Other shoe drops: No T service at all on Sunday

Can one of the many knowledgeable people here explain why the MA Dept of Transportation doesn't run the MBTA? It seems redundant to have both. Subway, bus, commuter rail are all transportation, so why wouldn't this be under DOT control? What DOES the DOT do, since they don't run the T? Is it just a funding mechanism?

I've lived in Boston since 2006 and have seen the T shut down only a handful of times during storms. Sure, there's been spotty/delayed/limited service during other storms but I think that the weather we've had in the last 3-4 weeks is unprecedented. It's a shitshow, to be sure, but that's what happens when infrastructure isn't upgraded in a timely fashion. All told, I don't think this is going to become something that happens every time we get a foot of snow and I understand the decision to shut it down on Sunday. It blows, but I think it's the right choice. I was a bit surprised to see that buses aren't running, but with high winds and the roads still in bad shape, I get that too.

When did Boston become a Third World city?

Charlie Baker has something to do with this?

It won't really help, really..

Bus stops are just a grey area, depending on where the stop is located. The T does do SOME stops (major ones) out of convenience, but not all. And it's really up to the cities and towns (outside of Boston) to deal with bus stops. Some towns do their own, but many towns contract out the bus stop maintenance to other companies like CEM USA or JCDecaux, and what is in their contract can depend on if they are required to do snow removal or not. And them of course making sure the contractor does its job is really up to your town.

Good idea tho.. I am tired of un-shoveled bus stops, stepping over snow banks, or waiting in the street to catch the bus (I ride a lot of buses).

The local plow jockeys would see a void, give their usual two shits about pedestrian needs, and push a whole load of snow there.

A friend made the mistake of snow blowing out the bus stop once. Ended up with a bigger pile.

Most of the unplowed bus stops that I've seen are literally flooded with snow piles taller than I am. They're mini-snow-farms, and all iced over now too.

Since I don't own a snow blower or other mechanical snow removal device, I don't have a chance of making much of a dent.

I don't know what it was like in your little cabbage patch, but in the western part of the state, Irene took out quite a few roads -- not as in they were flooded, as in they were washed away entirely. It wasn't "we" who did the paralyzing, it was Irene.

In the Boston area, there are no snow piles under 3 feet, I can say with certainty. Each of the storms after the first has ended up sidewalks that much narrower that now a foot wide path is considered acceptable. The only cars parked closer to the curb than 3 feet were shoveled out by the driver who has claimed the spot. And, oh yeah, the red and orange lines are only running a quarter of their fleets as snow is shorting out their 40 year old motors. So we are no longer in the "anytime unfavorable weather" zone.

Three weeks of sub freezing temps + six feet of snow + a blizzard forecast = fuck off to Florida or wherever you are now!

The fleet is just as tired and worn out as the subway equipment. A lot of it's not quite as old, but still old. A lot of the locomotives were originally built in the 1970's (approximately), some have been heavily rebuilt, others not so much. The new stuff (trouble-plagued Rotem coaches, the new HSP locomotives) are still having lots of issues getting into service. The doors on Rotems have issues even when it's warm and dry, so I can't imagine this weather is helping. Up north, the R's usually run only 1-2 per train, so at least the crews can keep going with the manual doors on the other cars.

The HSP's have been having cold weather issues. Some of them are on the road, but they have not been reacting well to the extreme cold. They may well likely work in the long run, but it ain't gonna get worked out in a large scale until this winter is passed.

The T's original "screamer" F40PH's keep getting pressed back into service (well, the half of them that aren't beyond repair and/or turned into organ donors to keep the rest running), but they were on their last legs several years ago.

Commuter rail locomotives are diesels, but they're diesel electric. They have traction motors just like subway cars. The blowers (supply air to cool the motors) are set up differently and usually less prone to ingesting snow, but I'm sure it still happens. And remember, if a six-car subway train loses a few motors, it can still limp along. A single commuter rail diesel has only 4 motors to lose.

If the new HSP's had been delivered on time, and weren't having all the problems they are, there might have been enough old locomotives around to double-head (two locomotives per train) a lot of train sets to protect against failure. Two engines to make sure at least one can get the train over the road, but given the cancellations they don't have that luxury. If there isn't some relief in some way soon, they're either going to have to permanently reduce the schedules or look for leased power from somewhere - and decent passenger locomotives are hard to find on short notice. There aren't many passenger railroads that have 10-20 units just sitting around surplus.

Saturday morning, they put out an alert that all CR lines will see delays due to mechanical problems and equipment shortages. Not a good sign if they can't even cover the skeletal north side weekend schedule (I just get alerts for north, but that one was posted to all lines, north and south).

And that's just the motive power. Cars have problems with all the cables/hoses between them (air brakes, control cables to the cab car, head-end power for coaches) as ice and snow builds up. Brakes stop working, covered in ice and snow. Just like the subway, there probably aren't enough indoor service tracks at BET (and even less on the southside) to really get trainsets inside so they can thaw out. Amtrak, during one bad Chicago winter, started turning some long-distance trains so that after say an NYC-Chicago round trip, the whole train got sent on a NYC-Miami trip to thaw everything out. Commuter roads don't have that luxury.

And of course, there's all the problems with snow buildup on the tracks (they are running snowplow extras this weekend), signals, etc. It's gonna be bad for a while before it gets better.