Dan Grabauskas: Hero
By adamg - Wed, 05/21/2008 - 11:57am.
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Is this person smoking crack?
You've got to be kidding me; the MBTA has been on a deathwatch. Is this person a mouthpiece for the MBTA? There's some outright lies in there. "Dan has refused to cut service"? OH REALLY?
Stations used to be kept at least somewhat clean; I haven't seen anyone from OneSource in more than a year, and some stations routinely smell of piss and vomit. Masonry and floors are crumbling, and there's no end of unsafe, slapped-together electrical work, and non-functioning announcement systems.
Time after time the MBTA shows it can't communicate to customers what's going on during a "situation" or advise them accurately on what to do. Employees routinely lie about what's actually going on. Announcements consist of the most general terms: "Attention customers, service on the green line is behind schedule due to a disabled train", wow that's so helpful! How long? WHICH DIRECTION? Between which stations? What affected lines?
The T has dumped millions into installing a security camera network which is for claimed safety, but oddly only focuses on the areas right around the gates. Huh, how about that. And then there are the pictures, which are worse than a cheap cellphone camera.
Rolling stock equipment replacements are way behind schedule, as have been construction projects just about everywhere (Kenmore and Arlington being two great examples.) Trains are so loud (from worn wheels and rails) on the red and orange lines that you can't hear announcements, or even your mp3 player cranked up to full.
The MBTA recently lost millions of dollars on a stupid financial move, adding even more to their billions in debt, which Grabaukas hasn't done squat about it except whine to the newspapers, while spending loads of money on fancy attendant booths and Hut Hut Hut SWAT team busses and fancy guns. How about telling the greedy union that their unmatched-anywhere-in-the-state benefits package is unsustainable, and forcing them to renegotiate- or otherwise they'll all be out of jobs when the system finally crumbles completely?
MBTA "radio": FAILED. Thank god.
CharlieCards: Still no registration system. Still no refills or pass-loading over the world wide web. Colleges and employers still using Charlietickets for student and discounted monthly passes.
Repeated "safety is our number one priority" announcements make me want to set up a loudspeaker by Dan's house and broadcast this every 2-3 minutes:
"DING! HELLO, THIS IS AN MBTA CUSTOMER. A FUNCTIONING, CLEAN TRANSIT SYSTEM IS OUR NUMBER ONE PRIORITY. AS OUR GENERAL MANAGER, WE NEED YOUR ASSISTANCE. PLEASE STOP OBSESSING OVER 'SECURITY', AND FOCUS ON PROVIDING SERVICES. THANK YOU FOR NOTHING SOFAR."
Someone want to name a single Dan initiative that's actually left the station?
Someone want to name a
Ensure the T has reliable elevators and escalators.
Alerts are posted whenever a station loses its elevator(s) or escalator(s). Elevator at Forest Hill down? Don't worry, the T will put up flyers and make announcements directing handicapped riders to the free shuttle bus that will do pick ups and drop offs at Forest Hills and Green St.
They're at least trying to get elevators in at Arlington, Copley and Kenmore. Though it's impossible to say when the contractors will actually get around to building them. Seriously, I don't know what the hell the contractors are doing behind those wooden barricades. They've had the better part of two years now at some of these stations, longer at Kenmore. Go in, build something, leave. Come back and repeat the process tomorrow. Simple idea.
It's embarrassing to think someone who visited Boston in the fall of 2006 would find Green Line stations to be in the same same crumbling, dilapidated condition as when they left them.
Contractor watch?
I just had a thought. Granted it's not our responsibility, but who are the contractors building such things? Maybe if a few members of the public call them every now and then to ask when they will be finished they'll be embarrassed enough to actually work on them.
Ha!
More likely, they will argue to the MBTA that having to field so many phone calls has caused additional, unforseen, delay to their project schedule for which they should receive additional compensation and be given dispensation. Frankly, its more likely that the delay is due to the fact that they are installing new elevators and fire alarm systems (among other things) in a 100+ year old, subteranian, working tunnell. This stuff doesn't just "get done." By way of example, when they started the central artery project, the first thing they had to do was to hire people to FIGURE OUT where all of the public utilities were because the City is so old that no one really knew for sure. As with repairing old houses, in any public works project in Boston when you open up a wall you never know what you are going to find.
not all construction is slow
Construction happens lickidy-quick inside the MBTA. Want a great example?
Check out the nice shiny tubes carrying fiber bundles for Comcast and RCN. They're fairly new, and they were obviously installed off-hours in a cost-efficient manner.
This "it's complicated" excuse is trotted out far too often. They've got BASIC maintenance and repair issues in a lot of stations, like exposed wiring and light fixtures that don't have adequate guards (in Downtown crossing, check out the bare fluorescent tube fixtures between the orange and red line platforms.) A lot of stations are very poorly lit, too- Central comes to mind, among others.
Add Orient Heights to that list too.
It is literally falling apart around everyone's ears. Standing on the inboound platform during a rainstorm is a miserable experience - broken downspouts pouring water out onto the platform rather than funneling it away (and wrapped with black garbage bags and duct tape); sections of concrete disintegrating from the constant exposure to salt air; poorly lit waiting areas that, if you're someone who waits for a Winthrop-bound bus like I used to, you wait inside the platform rather than outside, and just strange creepy people wandering around with their dogs. Not fun.
Orient Heights is the last Blue Line station to be rehabbed and if the debacle with Maverick is any indication, it won't be happening anytime soon. And there's the train yard access to contend with, too.
And while we're on the subject of incoming train alerts, how about adding announcements on the Green Line at Park Street that indicate what train is due in and what the wait time will be. For example: "2 car North Station train arriving; 2 car Lechmere train in 2 minutes." How difficult would this be?
Comcast cables
Those cables, assuming they were installed quickly, were installed by Comcast itself - not the MBTA - because Comcast likely paid the MBTA to run its lines in the tunnels rather than having to run them under the streets. When hiring its contractors, Comcast isn't constrainined by public bidding statutes and the host of other laws governing public construction, all of which are designed to prevent corruption by, for example, requiring the agency to award contracts based on the lowest responsive bid, rather than the "best" bid to get the work done. There are arguments for an against the inefficiencies made inherent by such statutes and regulations but the bottom line is that running a public agency (or even a "quasi public" one) isn't like running a business.
okay then,
how about those security cameras that virtually appeared overnight? That involved huge amounts of electrical and data wiring and WAN wiring of some sort...
ah, the cameras
The cameras that were installed to catch people in the act of defeating our new undefeatable fare collection system.
Man, I love riding a bike.
-Cosmo
http://boston.redfin.com/blog/author/cosmo.catalano
Utilities? Yeah right
Yes, it took longer to get things moving on Kenmore and Arlington as utility relocation proved to be a nightmare. But they finished that ages ago. The platforms are not being built, the elevator shafts are empty shells where they exist at all. Almost nothing at all has been done at Copley. After the better part of two years under construction, I'm not inclined to believe excuses about utility issues that were addressed a year ago.
Agreed
The process of alerting riders of delays/closures definitely leaves plenty room for improvement.
Twice in the past few months, I have paid my fare only to arrive on the platform to realize that service was closed due to track repairs. And I only realized this by a tiny sign scrawled on an 8x11 piece of paper on the wall. Many others did not see this sign, and most people kept waiting because they didn't see the sign. Would it have killed the MBTA to put the signs OUTSIDE the entrance booths? And actually make them visible? Furthermore, in both cases, when I got home, I checked the MBTA website, and they claimed that there were no service delays on either of the two lines in question (blue and red, respectively).
I know financials of this transit system is a big obstacle, but the service of this transit system is absolutely deplorable on many fronts.
Raising fares only serves to bolster the coffers of the higher-ups in the MBTA, and does little to actually help the quality of the stations, the service, or the accuracy of the station announcements.
If I could count on my fingers the number of times I've seen one of those LCD announcement things blank - even though there's a train coming - on my fingers, I'd have about a thousand hands.
Delay at Copley
The MBTA's project page does have information about why Copley is delayed:
mbta.com...List/MBTA%20Request%20for%20Determination.pdf
give a hoot
You've all been so specific with regard to the "cutting service" comment but I just have two words:
NIGHT OWL
Yeah, no, Grabuskas NEVER makes cuts when it comes to SERVICE. Never.
The end of Night Owl service
The end of Night Owl service was one of the last things done by former General Manager Mike Mulhern in 2005, just as he retired.
Vast improvements
Anyone who has used the T regularly over the last 3 years is well aware of the significant improvements that have occurred. Anyone else see the irony in the fact that the only public official getting anything done these days is the lone republican in the state?