cell phones

The MBTA is installing 42 phone lines at key employee gathering spots as part of its total ban on employee cell phone use, T General Manager Dan Grabauskas told the Department of Public Utilities today.

Grabauskas said the new phone lines represent one of several steps the T is taking to ensure workers are reachable in an emergency. Grabauskas's comments came at a DPU hearing at which he asked the department to permanently enact the emergency ban put into effect after that May Green Line crash caused by a texting trolley driver.

In addition to the new phone lines, the T has a 24-hour emergency hotline family members can call if they need to get in touch with a T worker. Grabauskas said this has been used 100 times with just one case in which the employee was not reached "in a timely manner." The T now also conducts daily checks of radio equipment on both trains and buses, which he said show the systems work 98% of the time on trains and 95% of the time on buses.

We are committed to putting the necessary systems in place to allay any concerns Operators may have about their families and dependents contacting them in the event of an emergency while they are at work.

Grabauskas's DPU testimony.

Charley on the MTA writes it's past time the legislature did something about rapacious cellular companies ripping off consumers by locking them into overpriced, shoddy service:

... How cool would it be to actually have real, fluid competition in cell phone service? Unlock the contracts, and the companies will have more incentive to improve service. Someone else has a better/cheaper phone plan? Go with them! ...

Not so fast there, Peter Morin says. He argues service is just fine along major highways and such and that the real problem isn't cellular companies but obstreperous local boards in hoity-toity towns like Weston that refuse to let the companies put in enough cell towers because they're NIMBYs run amok:

... [T]he town of Wayland has been chastised by a federal court for its "fixed opposition" to wireless, been sued successfully a second time, and doesn't appear to have been chastened in the least. If you live in Sudbury and commute from Boston, either take the Pike to Natick or take Route 20 and listen to Howie Carr, because a phone call you will not make. ...