and see how well that has worked for them, personally, but totally fucked over their states economies.
Plenty of blame to go around
bad management, terrible funding mechanism, overly expensive labor - I think this one's more complicated than a simple 'war on the middle class'.
Here's the payroll-
http://www.mbta.com/uploadedfiles/Smart_Forms/News,_Events_and_Press_Rel...
In the first batch of names, there's a police sergeant making $175 and another one making $214k. I'm sure that was all legal with OT, etc... but it's something that should be fixed (along with the train stock, maintenance, funding, etc...) Second page, there's a bus driver making $137k. I think we're well above what standard 'middle class' wages are at the point, right? That all bumps up the pensions too so it's a double impact to the overall budget.
Let's hope the whole system gets fixed, not just the funding.
I always see cops topping
I always see cops topping these municipal and state lists, but I always question how much is really the public's dime. Their pay includes paid details I think, which utilities or someone else is paying.
stevil, this convo is deja vu
The business about fares doubling was discussed a while ago. Looking at it closely, it doesn't really hold as an excuse for not adding funding.
Here's the post that sparked it--
http://www.universalhub.com/2015/governor-creates-commission-figure-out-...
Here's what I pulled as a comparison
http://www.universalhub.com/2015/governor-creates-commission-figure-out-...
Stevil, our rates were waaayyy below other cities until recently, especially other cities with comparable maintenance costs. Our fare doubling was our fare catching up.
the more I read about these city comparisons
The less I think you can do any kind of meaningful comparisons. Every system and funding mechanism is simply too different. Might work in pieces - but not in aggregate.
We spend $115k per employee based on the best numbers I can gather. We could fund billions of dollars in debt and fix just about everything if we could get that to about $95k (which would actually in line with the City of Boston). Not holding my breath
Too late for me - need to sleep... I'm sure we'll get back to this....zzzzzzzz.......
The T has been cutting every
The T has been cutting every corner possible in customer-visible, service-oriented places---the places that will get the public to scream the most about giving them more money. This trick is referred to as the Washington Monument syndrome.
Point to one recent cut in salaries, benefits, pensions, or the number of executive-level employees making six figures. (In fact, the last figure more than doubled under the last GM's watch.)
Point to one. Otherwise, you're just falling for it.
potemkin T ride
Question: did I miss Baker's ride on the T, which he claimed he would take sometime back in February? Or did he just not do it? Maybe he should spend a good week trying out all the subway lines, all the CR lines, and some of the bigger bus lines, and see if he agrees with his nonsense committee's "findings".
Actually
When reporters asked him if he was going to take a ride on the T, he said that wasn't necessary, that doing so would just be showmanship and he'd rather focus on the issues....but nice try.
yeah
nice cop out... god for bid he rides with the "common people"
Shows you how out of touch he really is and how much he cares to fix that (which is zero)
Get Mike Dukakis to ride a tank again
Thant's an equally effective PR stunt and photo op!
Over your area of Arlington?
That sounds like some Patriot's Day worthy activity. Oops, confused the brake and gas pedal, my bad, sorry about your car and house, Marrkkkkkk.
Good God, not his car!!
Don't even joke about that.
Some do make sacrifices
The T should try it. This year, for the first time in over 100 years, Arlington is skipping a Patriots Day parade due to lack of funding.
Good point about Dukakis. He and Kitty should not be allowed to drive.
Ridng the T as showmanship??
-
We all know the best Governor
We all know the best Governor was a Green Line rider.
I do wonder what the last time any elected official used a regular service bus.
They should start by closing
They should start by closing stations to save money.
And then by eliminating service after 8pm
And then maybe shutting the underperformed lines, like the Blue and Orange.
Maybe cancel all buses and tell people to use Uber.
That'll save millions!
J Consulting is available for all your government budgeting needs.
Rainbows and Unicorns
Tax cuts can do anything, all you have to do is BELIEVE!
Kansas and Wisconsin
Economies are tanking after mismanagement by tea party buffoons.
citations needed
citations needed
See Kansas and Wisconsin. You
See Kansas and Wisconsin. You're welcome.
Trickle down T funding is your plan
After the unions finish filling up, local politicians get new lines and stations created, then some money might trickle down to maintenance and snow removal equipment. That's what we've got now.
The problem isn't underfunding, but overexpansion and poor return on capital.
Nope
The problem isn't "over expansion", it was looting by the highway overruns, and underfunding.
Go play in traffic, please.
Stop spreading lies
Just because you and others out here keep repeating it does not make it true. Where oh where in their income statement is there the remotest evidence that they got overwhelmed with debt service for road projects (or any projects for that matter - it's really only in the last few years we've seen any material increase in debt service).
there is no factual evidence for anything you state about highway overruns or underfunding. They have added a billion dollars including new revenue streams to the T and it's never enough. If you give them another billion without some reforms - there will still be no improvements 10 years from now. They'll just eat it and claim it wasn't enough, we need more, with no definition of what is needed and how much is enough.
What people seem most angry about is that they've been outed for the BS they've been spewing for years about too much debt.
Oh please
We all know what happened. Transit expansions were supposed to be a part of the big-dig - in fact, the Feds payed for them.
Then the contractors went "oh, oops, spent alll the moneeez" and Baker and friends made sure they got their bail out for the overrun, because the Fed sure as hell doesn't pay for that shit.
Then Baker and Friends got nervous about that shit on the state budget ... SO THEY DUMPED IT ON THE MBTA UNDER THE PRETENSE OF PAYING FOR THINGS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PAID FOR ALREADY!
Got your fucking clue yet? Good.
Dear Clueless,
Take as long as you want rooting around the T's income statement looking for your own "fucking clues". I'm all ears and eyes - but I haven't found one iota of an example of what you are talking about nor has anyone else I've directed to the income statement - in fact the data tends to support my (and the committee's) findings. If that were true - debt service would have skyrocketed - with no offsetting revenues - debt didn't skyrocket (as a percent of income it decreased from 29% to about 21% AND they got more revenue about $75 million annually in 2002, another $160 million in 2010 and another $115 million last year.
Search on "sorry Charlie" - to get the link to the thread on Bev Scott resigning - scroll about 1/3 of the way on first page to CKD's "source" link and have at it.
You're not looking very hard.
The big dig's mitigation projects are part of the MBTA's debt load now.
That's in the "debt service" line item. A good portion of that debt does not belong with the MBTA because it is debt for projects the MBTA as an autonomous agency would never have undertaken, which were undertaken as part of the Big Dig and therefore belong in the Commonwealth's books, not the MBTA's.
You're not paying attention
The T was also given the money to pay for that - and then some. Extra sales taxes, additional support in 2010 and additional additional support in 2014 - to the (now tune) of about half a billion dollars to support a cost increase of $50 million in 2001 - and that's a cost that has probably gone down as interest rates have declined.
Again - I'm all ears if you can find something valid - I haven't seen it.
Dear Clueless (redux)
I'm waiting. Facts get in the way of your bad story?
Read your own damn links,
Read your own damn links, Steve. Here's the MBTA'S operating revenues and expenses for the last decade. See that section labeled "Debt Service"? See how it's growing at a quadratic rate? See where it's the second-largest line-item on the debits column, coming in about 3% less than wages for FY2014, and comprising a full quarter of the budget?
Baker made this mess when he offloaded the Big Dig debt onto the MBTA, and I doubt very much he's going to anything to fix it a decade later.
I read that link very carefully
(yours isn't working -but I have that or a similar spreadsheet).
You have to start in 2001 - with forward funding. Debt service indeed went up $50 million the first year - but income tax revenues to pay for it went up $75 million. Total annual debt service has increased about $130 million over the past 14 years while total revenues are up almost $1 billion. Most of that $130 million is in the last few years - I'm assuming to pay for all the new cars and locomotives we are taking delivery on - not to pay for the big dig. And even there - revenues are increasing much faster than debt services.
You also miss the fact that it's not just wages - employment costs are payroll taxes, pensions, insurance, fringes and other costs. Oh - and most of those "contracted services" I'm guessing are things like Keolis - which also go to operating costs - mainly wages, pensions, insurance and fringes. At 21% - debt isn't trivial - but it's a lot "trivialer" than it was when we supposedly wrecked the T with all that Big Dig debt people like to blame the problems on.
So long as the ridership pay
So long as the ridership pay only pennies on the dollar of the cost of running the T there will never be a reason for them to respond to the needs of desires of their customers. As I have stated before the T is a patronage system not a transportation system.
So long as commuters pay only
So long as commuters pay only pennies on the dollar of the cost of running our road networks, there will never be a reason for them to respond to the needs of desires of their customers. As I have stated before the DOT is a patronage system not a transportation system.
Fixed that for you. We don't build transportation infrastructure to be profitable, and we do not fund them on per use fees. We fund them collectively because it's the only realistic way to build them, and we build them because they pay out MASSIVE dividends in economic activity for both citizens and corporations.
The same applies to the MBTA, as with most all infrastructure.
February couldn't have been clearer. The issue wasn't the workers, the management, or a lot of other things. The issue was a lack of equipment, and the equipment they had breaking down. Period. Deferred maintenance, deferred because their revenue was tied to the state income tax a decade ago, came back to bite them hard.
Sort of
Legacy costs and a general failure to manage costs wisely mean there is even less money for an underfunded system. Maintenance is deferred because they pay people $68k/yr for retiring in their 40s, etc... among other reasons.
It's both a critical piece of the regional economy AND a patronage system.
Maintenance costs rising? You don't say!
We're told that we pay more in maintenance than any other transit system...but that's because we're further behind the 8-ball than any other transit system.
This type of skin-deep analysis of our problems is akin to saying that in order to control my weight, I should just stop eating as much. Clearly, if I lower my calories per day more and more, I'll eventually find a point where I can start losing weight and THEN I can figure out what to do next. Nevermind that my calorie intake isn't that bad right now and it's a total lack of activity in my daily routine that's the real problem. Sure, "starving the beast" is a solution but at what cost to fitness?
The MBTA doesn't need to starve. It needs fuel so it can burn it in order to get better at what it's supposed to be doing. Also, if we don't have enough staff, we're going to pay MORE for less staff to do all the work via overtime. This is something salaried people at the top never seem to grasp intelligently when they frown at "rising employee salaries" below them.
If you have 200 hours of work to be done and hire four 40-hour employees and then give them 50 hours of work each. They're going to do 50 hours of work and charge you for 10 hours at 1.5x-2x rate each. You're going to end up paying each of them for 60 hours of work (240 hrs) to get the same amount of work done. Instead of hiring a 5th person and giving them the extra 40 hours of work to pay for 200 hours total. Having *the right number* of people on the payroll for the work to be done is necessary. Too many and you have people getting paid to just be alive (a small amount of this is completely acceptable for crunch times). Too few and you're overpaying for overtime. Maybe the management hasn't gotten a clear view on what the "right number" is. THAT should be fixed if true.
But in the meantime, we have a maintenance backlog a mile long. THAT means more workers to clear it out or more overtime. Either way, the labor cost needs to rise, so whining about it until we're back on square ground again seems REALLY stupid. Spend the money to right the ship, not tighten belts to right the ship. The MBTA has been chronically underfunded. Somehow underfunding it further sounds like the right option? Don't be stupid.
And all of that is further compounded...
...when overtime becomes a "way of life." I'm sure there are a lot of inefficiencies, especially in maintenance work, but it's only being encouraged by needing to expend massive amounts of overtime because they can't hire the right amount of staff in the first place.
There's a balance
If you can have slightly fewer people than you need at peak moments, that's better than full staffing in terms of secondary costs like retirement, healthcare, etc... It's better to have 4 employees working some OT than 6 working 40 hours unless the OT is 52 weeks a year. That's not really the core of this issue though.
For example, here's an article outlining how many people retire young from the MBTA - http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2014/08/14/third-mbta-new...
So they have tons of legacy costs which are eating into the current system budget. My white whale Jim Rooney late of the BCC, now heading the Chamber of Commerce, for example gets $68k per year from the MBTA as he retired in his 40s. I think there's tons of that across the system which makes conservative reformers skeptical of the budget shortfall claims. And of course, even the worlds greatest public transportation wizard can't get us any more trains for a few more years due to the gross mismanagement of that roll-out (mostly on the vendor).
If we put $1b into the MBTA tomorrow, what it be used for? I guess infrastructure repair and update and hiring the people to do it.
tl: dr - I don't have any faith in any party involved in this 'reform' from the governor to the MBTA.
I get why early retirement
I get why early retirement and pension nastiness makes people wary of spending more money, but the thing is those costs are already committed to. The MBTA HAS done reform for new employees going forward, but they are legally committed to paying the pensions and following by the rules they said they were going to -- and honestly, they should be! Everyone crowing about how the MBTA should just stop paying pensions and use that to fix the train would be absolutely wrecked if their employer did the same with their 401k.... but because it's government employees it's okay?
New hires should be subject to stricter rules and told they aren't retiring at 40, but the endless complaining about what's done is ridiculous. The horses are already out of the gate, and fiscal conservatives want to whine about the state of their bridles instead of working to get it closed.
Not really my point, but true
I'm not at all saying we should take people's pensions, that's water under the bridge. However, it's a nice clear example of how in the recent history, the management of the MBTA has done a poor job of managing their organization and their budget. Have they really fixed these issues? A bus driver making $137k/yr is a sign of an unhealthy organization IMO.
Do you know that they've reformed all of this stuff? I'd hope so but I'm not confident that's true.
The MBTA needs to be reformed and the funding fixed, both. I think only dumping more money into the system is a flawed idea.
I believe there were
I believe there were adjustments made to collective bargaining for new employees as part of one of the last two fare increases. But, that only applies to new hires, so it's probably not doing a whole lot until they get some people cycled out.
Well, my next vote is set now
Well, my next vote is set now.
WTF is this with Massachusetts?
Again and again we keep giving this or that republican the chance to show he's one of the sane ones, and it keeps biting us in the ass.
Democratic party nominating system
Every once in a while the Democrats manage to let the party apparatchiks railroad through a candidate who would lose to Jeffrey Dahmer in the general election.
Political party not the problem
The majority of politicians in state and local government are Democrats, including the state legislature. If the legislature actually wanted this problem fixed they would figure out a way to do something about it, regardless of the Governor and their political party.
True
But it's also true that as the leader of the state, the buck stops with him. What good is the governor if he just washes his hands when important infrastructure that serves the largest economic engine in the region is under threat of not working?
He's the leading candidate to make the case to the legislature full of central and western MA residents that as goes the Boston Metro economy, so goes the things they appreciate like road maintenance, economic development, the WRTA and PVTA, and state funds for their pet civic projects.
The core of the engine that benefits the entire state, and the source of most tax revenue, is within 495 and heavily served by the MBTA.
You want trickle down effects, let it collapse with Governor that thinks its not his problem, and a legislature who is practicing rural / city/ us / them politics. Just another game theory race to the bottom!
But the panel calls on the T
This is already a catch-22. How often do you enter a station that is completely devoid of visible MBTA employees? And of those employees, how many are transit police? Or even standing near the fare gates? Park, Kenmore and other "major" stations, sure. But I see Transit Police sitting in their cars outside of stations more than I see them in the station. I constantly get tailgated through Airport, and at first used to say something myself. But after a few verbal altercations, I stopped even paying attention to it because there's nobody there if someone decides to get physical.
If you want to fix this, you need bodies in stations, period. And that means MONEY.
On the other end, what can they actually do to fare evaders? This is an honest question that I don't know the answer to: Can the MBTA legally fine fare evaders? And if so, what are the ramifications if the offender doesn't pay (because you know they won't/can't).
Where is the tipping point for riders here? Most people who park and ride come in from outside the city and are looking to save some money or hassle. At what point do they decide that it's better to drive in and pay to park in the city than to pay close to the same amount in fares?
For example, a Zone 5 monthly commuter rail pass is $265. The MBTA states online that parking is $4-$7/day, so the total commute cost for someone who parks at a station and takes the train in 20 days/month (just for example purposes) would be paying $345-$405. A month spot at the Pru garage is $470. Now, taking the examples I used and the assuming the MBTA raises parking rates, or even fares 5% and maybe even begins to cut service further on the commuter rail: Would you rather pay $400+/month to park and ride in sh@#box that may not even get you where you need to go if there is any form of precipitation whatsoever and does so on a limited schedule, or pay that amount to drive in from Concord or Framingham (the towns in my example zone) yourself? Sure, there are other variables such as gas and the fact that the commuter rail pass covers local service, but I'm sure there are also cheaper garages and carpooling that could balance out with weekly local passes or even a monthly one.
Maybe the people that drive in to Wellington and other closer stations don't end up with the same numbers, and there would still be some value for them, but there still has to be some sort of tipping point there too.
Better management, going after fare evaders, etc. are all going to be key in making the T actually work, but there's no way they're doing that without more funding, just from the manpower perspective alone.
Speaking of fare evasion
Two years ago, there was an actual study done on this and the result was that the fare evasion rate was something like 1.5% ( http://walkingbostonian.blogspot.com/2013/07/is-fare-evasion-really-prob... ). It accounted for something like a total of only $1M. $1M is not going to save the MBTA. The idea that we should spend anything to chase down the $1M is laughable in the face of the problems at the MBTA right now.
Fare Evaders
Are the welfare queens of transit. An easy out to rile up the public and shift blame.
Deflect, deflect, deflect. The issue isn't revenue and allocation, the issue the "the other" who we can pin the blame on, regardless of minuscule fiscal impact the other is causing, or the Herculean costs of policing and fixing it.
There is right and wrong, and these guys are wrong, so they must be stopped.
But hey, at least we can get all outragey and shake fists at clouds!
But, but
Upper middle class white college students from NEW JERSEY with their iPhones and Uggs and North Face are stealing Green Line rides!
/sarcasm
Yup
And new trains and switches cost 1/2 a billion dollars.
The problem is math, statistics, and analysis are hard, apparently. Easier to stuff a scarecrow!
I wouldn't say
"chasing down" is the right approach, as much as staffing stations.
Recovering that much isn't necessarily going to happen if you catch everyone that tries to evade, because many just won't/can't afford to ride. I've also seen instances the ticket mechanism on every gate in a station is "broken" and it's card only, so those with tickets who have actually paid are forced to "evade".
But even if they can recover half of that, $500k can be used to hire a handful of new employees to man stations. If they're taking the "chipping away" approach, EVERY little bit counts, but it's all in the management and execution.
Recently, I was on a Green
Recently, I was on a Green Line 2-car train on a Saturday afternoon. The driver in the front told the rear car driver "All doors, please" to which the rear driver replied "Negatory." He wanted to collect all fares while the front driver wanted to keep on schedule.
The intercom pissing contest shows one of the issues... we can collect all the fares or we can be somewhat on time. Pick one.
Sad thing is
The salary that they're paying that rear-train 'driver' to sit there and collect fares is something like $100/hour or more. No way that's worthwhile.
It might be the most unnecessary job in the entire MBTA, perhaps.
The MBTA is wasting money on paying drivers to sit in the second and third cars of Green Line trains. The MBTA then wastes money by forcing Green Line trains to be delayed as everyone files through the front door. Then trains are bunched up and people are upset because they had to wait 30 minutes for a train that's supposed to arrive every 7 minutes. And then some idiot gets upset because they see an "empty train" go by and think it's wasteful.
Agencies that care about running light rail efficiently do not behave like the MBTA.
The whole advantage of train operation over bus is that a SINGLE driver can operate multiple cars. That's where the money savings comes from, that's why trains are more efficient than buses for high capacity systems. SF MUNI has been doing this for many years now with their subway-surface light rail system.
The MBTA throws that advantage on the ground and spits on it.
Light rail vehicles like the Green Line can easily pull up to level-boarding platforms and quickly board and alight large numbers of passengers simultaneously, making station stops take no more than 20 seconds. Passengers pay off-board or by tapping their fare-card at one of several receivers placed throughout the train. SF MUNI just released a report on their major success allowing all-door boarding throughout all buses and light-rail vehicles.
The MBTA doesn't care about wasted time, wasted money, or passenger's time.
Cities and regions that care about running transit efficiently, following close to schedule, all use signal priority for transit vehicles over general automotive traffic, dedicated lanes for buses and LRVs, leading intervals at traffic signals, station consolidation at reasonable distances, etc.
The MBTA has to be dragged kicking and screaming towards any of these improvements.
Yeah, the MBTA wastes money, but the sad thing is that almost everything that they propose in terms of cuts and savings turns out to make things worse! Front-door-only boarding is practically the canonical example of shooting yourself in the foot in the name of "finding savings." It doesn't make more money, it makes operations run worse, and that costs even more money!
Sorry Matthew
but "Citation Please" for this comment.
I only ask because 100/hour is utter BS.. sorry. So please, quote your source.
Closer to $30/hr
According to the Herald's database from 2013 ( http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/databases/payroll?database=9&ye... ), a Green Line motorperson is earning an annual salary around $63400/yr. That's about $30.50/hr for a full-time staff member (2080 hours per year).
For $100/hr and working 40 hrs/week, you're talking about $208,000/yr. Only two people got that much or more and one of them was the GM in their *gross income* (adding in back pay, overtime, etc.). GM Scott's annual salary was the only one over $200,000.
Thank you Kaz
Thank you. I didn't want to get into a pissing contest again (as I have before) about T employee scale, but that's ABOUT correct. Starting Pay is about 22/hr for LRV Operators. So 30/hr after a few raises over a few years seems about right.
more like $50/hour once you
more like $50/hour once you actually account for the cost of an employee, which does not end at salary. Benefits like health insurance, training, vacation, more overhead, all push this number up.
Fair enough
I was in a hurry. Buses cost $162.97/vrh and light rail trains cost $245.60/vrh. "vrh" = "Vehicle Revenue Hour".
http://www.ntdprogram.gov/ntdprogram/pubs/profiles/2013/agency_profiles/...
As a rule-of-thumb, approximately 2/3rds or more of that cost is due to labor in a first-world country. So I did a quick divide-by-2 (mostly two-car trains) and rounded off. Maybe too hastily.
I took a moment to go and look through the breakdown of operating expenses and service for the MBTA (NTD ID 1003) at this webpage: http://www.ntdprogram.gov/ntdprogram/datbase/2013_database/NTDdatabase.htm
Scroll down to ID 1003, under category "LR" (Light Rail) and "DO" (Directly Operated) you will find the first three columns of the Operating Expenses spreadsheet are:
"Operators salaries and wages" + "Other salaries and wages" + "Fringe Benefits"
That adds up to $109,346,812.
Then go to the Services spreadsheet and pick out the "Vehicle Revenue Hours" column, or if you wish "Actual Vehicle Hours" (the difference is tiny). That's about 620,000 annually.
$109,346,812 / 620,000 = cost of labor per vehicle hour = $176 per vehicle hour.
Then figure that includes both 1-car trains, Mattapan trains, but is largely dominated by 2-car trains with two operators.
So I think that my quick off-the-cuff estimate of $100/hour for an operator is not that far off, in fact.
Okay, gotta run again. Sox are starting in a moment...
Um
No, you're way off. Sorry.
If I used a similar calculation for my job, I'd make over 350/hr. Which is not even close.
No I don't work for the T, but the same logic can apply to me.
Your making a broad assumption that those costs are labor, when they aren't.
Sorry as I've said before in previous threads and above, starting pay is 22.50/hr for LRV operator. You can even see it on www.mbtalottery.com where it's posted. Sorry, 100/hr is a HUGE jump from 22.50/hr (or even the 30/hr Kaz quoted above). It just doesn't make any sense at all.
So either those numbers are skewed OR someone is making more than the rest OR your math equation doesn't add up right. Seems to be the latter. Sorry!
But what are the "labor costs"?
I don't expect you to know, and damned if I know either. I would imagine that health insurance, worker's comp, pension contributions by the authority, and the like would still would not come out to $50 per hour, but who knows, we could be missing something.
Of course, the labor costs might include the salaries of dispatchers, the employees that are (or should be) at the staffed stations, and other labor that would not be maintenance or office labor, so if their salaries are included with the people who actually drive the green line, a disconnect could be there.
Direct labor costs
In the 2015 budget (wages, fringes, health/welfare and payroll taxes) come to $742 million - not including contractors etc.
Thought I heard Bev Scott cite a number of "6530 men and women of the T" - which translates to $113,600 per employee - or about $55 per hour assuming a 2000 hour work year. This apparently does not include pensions - which I'm guessing would add $5-$10 per hour.
YES
This is what I was thinking. That number Matthew comes up with has to include more than one employee in order to be that high. Because there are peripheral jobs that 'support' GL operations like you said, such as operators, inspectors, station attendances, and what not. THIS would add to that single number, but to go off and say LRV drivers make 100/hr isn't exactly correct in that statement.
Isn't that the point though?
The bottom line question here (in this part of this thread) is if there is wasted money on paying employees too much for the wrong work. The scope of that in terms of what the employee takes home is really secondary to what their bottom line cost is as a budget item. So a MBTA employee making $30/hr with all the benefits of their union job is a more expensive employee than say some guy making $30/hr at Costco (most likely). And that's what we should be concerned about - the overall effectiveness per dollar of that person, not what they are getting in their weekly check.
Again, this is only one piece of the MBTA reform pie, not the biggest part but it's real considering the big jump in costs in the past 10 years.
OR
You could just go look up the annual wages of all the operators because it's publicly available and just divide by 2080 to figure out what they make per hour. Unless they're not working an average of 40 hours per week.
However, they'd have to work 15 hrs/week and earn $60k/yr in order to get close to $100/hr.
but that's not correct either
But that wouldn't be correct either. Think Part time workers or swing operators or workers who aren't 'full timers' yet. I think this is a bit more than some basic math to figure this out.. too many variables.
Spoke too fast
I'm not saying to add up all their wages. I didn't mean to suggest that. I looked at their salaries and picked the obvious median of $63,400/yr.
Not fair at all
I did what you suggested and looked at the NTD records.
I think you added like $50M in vehicle and non-vehicle maintenance to your total...for what you're calculating is the expense of the salaries of the rear driver. Seems like a big oversight or dishonesty.
Vehicle Operations and General Administration add up to about $70M. Which when divided by your calculation of vehicle revenue hours (which I haven't double checked) comes to $113/hr, divide by 2 for two drivers, you get $57/hr...and that's with all the benefits included.
I've made a huge mistake
Two of them, actually, that nearly offset each other.
I guess that's what I get for trying to rush.
But let me first point out the mistake that cybah and you made earlier: you can't just go by salary alone, because the cost of a train operator to the MBTA is far higher than just the headline salary. It was my bad to talk about salary in the first post, what I really meant was that it costs the MBTA a lot of money just to have the operator sit there in the rear car. Not all of that money goes to salary, but it's still a cost the MBTA is paying and needs to make up somehow.
...
Okay, let's go through this slowly, so you can check my work, and then compare results. The first mistake I made was that I must have picked out the "HR, DO" line from the spreadsheet because that's how I got my sum. Sorry. I must have clicked on the wrong line. Let's use your helpful screencap of the spreadsheet:
Operator Salaries and Wages + Fringe Benefits
I took the time to go through the reporting manual and I now believe that we should leave aside the "Other Salaries and Wages" column. The problem is that no breakdown is given of the cost of Fringe Benefits for operators of trains vs the Fringe Benefits for "Other" employees. I'm going to make the assumption that it is proportional. In other words, if $26.2m + $8.2m of salaries for both Operator and Other is covered by $25.9m of Fringe Benefits, then proportionally, approximately $19.7m of those Fringe Benefits may accrue to train operators.
Therefore the cost of Operator Salaries and Wages + Fringe Benefits is $26.2m + $19.7m = approx $46m of costs per year.
Vehicle Revenue Hours
The mistake I made earlier was picking out the wrong column in the spreadsheet (sigh), the one I picked was for individual vehicles or passenger cars, not whole trains. But, that actually works out great for our purposes, since we're talking about a system where there is a 1:1 relationship between passenger cars and operators.
I've also decided that "All Vehicle Hours" is the appropriate column because the second operator still has to sit there even while deadheading the train.
So that works out to about 621,000 vehicle hours per year and correspondingly, 621,000 operator hours per year.
Cost of a Green Line operator hour
Putting that all together we do, $46 million / 621,000 = approximate cost of labor is $74 per operator hour for each driver in the train. So it's costing the MBTA at least $74 per each hour that an operator sits in the rear train, not driving.
That's based on the numbers officially reported to the Federal government for Operator Salaries, Wages, and an estimate of Fringe Benefits. There could be other costs, but I'll leave them aside for the time being.
Better?
All my other points stand. The Green Line should be operated with signal priority, consolidation of too-close stations, all-door boarding, multiple points of fare collection (including off-board if possible), and one person train operation.
Fare evasion...
In many instances it's not fare evasion, it's no attempt made to collect fares. I often catch a bus out of the Harvard bus terminal and if buses are backed up the driver will open the back door and let people on just to speed things up.
Fare evaders get their driving license suspended
if they don't pay fines after long enough and a hearing. If someone (16 or over) doesn't have a Mass driving license, the RMV is supposed to keep track of the fare violation in case they might want to get a driving license some day. If an illegal alien, well, no problemo because most drive without licenses anyway.
Yawn
ZZZZZZZZ
MA doesn't even yank licenses for drunk driving, or for driving while too impaired by age or ill-health to steer the car straight.
Perhaps we should look into that sort of driving-related suspension first?
So called it.
At the time the panel was being convened I said that they'd just put their name on the Pioneer report. Doesn't sound like they differed from that report.
This is literally how we ended up in this mess
In 2000, the government said the MBTA was spending too much money and so instead of a blank checkbook, it would have to live within its means based on a percentage of the sales tax income and whatever revenue it could generate only.
The revenue from that percentage of sales tax did not even come close to its predicted levels over the next 10 years. The result was to starve the MBTA and make it do more with less, honing its structure, management, and debt refinancing as the only source of cost saving available because revenue would not be increasing from the legislature any time soon.
The new recommendation to the problems all of that caused? More of the same.
*ding* *ding* *ding* *ding*
*ding* *ding* *ding* *ding*
We have a winner! This is exactly it... and this did exactly the opposite.
More of the same is right.
So, what did the MBTA board do?
Expand operations and services, making the maintenance backlog worse!
You missed a couple things
Several years ago the T added a very large revenue stream called "contract assistance" - not sure exactly what this is - but guessing a subsidy and it landed them an extra $160 million a year. Starting last year they added another line called "additional assistance" to the tune of $115 million a year.
They haven't been hung out to dry at all - they've been coddled for far too long.
Time for the T to put up or shut up. The truth is starting to come out about their BS being saddled with debt and underfunded when it looks more and more like the opposite is true.
Nearly Identical Story About DC Metro In Today's Washington Post
Link: "Maryland, D.C. officials seek Metro management overhaul"
They have the sense to freeze expansion
in order to get management, finances, maintenance, safety, and pension issues under control. Here, that sense is lacking.
So you are up for freezing
So you are up for freezing the Rt 2, Rt 128, and any other road/highway expansion projects until they get management, finances, maintenance, safety, and pension issues under control?
Merely freeze? oh, no.
Thanks to the Big Dig, the din of traffic from 93 means the kids can't hear themselves think in the schoolyard at Medford's middle school.
Either finish the mitigation projects or close down 93. Enough is enough.
That's funny
They guy who bitches most about localized traffic jams is also bitching about ways in which those traffic jams are best ameliorated.
Brainlessness is amazing.
Aloisi takes down the trial balloon
Ex-transportation secretary Aloisi takes down the Baker Committee's trial balloon:
http://commonwealthmagazine.org/politics/time-to-pop-this-trial-ballon/
He makes many of the same arguments made here and even backs them up with further information about why the comparisons made to other agencies are not fair and how the proposed solutions will likely hurt us all.
+1,000,000 for Aloisi
-1,000,000,000 for Baker and his band of nincompoops.
The problem with giving the
The problem with giving the MBTA more money is that the current management will blow it on pay and perks for administrators rather than put it into maintenance.
The management and employee culture of dysfunction needs to be remedied before anything else can be fixed and the agency trusted with more funding.
This is hopeless
This has started to play towards the worse case scenario. No new funds, more policies that make people lives harder for minor gains (front door boarding), new normals for service, and - the king of all worse case scenarios - "temporary" pauses to projects like GLX. All while it does nothing to make anything better (thus why I rather have GLX go forward, the other scenario is the same MBTA with no GLX - not a better MBTA as the funds will not be spent that way).
I have been hoping for the best case like of this being the rally cry to invest, but it starting to really turn towards the opposite. We already seeing some steps towards that - a new procedure that the MBTA will run limited during snow storms. And now this report is going to say more more belt-tightening.
Do that long enough and we'll see that it just normal that expect trains to handle storms. Just like we view travel times today as normal where we once had signs saying "Park Street to Harvard in 8 minutes".
The whole thing is a catch-22. To get more funding, you need to run better. To get run better, you'll need funding - ...and not management. No matter how many times management is rehauled, it's not gonna get it running better. As long there's non-management issues - and there's plenty - it will always look like management is not doing enough.
Old Stephanie Pollack vs. New Stephanie Pollack
I am confident that I know what the former would say about this report.
Have we seen what the latter has to say about this?
Translation: The budget cuts
Translation: The budget cuts will continue until service improves.
So many ideas from an unreleased report
Maybe there are efficiencies to be had at the T, but what are they? Why are maintenance costs higher than with other similar agencies? Why did costs at the T rise higher than inflation? And how did those increases compare to rises in costs in other governmental agencies, or similar private sector companies (say, Peter Pan Bus or CSX?)
If the answer is "make more with less," they aren't helping unless they explain how to do it.
But then again, we should wait until the report is released.
Can't wait
Can't wait to see how much is cribbed from that crappy libertarian think tank "report" and how much can trace straight to the arse of the Koch Brother's fascist policy boilerplate.
Maybe Baker should call Walker and Brownback and ask them how the union busting and taxcutting is helping their state economies. He'll hear just as many lies there.
Guvnah- is it too much to ask..
...if the reviewing committee could have members who actually relied on the T for transportation? ....hello? ....hello?
"Charlie NOT on the MTA."
Someone should write a song about Charlie Baker & the MBTA.
Well let me tell you a story
Well let me tell you a story of a man named Charlie
On a snowbound and fateful day
There were thousands of people stranded out on platforms
Just a-waitin' for the MTA
CHORUS:
And is he ever concerned? No he's never concerned
'Cause his base is unperturbed
We may die and rot beneath the streets of Boston
But our Governor's not concerned
When an avalanche killed twenty down at Kendall Square Station
And a Blue Line was lost at sea
Well, the people asked, "Charlie form a blue ribbon panel
So this won't happen to me!"
CHORUS
Charlie's panel met and met, (if they weren't in Jamaica)
And they assembled a master plan
"Don't do a single damn thing," they told ol' Charlie
And they got into their cars and ran
CHORUS
Now you citizens of Boston, don't you think it's a scandal
How the people suffer more and more
But just be patient, 'cause this city will gleam and sparkle
For the Olympics in '24!
Perfect!
This is wonderful :-)
Parody
Outclassed by Michael.
Rediculous
That's rediculous we should invest in the T for a more safe and reliable and efficient system for riders to guide on everyday. Cracking down on spending won't do anything to fix the MBTA and give us a more safe and reliable system. The panel is unbelievable and yet the report they created is barely they've tried to provide a diagnosis and solution.
The one grain of truth in this crock of boiled succotash
" and squeezing more money from its parking lots and real estate holdings."
True enough.
If a park&ride lot is full all the time, then they should raise the parking rate.
And the commuter rail stations are a gross waste of potential MBTA revenue. Every single one of them should be a proper train station, with a small and NICE shopping arcade, not just some sleazy convenience bodega. And offices on top. That's how European and Japanese train authorities make their money.
Housing
Housing too.
Koch Puppetry
I somehow doubt that these donations to Charlie the Koch Puppet's favorite organization stopped with that.
source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nick-surgey/one-of-the-koch-familycon_b_52...
Meh
Sadly 125k is chump change. He gave them what he found in the couch cushions. Pioneer definitely has broad support.