Amtrak went through the same thing years ago. Fixed income. Fixed expenses. How do you cut costs? Cut the only non-fixed expense, and it's usually maintenance.

Ok, so most of us (and by that I mean UH watchers) won't learn anything new from Mr. D'Alessandro's report, and I have already said several times over the last few weeks that I think the T is too cheap so I won't rehash it.

My bigger concern is that the D'Alessandro report is likely to fall on deaf ears (blind eyes?) everywhere, unless the Governor and others start telling people why the T matters to drivers too. It's very simple: if the T doesn't work, several hundred thousand people will be joining said drivers on the already overburdened roadway network. If someone wants to tuck in a remark like "by the way, there would be a revolution if the roadway network were in the same condition as the T", so much the better.

Since people will want statistical backup, a good place to start making this case would be for someone to start collecting statistics on Turnpike (and other east/west routes) traffic on days (like today) when the Worcester commuter rail line is in fail mode. As the players involved are both under our new DOT, that should be less difficult than before. Similar activities should occur when various other aspects of the T go down. MassDOT really has to get serious about this, because if nothing is done before the economy picks up (and traffic on the T and the roads increases), we are going to forfeit some economic growth because of the poor condition of the transportation infrastructure.

Incidentally, I am hoping Roadman will add some insight to this discussion.

The report doesn't get into too many specific examples of problems caused by deferred maintenance - except on the Red Line:

One example of an unfunded project that received the maximum safety score of "10" is the floating slabs and tunnel leak repair project between Alewife and Harvard stations on the Red Line. This $80M project involves the complete removal and replacement of the existing system of floating concrete slabs beneath the Red Line tracks from Alewife to Harvard stations. "Floating" slabs rest atop a series of rubber disks that are designed to absorb the vibration of a train as it travels along the track. Water leaking through the tunnel walls is creating several problems:

• The leaking water is deteriorating the slabs themselves, causing sinking and misalignment of some slabs.
• The water is corroding the fasteners that attach the track to the concrete.
• In some areas, the fasteners are no longer holding the track in place, causing track to move out of alignment and presenting the possibility of train derailment.
• In addition, the water is corroding the signal system along the track and compromising the cable and wire conduits.

I bolded the derailment possibility because, Oh. My. God.

Also, the report addresses the recent Red Line fire (which, you may recall, happened at the same time as the recent Orange Line fire):

A recent issue on the Red Line, when a fire erupted from old cable, illustrates such a situation. Buried under wet muck, the aging cable caught fire, resulting in a shutdown of Red Line service during rush hour. Buses and drivers were called into service—some pulled from spare inventory that was available to be deployed and some pulled off of existing routes in order to service passengers on the Red Line. This resulted in diminished service along some bus routes so that bus passengers, in addition to Red Line passengers, were unhappy and inconvenienced.

Plus, you've got the fact that the T still runs 74 Red Line cars purchased in 1969 with an expected lifespan of 25 years (on the Orange Line, the entire fleet of cars is now three years past its freshness date).

For me, the PDF of the report is entirely blank (36-odd pages worth). Anyone else have this problem, or know why this might happen? (I'm trying to open it on a Mac, using Preview.)

A derailment in a flooded tunnel deep underground between Harvard and Alewife. That'll be fun.