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It's not just the 40-year-old train cars
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The T IS A POLITICAL FOOTBALL
Right now the politicians are trying to kick a deflated football from the state house to city hall. Its time for drastic action and political courage which means they will do nothing.
Hah, nice
A logo for a future political campaign: A squished football, with a crumpled Ⓣ logo on it in place of the NFL logo. "Stop making the Ⓣ a political football and do something about it!"
You mean newly appointed
House Speaker DeLeo? You mean newly appointed Emperor for Life DeLeo.
Not "appointed"....
... more like "anointed" Emperor for Life (actually, however, he is more like the Shogun of ancient Japan, the real power, while the Emperor was just a ceremonial figurehead).
Let's just start calling DeLeo the Mikado. Sen. Majority Leader Rosenberg can be "Lord High Everything Else".
Sorry, I got confused about
Sorry, I got confused about the title what with it being decided during a closed door session.
A personage of noble rank and title...
Defer! Defer! To The Lord High House Speaker!
And it's only going to get
And it's only going to get worse and worse.
-We're only ordering 24 new Type 9's for the Green Line. By the time those are here and the Type 7's are rebuilt, the cranky Type 8's are going to need rebuild or replacement. Type 10?
-The 01800s on the Red Line (the "new" ones) haven't had their mid-life rebuilds and they're now over 20 years old. No funding planned for either rebuild or replacement. They'll be 30 years old when the Olympics hit (if they do), and we'll have another class of geriatric trains failing again.
-Only half of the commuter rail locomotive fleet is getting replaced (if the HSPs finally all make it into service this year. Again, the existing "newer" units are already into the second half of their lifespans and there's no replacements planned.
-All of the existing "flats" (single level coaches) on commuter rail are pretty long in the tooth, too.
And that's just the rail fleets. Doesn't count needs for bus expansion (garages maxed out on capacity), or track, tunnel, bridge and signal upgrades. It's just monumental. And an Olympic bid will just suck money away into temporary projects to serve the games that are not the highest priority for daily travel.
Cynical but possibly effective
During the next State election—
(a) Convince the Republican candidates, who love to stump on going after "waste, fraud, and abuse," to target the patronage within the T. Blame the complete collapse of the T during these past storms on the opposing candidate's protection of the no-show employees, the impossibility of firing anyone at the T, the carmen's union, etc., etc.
(b) Convince the Democrat candidates who're responsible for the patronage (and now being attacked by their Republican opponents), that publicly proclaiming they'll throw a ton of money at the T to improve service and fix all the problems with equipment and maintenance will also serve to protect all the no-show employees these candidates patronize. If the T functioned smoothly, people won't be looking for someone to blame, they won't be looking at the "waste, fraud, and abuse," and the patronage can continue unabated. Plenty of government agencies are full of this shit; it just goes unnoticed by the public unless the agency isn't doing their job.
I'm not joking. This is how politics is actually played. If you want to fix the T, starting some populist movement or voting for some third-party candidate like Falchuk isn't going to do anything. You need to find a way to "sell" the idea to the politicians who will get elected—the connected, establishment D's and R's—and the only way to do that is playing to their own self-interest.
When you assume...
I like how the assumption either way is that there's rampant, debilitating patronage destroying the MBTA from within. Is it really so hard to believe that people working in state government work hard and genuinely want to improve the services their agencies provide?
These two things are not
These two things are not mutually exclusive.
??
Why are you calling Republican politicians "Republicans" and Democratic pols "Democrat"?
Why not Republicans and Democrats, or Republican and Democratic? Or if you really want to shorten the "Democratic" label, why not shorten the "Republican" too?
Seriously, just curious.
Oh yea. While you are busy blaming the usual Republic boogie men you may want to include the political system that saddled the T with a crippling debt load, or the banks who are profiting from it.
Policial Patronize
Political Patronize at the T is a non-partisan issue. Both the (D) and (R) are guity of it.
Same with funding.. whether it was Weld, Cellucci, or Patrick. They are all just as guilty as the rest.
And you know this because....
And you know this because....
seriously, I'm sick of people yelling 'corrupt!' with no evidence to back it up. It is really easy just to blame 'everybody', as easy as it was to for Patriots' defenders to say 'but every team does this!' without any evidence of this.
Show me where huge contracts were given and kickbacks taken given for work that was later found to be shoddily done and dangerous to public safety, in the Patrick administration. We already know what happened with Weld.
And don't just rattle off general terms and assumptions. Show some facts.
Okay then
No I won't and can't. Why? because its all word of mouth from people I know who work for MassDOT and the T. I have nothing to send you (i.e. links) because they do not exist.
Please do you think they'd publicly document corruption? If they did, we wouldn't be having this conversation today because it would have ceased.
Sorry, I'm 'in the know' and you'll just have to take my word for it. And if you don't, oh well, nothing more to add then.
How about YOU prove that I'm wrong.. show me some stuff that proves that it does not exist. Because it does.
The Republicans WERE the ones
The Republicans WERE the ones who saddled the T with the crippling debt load - specifically, the man we just elected to run the damn state. So yes, they are the "boogie men" for good reason.
Please
I don't recall the day the Republicans took over the House and Senate and declared themselves rulers of Massachusetts while throwing all the Democrats out on the street. Maybe you can enlighten me.
GOP organized gas tax repeal
And Republicans organized and championed the gas tax index repeal. Gas Tax Index would've cost the average driver $10 a year. It's loss represents $1 billion in revenue a year.
The tech tax was also repealed. Two of three taxes the house passed were. That's on DeLeo. He's a ConservaDem.
Pump your brakes on the gas tax
The vote was on the automatic indexing of the tax and future raises, not the rise in the gas tax that took place. That $0.03 increase is there. The General Court can still raise the tax, and in fact can raise it so that it would cost the average driver more than $10 a year, or if you will $.025 a gallon (assuming the average driver drives 10,000 miles in a car that gets 25 mpg.)
In fact it was Charlie Baker
In fact it was Charlie Baker who structured the big dig debt as part of the MBTA. The T generates $500 million in revenue annually and pays $400 million in debt service. You can spend 80% of your revenue on debt service and operate reliably. The folks on Beacon Hill know this, they just wont do what it takes to fix it.
MBTA got sales taxes for that debt
You keep trying to portray the deal as one sided when it wasn't. In exchange for old MBTA-related debt on the State's books, the MBTA got 20% of state-wide sales taxes to pay for it.
Keep the facts straight.
Make you a deal
I'm going to buy a house. You pay for it. I promise to give you 1% of all of my future earnings to cover it.
Shake on it?
I have no idea why this is
I have no idea why this is even important. Maybe you can start calling it the Republic Party to balance things out.
First, the T's problems will
First, the T's problems will never get solved unless the state takes the Big Dig debt off their backs, which it never should have put there in the first place. Of course, this will never happen as long as Baker is in office. They will never get ahead of that into a surplus that allows that money to be put away for regular maintenance and repairs.
Second, the bidding system for transportation contracts needs to change. It shouldn't be the cheapest bid that gets the project. I don't have any faith that this will change, given what happened with Big Dig contractors, and with Mr. Baker in office. The work will get done cheaply, shoddily, and dangerously as always.
Third, the head of Suffolk Construction is on the Boston Olympic committee. He was also involved in work done on the Big Dig. He wants those contracts, and will probably get them; I can almost guarantee that money that would have gone to upgrading the T will go to him instead. Whoever they contract with to do T improvements needs to be connected and have some clout in this town, otherwise the T won't have a horse in the race.
wrong
John Fish has gone on record stating that Suffolk will NOT bid on any Olympic contracts due to a conflict of interest.
Now whether its believable or not remains to be seen.
The MBTA's failing could fill out a hundred pages
Actually probably more than that.
I would add that shifting away from 20% of sales taxes and meagre community assessments as it's revenue stream would be step one. Go to a payroll tax/property tax, increase community assessments, make people pay for the service - there's really no way around a revenue increase when we're talking about the T. We and our politicians have let it deteriorate to the point where I think it's inevitable that additional funds can be raised.
Per the bidding process, remember that the MBTA's choices are limited. They're bound by law to include the ridiculous Massachusetts made requirements - sure manufacturing jobs are welcome, but it comes with a significant cost. Even then, the T is bound by law in certain instances to pursue the lowest-priced bid that is deemed sufficient. I assume you're talking about the CNR bid, I share some of the concerns, but those cars have not been constructed yet. We just can't pass judgement on them - is it worrisome that it's CNR's first foray into the North American market, yes. But they are also the largest producers of heavy-rail trainsets in the world, it's not like they are just learning their trade. Also the Big Dig wasn't so much a failure of choosing the low bid, it was a failure of project management - i.e. letting Parsons and Bechtel be judge, jury, and executioner at once. They basically wrote the rules and regulations that they were bound by.
Yes, fix city/town MBTA assessments
I've complained many times about this, especially how unfair it is. Its hard-coded into state law and not very reflective of the services provided to any given community. It needs to be assessed based on how many subway lines and stops, parking garages, commuter rail lines and stops, bus lines and stops, water taxi service, parking lots and bike parking cages.
Additionally, some of Cambridge's Chapter 90 road maintenance money should go to the MBTA because their anti-car zoning laws, parking rates, and road narrowing puts more riders on the MBTA without any kind of compensation to the MBTA for it.
Somerville needs to pay more to the MBTA for the Green Line Extension. The City is already collecting higher property taxes from the expected service, so send it to the MBTA now.
Quincy is paying a pittance in assessment for all the services they get.
The whole thing has needed revamping for years - time for Legislators to get to work instead of kicking the can and doing things like robbing the vehicle inspection trust fund one year, and hiking inspection fees the next to refund it.
.
What will it take ...
To get a large number of angry people to get off at Park Street, DTX, Bowdoin, State ... and march up the hill to crowd into the statehouse and not leave until demands are addressed?
First amendment ruckus, Olde Boston Style.
Should the people ever
Should the people ever attempt such a protest they would be arrested, fined, labeled unsuitably dangerous prohibited persons the rest of their lives and find it very difficult for themselves or immediate family to find employment with the state.
If the #CauseOftheMonthProtestors had blocked the the State House representative parking lot entrance the jackbooty security response would be sufficient to Shock and Awe small countries.