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You think the Patriots would give Belichick a sabbatical to fix the T?

Do Your Job T

Bryan Roy whipped up this design after this morning's MBTA snafus, with the snow and the ice and the cracking rails and the decades-old trains.

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Did M ever get home? Or are you wandering the red line never to return?

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Hahaha, thank you - I made it home at about 10:30 last night. I left my office at 3 p.m., got a ride to Braintree and arrived there about 3:20, hung out on/off trains not going anywhere for an hour, got stuck on a train for 2.5 hours, waited a half hour for friends to come rescue me, spent an hour drinking whiskey and wolfing down a sandwich, it took 'em a half hour to drive me to JFK where I stupidly gambled again on the red line (and lost), then it took about two hours for me to take two buses (8 to 1) back to Cambridge.

I'm grateful to report that I'm working from home today. I only brought enough files to tide me over for a day, though, so I'm planning a four-bus, three-hour one-way commute for tomorrow, and I'll be bringing home an entire filing cabinet's worth of work so that if I can't get on a train until the middle of next week I will at least be productive from home...

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i got a little concerned when you said you had to pee... i mean, what does one do in a situation like that?

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...or, if you're lucky enough to be a dude (which I am not), you whiz against a wall in a secluded bit on the outer edge of Braintree station.

This whole exercise did justify my habit of ALWAYS peeing before I trust myself and my bladder to the T, though. I was fine for the first, like, two and a half hours of the ordeal.

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My long-time, personal motto. Glad you made it home safely.

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Glad you made it!

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We should be dumping truckloads of snow in the Legislature's parking lot and refusing to let anybody in or out until they fix the problems they caused!

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How about we properly invest in the MBTA so it can adequately do its job, rather than expecting it to magically serve hundreds of thousands on crumbling infrastructure & subsistence funding?

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We've got an Olympics to pay for!

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That's what the Olympics IS FOR! Haven't you been paying attention? 10x /snark

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Don't forget all the non-MBTA debt the state has shifted onto the system over the years.

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The debt from extending the red line? Debt from commuter line rail lines? The worst debt the MBTA has are all the pensions its given out while private employees get no such largess.

What the MBTA gets is non-MBTA revenue, like 20% of state-wide sales tax, and trust balances from car inspection fees, and fees (not taxes) on motor vehicle registrations, licenses etc. that should only (by state constitution) cover the direct cost of provided service and no more.

The stupidest thing is wasting over $2 B on the Green Line Extension which only increases operating loss when that money should have been applied to the enormous maintenance backlog. The winners from this waste of tax money are the property owners along the line and the city of Somerville who crank up property taxes on those owners.

Thanks, assholes at Conservation Law Foundation for falsely claiming the Big Dig would increase air pollution when it has not. I'm not a fan of the Big Dig, as its stupidly expensive to put anything underground when not necessary. Much more cost effective is elevated transit when ground level doesn't offer enough capacity.

Here is also a reality check for those claiming the MBTA and bicycles will solve the shortage of vehicle lane miles!

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The worst debt the MBTA has are all the pensions its given out while private employees get no such largess.

The pension costs the MBTA about $58,000,000 each year.

The debt service on the MBTA's $6 billion in debt is $424,000,000 per year.

The rest of what you said...

All of this is rehash that's already been debunked here before.

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But are you sure about that $424 mm in debt? That's about 6% a year. Maybe that includes some kind of sinking fund to retire the debt - but that still seems a bit steep considering the state is paying like 1-3% interest on most of it's GO debt. Where'd you get that number?

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One of the easily rebuttals against Markk. $424 million to debt service is a lot of debt. And that debt is incurred after a transfer from the Big Dig books to the MBTA with a dedicated portion of the sale tax. From my understanding, it was a major miscalculation in that the sale tax would cover the service while the state get it get the debt off its books.

Markk, you know sometimes I defend you, but this portion of your arguments simply make no damn sense. The MBTA trains are dying and that is simply because the damn trains are too old. To fix this, it needs money. It needs money so that it can get some new trains. Of course, all of this comments saying we need to invest is (partially) made moot by that fact we are ordering new trains - the real problem we should have ordered them like 4 years ago - but I don't see how you are arguing some theme that the MBTA is just being wasteful. There are places to argue about that, but not when the topic is 40 year old trains are dying.

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I am claiming:

1. Retirement debt is the worst debt in terms of being excessive for value returned. Poor decisions by the MBTA board and Legislature are responsible. The waste of money is so bad that the MBTA illegally tried to hide it from the public for years!

2. The MBTA should fight the court order to add billions of new debt for the GLX. Air pollution measurements show that CLF claims were grossly exaggerated. Stop the GLX now and put the money where its needed!

3. Take those Billions and make the current system more reliable, more modern, and more efficient. Its a more sensible use than expanding service to further stress a very fragile system.

4. There is no non-MBTA debt. False claim. All of it is for public transportation spending.

5. Don't believe projections from charts and graphs! Just as Conservation Law Foundation's assertion that air pollution would increase from the Big Dig, the expectation that state sales tax revenues would continue to increase also did not come true. The MBTA was counting on its 20% of state-wide sales taxes to keep growing, but it did not.

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1. Retirement debt is the worst debt in terms of being excessive for value returned. Poor decisions by the MBTA board and Legislature are responsible. The waste of money is so bad that the MBTA illegally tried to hide it from the public for years!

The retirement debt is poor bang for the buck, I can see that logic as each dollar only benefits the retirees. But, its importance in your thesis is minimal as Kaz pointed the debt service is $424 million. Unless you are arguing that it is more than $60 million or Kaz is wrong and the debt service is closer to the pension costs, then you are making no point towards the funding problems that is hurting the service quality of the MBTA. At best, you are making an off-topic point of an inefficient use of funds. At worst, you are using a support point that only deceptively claim the MBTA don't need addtional funds.

2. The MBTA should fight the court order to add billions of new debt for the GLX. Air pollution measurements show that CLF claims were grossly exaggerated. Stop the GLX now and put the money where its needed!

To my understanding, one portion of the funds to build GLX is federal funds. Those funds would only be use towards a different state if GLX doesn't use it (along with the tax money drawn from our state). The other portion is the state. Whom the state is funding from its budget and not billing its cost as new debt the MBTA will have to pay from its budget. It may affect the state budget in the future (or if the future governor transfer that debt - which then I guess point 2 would actually mean something), but your point is the MBTA budget. So GLX currently have no bearing to the current state of the MBTA.

3. Take those Billions and make the current system more reliable, more modern, and more efficient. Its a more sensible use than expanding service to further stress a very fragile system.

Or how about give the MBTA enough priority in funds to expand and maintain. From the way the legislature historically behave, the MBTA is the last to get considered for funding and the first to get cut - actually infrastructure in all modes seem to be suffering that. You have to view this as in infrastructure, not as a business. That means operating to serve as best and as many as possible (though cost-efficiency needs to be kept in mind).

I should also note that we also need to view this in reality terms. If we remove GLX, it will not change the maintenance budget. The trains will run on the same quality of service in 2024 with GLX or without GLX. Factoring in the political reality than just pure dollar bills indicate MBTA is going to suck or not suck regardless of GLX. So if the service level is going to remain constant, I rather have GLX existing than not.

4. There is no non-MBTA debt. False claim. All of it is for public transportation spending.

Was it not transfer from the Big Dig with sale tax suppose to cover to pay down that with enough on top to supposedly even fund other stuff as you mention in point 5?

5. Don't believe projections from charts and graphs! Just as Conservation Law Foundation's assertion that air pollution would increase from the Big Dig, the expectation that state sales tax revenues would continue to increase also did not come true. The MBTA was counting on its 20% of state-wide sales taxes to keep growing, but it did not.

Honestly, I agree the air pollution thing is bull. Dukakis very probably knows it too. Probably CLF too. The objective is to extend GLX so Somerville stop getting the shaft in access to the subway system. Not to mitigate air pollution, the use of air pollution mitigation was probably added as a way to give a green light to GLX.

When the state transfer the debt from the state's budget to the MBTA, the state (not the MBTA) was counting on the sales tax to keep growing and thus cover it. Since it did not, now it is up the state to fix it. The MBTA already did their part that can do. And remember again, we need to view this as infrastructure not a business.

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The debt he is talking about is the debt that was shovelled on for the Big Dig's environmental/legal issues, but not funded via the Big Dig. The Green Line extension, for example, is part of this. They legally have to do it, and have been sued over it and lost as it was part of the environmental mitigation of the Big Dig, same with other extensions being done. Then you have the station ADA renovations that need to be done. To be honest though, this isn't even what really screwed the MBTA. It was a one-two combination punch of this forced unfunded expansion/upgrades along with the change to the 'forward funding' model back in 2000, which gives only a percentage of the sales tax to the fund the MBTA and nothing else.

As for the Big Dig - say what you will, but it was a needed (if horribly mismanaged cluster fuck) thing to happen. The old overhead highway was falling down, and beyond repair. It would have been a comparable cluster to attempt to tear down/replace that monstrosity (that never should have been built in the first place). Making 93/90 a surface road would have never worked either. It was a major project either way, and instead of half assing it they at least went for broke and buried the whole thing so that the city was reconnected on the surface. Now, if only they could have broken off some of those billions in cost overruns to fund the required MBTA improvements, we wouldn't be in this mess, and would have got them much sooner.

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- which was not beyond repair, as FHWA was willing to fund a complete reconstruction project of the roadway in the early 1980s, would have been quicker, less disruptive overall, and far less expensive to do than burying the whole mess underground turned out to be.

Instead, for almost $20 million, we got an expensive to operate and maintain underground tunnel that gives us three through lanes northbound through the city, and three through lanes southbound through the city. Which is exactly the throughput we had with the old elevated highway.

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There is no M in billion. Just sayin...

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The T does need money. Maybe the logo should say MA Leg Do your Job.

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King Deleo doesn't care what the little people want.

At the state level:

He is above the law.

He writes the law.

He IS the law.

If a legislator defies him their career is OVER.

If the media wishes to cover deliberations, they are cast out of the chamber.

There is no accountability to his highness short of a federal indictment.

This is why our state level system of representation is broken. We have a king with a court and not a deliberative legislative body because no one has the power to challenge the speaker.

Short of having a house speaker from Suffolk country or drastic reform of the legislature's power structure the MBTA will NEVER be fixed.

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... the Governor seems more like a figurehead compared to the Speaker/Senate Majority Leader tag team. I wish the citizens of the whole state (commonwealth) could vote to recall DeLeo....

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That is what I heard, out of about 7,000 bills submitted in the last two-year session. And they wanted to vote themselves a pay raise?

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NO WAY MAN IT WILL ALL JUST GO TO CRONIES!!! CUT THE FAT AND THERE WILL BE PLENTY OF MONEY FOR EVERYONE!!! GAG ACK BARF!!!

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I'm guessing the MBTA rank & file have little to do with the old tracks and crappy cars.

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It is absurd that we are still having a parade tomorrow as the city's entire public transit system fails and will take days to fix.

This is nothing against the Patriots. We have to put priorities first. Our city isn't functioning for a regular workday, let alone adding a freaking PARADE and the crowds to the loads.

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When the T falls flat on its face tomorrow, in the middle of an enormous, nationally-publicized victory celebration, maybe that will provide enough embarrassment to our pols to fix the thing finally.

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Anybody know what her contract details are? I'm thinking she's got about two months before Baker gives her two in the hat, professionally. And I'm taking the under on that.

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Beverly Scott can't magically build new trains overnight. She's actually the one who ordered new OL, RL, & GL trains! Scott can only work with the budget the MA government gives her.

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She was hired to later be fired.

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Abandon all hope commuters. No Joy Division here, She's Lost Control.

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The Patriots have a debt/value percentage of 9%. In 2009, the MBTA had about $9 billion in assets and these days they have about $8.2 billion in debts (including owed interest). That gives them a debt/value percentage around 91%.

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No way can anyone think about hosting the Olympics here with the physical state of these MBTA trains as they are now.

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New RL and OL cars begin delivery in Q1 of 2018. New GL cars in 2017. These contracts are happening with or without the Olympics. If we get the Olympics, we can fix the rest of the problems like old switches and tracks.

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The only parts of the proposals that the organizers have deigned to show us suggest that the MBTA will be up to snuff because of the new cars. It makes no mention of how the other woefully lacking infrastructure will be fixed/upgraded.

The Olympics should be a "nice to have", not the "we can't fix our city without it" tool that it seems to be shaping up to be.

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The Siemens Blue Line cars were about six years late, the final Type 8's were accepted into the active fleet nearly nine years after the first cars were delivered (granted, there were oodles of mods needed to the trains and ROW), and the new locomotives from MPI are having mechanical hiccups fresh out of the box...

So yeah, I have developed a rather cynical "we'll see how this plays out" attitude toward the T's procurement contract management.

Also: we should be fixing the old switches and signals for the benefit of the daily riding public; not to impress the Uzbeks and Finns.

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BOW TO MY MAJESTIC DELAYS #MBTA

Seriously though, what a clusterfuck. I think it was running better yesterday.

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He's the businessman. Then, after the trains are running again, we'll get Bill in to give the personnel a game plan and a pep talk.

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

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Bus drivers work hard
train drivers work hard
Why can't the DOT merge the rest of the jobs like PR, Legal, police, human resources and marketing and save that money and put it to the infrastructure.

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Why cant we have this?

City-wide ferry service planned for 2017

''Residents in some of the city’s most transit-starved neighborhoods may be commuting by boat — and at subway fare prices — if Mayor Bill de Blasio gets his way.
The mayor announced the creation of a new city-wide ferry service which will be up and running by 2017, linking historically isolated neighborhoods like the Rockaways, Red Hook, Soundview and the Lower East Side to various parts of Manhattan.
De Blasio made the announcement at the annual State of the City address Tuesday, and said rides will be priced the same as a MetroCard fare so the service will be as “affordable to everyday New Yorkers as our subways and buses.”

http://nypost.com/2015/02/03/city-wide-ferry-service-planned-for-2017/

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slow, expensive, polluting.. that'll solve the T's problems

our forefathers went to very, very great expense to build tunnels underneath major bodies of water so that the ferry systems of yore could be retired in favor of fast, efficient rail transit

lol if they could see us now

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MBTA needs to suck it up. It's a New England entity and therefore should rise to the occasion of an historic storm not fall apart for goodness sakes.

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