It is a legit question, and I wish I had an example to provide. Maybe privatization isn't necessarily the answer, but when a state agency runs itself into such deep debt, that doesn't do the general public any good either.
Large federal programs (such as the big dig) come with various stipulations: that the state should pay a certain amount, that certain funds be earmarked for certain purposes, etc.
The Big Dig funding included a stipulation that a certain amount be spent on mitigation -- public transit and other infrastructure improvements.
During the Weld administration, Charlie Baker (head of Administration and Finance), faced with massive budget overruns on the Big Dig, decided that the mitigation costs should be covered by the MBTA, rather than paid out of Big Dig funds. This accounting sleight-of-hand shifted $1,700,000,000 in costs from the Big Dig itself to the MBTA, causing the Big Dig to look slightly less badly in the red than it was, but saddling the MBTA with a huge debt.
Now some Baker apologists are saying this was proper, because the mitigation was related to public transit, and the MBTA should rightly bear the debt for public transit expenses. The problem with that line of reasoning is that this $1.7 billion was not paid for transit improvements that necessarily made sense as part of an overall set of public transportation priorities; it is $1.7 billion that would not have been spent if not for the big dig. It is money that we had to spend in order to qualify for the Big Dig funding, and not necessarily for any other reason.
It's rare that such a blatant "kick the can down the road and let some future person deal with it." move actually comes back to bite the very person who set it in motion, but that's what is happening to Baker: Now that he's Governor, the chickens that he hatched while he was running A&F have come home to roost.
Of course, Baker's got an awesome PR team, and they're doing a pretty good job of not making this stick to him, in part by distracting us with featherbedding, bloated pension benefits, absenteeism, bad management, and a whole lot of other T woes.
All these other issues are of course legitimate, but there's no way around the fact that $1.7 billion of the T's total debt ( that's around a third of the total) can be attributed squarely to the Governor's prior action when he was head of A&F.
But the operational debt everyone likes to say "wasn't a part of the Big Dig" was *BECAUSE* of the Big Dig debt. When significant portions of the stupidly allocated "forward funding" budget you're given are going to the debt you were ALSO given AND the "forward funding" budget isn't increasing at anywhere near the rate it was promised when penciling out the budget for the first 10 years the legislation was enacted...when all that hits but you have to keep running the trains, the costs for paying the debt AND paying for increasing fuel prices has to come from somewhere...it came from debt taken out to keep the system running.
No Big Dig debt and we might have even weathered the declining sales tax associated budget through the recession. So to say that the debt is only a fraction of Big Dig debt is to deny the stupidity of the legislation that strapped the T's success to the sales tax revenue AND simultaneously made it pay a portion of that on debt it had no business paying. Far more of the current debt is *DUE TO* the Big Dig debt than just the amount it was handed in 2000 minus what it's paid down on that debt so far.
The amount paid to debt service as a percentage of revenue has actually gone down over the past 15 years from 27% of revenue to 22% of revenue. The budget has doubled and almost all of that has gone to payroll/taxes/benefits - NOT debt. The concept that the T is over-indebted due to the Big Dig is a big lie.
I have more faith in Charlie Baker than others. And certainly more faith in him than the collective wisdom of any legislative body. Someone needs to own this. One person. Charlie has stepped up to the plate. I'll take a single - wishing for a home run.
The concept that the T is over-indebted due to the Big Dig is a big lie.
Around $1.7 billion, around one third of the T's massive debt, is directly attributable to Charlie Baker, back during the Weld administration, having shifted Big Dig expenses to the MBTA. That's not the only problem with MBTA finances, but for sure it's a significant part.
Remember - they gave them an additional piece of the sales tax to pay for that. And since then they've added two ADDITIONAL revenue streams. I've heard that the extra sales tax hasn't lived up to expectations - but that is offset by that fact that the interest rate on that debt is now about half or 1/3 of what it was when they absorbed it. Plus even recent nominal inflation has made it worth about 1/3 less in today's dollars than the day they inherited it.
The T's problems have somewhere between zero and less than zero to do with the Big Dig.
I agreed with you from reading any number of articles - then I looked at the numbers - and they don't support that argument. If anything they refute it.
when the Big Dig was built. The state, through a republican governor who did not believe in the public sector, handed over the roles of designer, builder and most importantly owners ( you Mr. taxpayer) representative, to the private sector. The template came right out of the corporatists think tank cabal. Privatization is hailed by the Pioneer institute, Beacon Hill Institute, Hudson institute etc. etc. etc.
These libertarian fantasy proclaimers are masters at pay for opinion marketing which has focused on destroying any and all government programs that serve working people. Schools, roads, public transportation, public safety. They believe that your tax dollars belong in private sector pockets rather than being spent by government for the benefit of all.
Unions don't bankroll wholesale disenfranchisement of large groups of people.
Unions aren't trying to destroy democracy on an unprecidented scale.
Union contributions are only a small fraction of political donations. I'd be plenty happy to ban them IF we got rid of the corporate personhood bullshit at the same time.
Disagree. Most taxpayers are not members of unions and many want nothing to do with unions. It is 2015, their value is questionable. This is not 1915, totally different time and place. Many middle class people today are not union, probably most are not union. You can argue that they "created" the middle class but really, no one cares. Again, let's deal with 2015.
In my opinion, most people do not support the Carman's union in this case. Probably because most of us know MBTA employees. They are members of our families, neighbors and friends and that gives us an insight into the employees at the T. It's an eye opener how they work out the sick and OT games.
I'll agree that if we get unions and corporations out of political donations and we may get somewhere. But never one without the other.
"Unions aren't trying to destroy democracy on an unprecidented scale" ???? Do you mean TPP? I can't imagine what else would be destroying democracy on an "unprecidented scale", this administration?? Not sure what you're going for to be honest.
You have heard of widespread attempts to disenfranchise voters.
Yes?
You realize that these laws are often introduced in boilerplate form, word for word, from the Koch Brothers foundations.
Yes?
You realize that the legislation and attempts by governors to bust unions and nullify contracts by force are all based on boilerplate from the same organization.
Right?
If you are going to be ignorant of history, blind to current events, and incapable of following the money and legilation to the source, all the while parroting the talking points, you might consider a move to Michigan, Kansas or Wisconsin. I hear their economies are doing wonderfully well after being gutted by foundational boilerplate and puppet Governors.
Except they aren't. You can believe that it is utopia there, because faith, and feel free to move. Good luck finding a job, and best of luck not getting sick, too.
Actually Swirly, I've more of a brain than you give me credit for.
Not a union person, never have been and most likely never will be. A union did not get me to where I am so your attempt at trying to make me "miss" something I never had is a waste of your time and mine.
Yes, I've heard of attempts to disenfranchise voters and not just from the big scary Koch brothers! Those dastardly Koch brothers!! How are they even allowed to breath?
And no, I'm not ignorant of history or blind to current events. I just disagree with you and you have a hard time with it, so it seems.
Today you're funny. Thanks.
PS, I've been here my whole life and not planning to go anywhere.
This is absurd. It’s about getting bang for your buck, which in many cases having the government run everything has proven that you don’t get that. It’s not about private vs. public - it’s about people getting their money’s worth and given the way the budgets have gone and general trends in bureacracies tending to grow and grow unconstrained as service drops because public interests have been captured REGARDLESS of it being “public” or “private” service. Your preconceptions about “They believe that your tax dollars belong in private sector pockets rather than being spent by government for the benefit of all.” simply because it’s called being “privatized” is childish.
Both private and public functions can be captured and lack accountability. Public functions are generally the worse in regards to these over time. Privatization doesn’t implicitly mean POLITICIANS giving favors, and public doesn’t implicitly mean noble. If anything privatization is saving schools that have been strangled by unions for ages now at the victimization of generations.
We need to strike a balance, but private firms running transit systems are not at all unusual and generally successful when given the ability to actually run them which the senate seems committed to undermining.
Honestly though, this debate has been beaten to death and has little to do with the MBTA. A school can be funded as a separate entity within a larger system and budget in a way that a transportation system can't. We need the MBTA fixed in a total, system-wide manner as one system. It's nothing like school reform as an issue.
It's three charter schools, serving a few thousand kids.
It's an example of a charter school working. That's it. I certainly don't think a charter model is a cure-all for the BPS - they are part of the solution. The failings of BPS are not 100% the fault of charter schools and charter schools are not 100% of the solution.
There are lots of public schools which are excellent and charter schools with lower test scores. It's a wash at best. The idea that the private industry is turns everything they touch into gold is fairy tale.
But private public transit has been tested -- by all means the private managers of the CR should have been better able to get the trains running on time during and after the snow. Instead it was the CR that took weeks longer to resume normal service. By all accounts they are not any better run then the rest of the MBTA.
The commuter rail isn't really privatized. Management is contracted out to an outside vendor. That's way different than a privately owned and operated transit company.
It's like comparing the MBTA's the Ride service to Paul Revere's corporate bus service and trying to claim the Ride is "privatized".
The commuter rail is absolutely contracted out to a private company. It's not just "management". They answer to the MBTA, and most equipment belongs to the MBTA, but all employees are Keolis employees, not state employees, and all operations are Keolis.
They are a private company told by the MBTA to run these trains on these routes for these fares, and meet these standards. If they make a profit, great, but it's on them.
If they could do anything they wanted they would start by cutting services or jacking up the fares on all late night and most weekend trains -- anything which is currently "losing money". Maybe they would invest in new equipment but seeing as how they wouldn't have any competition you could expect comcast style customer service.
No one is talking about completely privatizing any services for this reason. Some people make the argument that public managers and employees are never going to be as good as private managers and employees because the private ones have more of an incentive (more cash) then the public ones. Either way it costs the "government" the same. In the case of a private company some of the funds go to shareholders and others executives. In a public model the money is more evenly spread out over the workforce.
be attributed to selection bias? They get the students whose parents are interested in and motivated enough about their children's education to apply to charter schools. Those are the kids predisposed to success in school. They leave behind the kids with disinterested parents. Those are the kids who are less likely to succeed in school and more likely to be disruptive to kids who otherwise might.
I've come to conclude that the privatization fetish is really about giving right wing corporates new ways to set up rentier money siphons.
Cholly never met a money siphon he didn't love.
It's a facet of how our economy has moved from manufacturing to services.
Grandpa Cholly would have been setting up a factory contract for defense dept stuff.
The current version likes these simple minded sleaze-athons where everyone loses, just a bit, except them.
It's a right wing MBA wet dream to have a fat service contract to assume some government function. It's like money in the bank. Ideology is just a mask. These goons LOVE gubmint when it comes to getting the checks, more or less like everyone else.
Public-private partnerships are the future for most public services, and the best way of controlling costs and keeping budgets sane and sustainable. It works all over the place, you likely just don’t notice. Many park management, garbage collection, even fire services often get contracted out and the incentives on operating sustainably are much more likely than if it’s just another 100% government service that ends up just reinforcing it’s own inevitability.
Here we have an "opposition party" governor, who is quite popular, saying "give this huge problem to me, and I'll own it". In response, we have a legislative body saying, "eh, not so fast, we'll give you a little, but not the big things you want."
If you believe that fixing the T requires big changes, as I think most people do, I don't see how this could possibly work out for the Senate. Among other things, allows the Governor to say (when big change is not delivered), "see, I told you to give me the whole thing."
In short, I see this a further enhancing the Governor's popularity (even if he fails to make the T work better), while further diminishing the Legislature's (and Senate in particular) popularity. For that reason, I do not understand this move at all.
Further, as DeLeo and the House have been closer to the Governor on this, I don't see how this helps the Senate or its President with its ongoing feud with the House and Speaker, respectively, over the joint committee thing (and other issues).
Like my private interest in having a properly operating transit system so that I don't get stranded in the rain and the snow?
Projects like this need ownership by one person. You throw a few dozen at it and everyone ends up like the classic family circus cartoon with little "Not Me" ghosts running away.
The buck has to stop somewhere - not get passed from Senator to Senator when things fall apart again.
The flaw with your view though is that you assume that what Baker would consider to be fixing the MBTA will align with your interest in having good, reliable, frequent service. I think Baker wants to reduce service along with the state's financial obligations to the MBTA and he'll then declare it fixed and walk away. I don't think he's as dedicated to the MBTA as a crucial part of the regional economic infrastructure as he should be.
Our elected representatives have always shown their out for our best interests and not their own (or those who donate the most money to their campaign allowing them to continue their political "career" for as long as they feel like serving).
... that too many members in the House are terminally lazy -- and prefer a Speaker who gives them orders they must follow -- to one who actually would make them work or think or exercise anym independent judgment. Otherwise, why (when a Speaker gets nailed for corrupt practices) don't they refuse to pick a new speaker until rules are changed to disallow the dictatorial powers that have been abused time after time (with ultimately dire results for the person given such unconstrained powers).
IIRC the speaker of the house controls committee assignments and appoints house committee chairs. If you're elected to the house and you want to advance your career, you have a big incentive to vote as the speaker wants you to vote, especially on key house votes. It's a little bit of a racket. Someone did an analysis of casino votes under Dimasi and DeLeo and concluded the speaker of the house controls 100 votes.
but that has not been my experience with either part of the General Court.
I think Rosenberg is doing some interesting things with his apparent democratization of the Senate, but I just cannot figure out what is going on here (from a political standpoint, which, as I alluded to above, has been the only standpoint in my experience - both inside and outside of the state transport apparatus).
If the Senate is, as you say, standing up for the people of Massachusetts (which, presumably, means taking immediate and substantial measures to provide for a better public transportation system in and around the state's economic core), then that is great. That presumes, however, that the T can be fixed by the Senate's shorter-reaching approach (I do not believe the representations that that they will later give the Governor more authority later on - that's the oldest line in the political playbook). I am not sure that many people believe that to be possible. I think that most people are looking for something further on the continuum toward the "nuclear option" after the debacle a few months ago.
... during the winter "debacle" -- but attributing most of the problems to MBTA incompetence rather than to the impact of unprecedentedly bad weather seems opportunistic on the part of Baker and pals -- in the extreme.
It's pretty easy to do good poll numbers when you don't do much that is readily noticeable.
It's only a matter of time before the legislature starts yanking the leash to remind Cholly who has the power.
There has already been lots of hog trough rooting over the past decade. There are a bunch of privatized transit entities ringing Boston. DeLeo's town has a private company that picks people up at Orient Heights. He probably likes the patronage/nepotism options.
I've used a some of these systems in MetroWest, (the worst), Lowell and Lawrence, (both quite good). They use Charlie cards and have fairly low fares.
MetroWest is crappy mini buses where the employees might blast radio, sports talk or whatever, the things have lousy sight lines for seeing your stop, their schedules are aspirational and their coordination for transfers is weird. It's run by the same huge Canadian conglomerate that owns Greyhound.
You can get a MetroWest 1 bus to the Natick Mall from the Woodland T station. Try it some time if you want to experience a crap privatization contract.
The Merrimack systems are like the T only with lower fares and a boarding system that entails picking a safe spot along the road and waving at the driver.
First Transit, the contractor that runs MWRTA, is also the same contractor that runs MVRTA. The schedules, equipment, routes, and fares are determined by the transit authority not the contractor.
Wouldn't it be grand if schedules were facts rather than wishful thoughts?
And who wouldn't love a simple quiet ride free of radio blare?
The contractor is responsible for that. Nice deflection but I like routes, fares and schedules just fine. The only problem with the last is failure to reliably follow them.
Maybe MVRTA is more closely monitored than easy breezy Metro West?
The crappy website design where one gets to read the engrossing schedule fiction needs work too but it isn't a deal breaker.
If the contractor is given a schedule to run that is not realistic (given an hour to run a route that really takes 80 minutes) it is up to the authority to change the schedule to one that works.
How hard is it to figure out time frames for a drive between the Natick Mall and Woodland in a straight line along route 9? I use buses a lot and the T is generally solid barring acts of nature or rush hour.Metro West rarely has that many passengers so stops are few. And the blasting radio is probably a driver distraction. Ever see that on the T?
One of the funniest things about this place is how shills come out of the woodwork to wag fingers and say.... "no no no..we do not suck.".. over nearly anything ever derided here.
The faith in the platform is truly touching. Now go tell your boss ya done good defending the sullied honor of MetroWest on a news blog. Maybe you'll get a box of dunkies as a bonus.
It's too bad Adam isn't making as much money as he need given this touching faith and dread of criticism at U Hub.
Is the Globe choking that badly?
My guess about the schedule ineptitude is that it's the hyperactive radio dispatching to arrange transfers. And I use it off rush hours.
1. Get rid of the stupid paper transfer systems that a driver has to hand write on the fly. It's Mayberry RFD stuff.
2.Get some signage up at Woodland, like you eventually did at the Mall. It's an express, (HAH!), portal to and from Boston.
If more people out at the Woodland Station know you exist, they might even use the thing.
3. Make up your mind about where the stop actually is and make sure drivers know where key stops like Mass Bay Community College are located. I had to cover one on that one.... you owe me.
They have my sympathy. It's basically driving around all day with a bus full of nothing and a passenger is like an event, off peak. But still, they'll have a better shot at driving the big rigs if they know the rules and standards.
I'll continue to use it as I'm never in a rush.
I'm guessing you're not exactly paying your drivers exciting wages
On the one hand, you'd think the politicians in the Senate would love someone, from the opposition party, to say "I'll take responsibility for that," right? Then every time it fails they can blame the other party.
Except in this case, Baker has a history of turning large, lumbering, dysfunctional entities like the MBTA around. He did it before with Harvard-Pilgrim Healthcare. Several news articles have already drawn the comparison with what he did with Harvard and how it looks like he'd employ the same techniques with the MBTA. So the Senate is rightly worried that if he takes responsibility for the T, he will fix it, making himself and the Republicans look good and the Democrats bad. So, they oppose it.
Truth is, this is probably win-win for Baker, and lose-lose for the Senate. If they hand Baker control, he fixes it. If they don't, it continues to fail, and he can lay the blame squarely on the Senate.
More recent history suggests that when you hand Charlie Baker control of a large public-works project, he'll make it "succeed" by funneling money to private contractors and then dumping the costs onto some other state agency. So you'll forgive my skepticism as to how exactly he's planning to fix the same MBTA that he hamstrung fifteen years ago.
Also, as I've mentioned in other threads: previous success in private industry is in no way predictive of Chaz's ability to run a state government. If Lowell is the worst-performing school district, you can't sell it off and restructure. If the Fairmount line is bleeding money, shutting it down isn't an option.
It all began when the Conservation Law Foundation successfully sued to mitigate auto emissions from all the idling cars on the Distressway.
The Big Diggers including Cholly were now stuck with a significant expansion of commuter rail.
The Old Colony Line and Greenbush were substantially rebuilt.
So the GOP Stooge unit tried to kick it back to the T. There are many ways a reasonably good sophist on either side of the argument could spin it for their interpretation, but a significant reason for Public Transit is emission reduction. Everyone has to breathe, even Cholly.
After years of watching this stuff I realized that public/private quarrel really is about the MBA cult's extreme distaste for arrangements where job descriptions for the people are indirectly crafted by the people these jobs serve rather than a bean counter chiseler.
It's pretty much forgotten that what is now the T was a bunch of private profitable street railway companies. Then, over time, for various reasons they became unprofitable but their services were still considered a public good and they became a public agency. Privatizing them is just an excuse to make public transportation go away and avoid the question of how to manage the subsidies and/or run the damn things well. If you've ever been on public transportation in Europe or Asia you know how f'ing pathetic the T is and it's one of the better systems in the US.
I'm sure Uber's surge pricing will make sure that getting to work will be easier when the T is no more. Maybe we can stop subsiding the roads and have bake sales to fill potholes after we've transferred all the tax money to the 1% consultants who couldn't run a business without their inbred corruption.
Have the MBTA lease out it's land holdings for operating capital. Works for the Japanese transit companies. They make a ton of money on real estate leases to subsidize their rail operations.
Privatizing late-night service gives us all a good idea where things are headed. In Baker world the T will become primarily a rush-hour service. Don't work 9-5 or use the T for things other than work? Sucks to be you!
- The Workers Pass - If you work late and need the train to get home, pay the commuter rate. Must be validated through a purchase program on your late (early?) work schedule.
- The Laymans Pass - If you don't work late and just want to ride the T or CR home because you were out late drinking, pay the higher rate. Otherwise, find a nice place to sleep it off.
Then you're taking into consideration people who use the T because they need to and those that use it because it's better than a DUI.
Comments
That's right, because the
That's right, because the best way to pay off hundreds of millions of dollars in debt is to do it mildly.
Baker even quotes the maxim "If nothing changes, then nothing will change." No need to take your iron supplements this morning, Charlie!
Legit question:
When has privatizing public systems worked for the general public?
It is a legit question, and I
It is a legit question, and I wish I had an example to provide. Maybe privatization isn't necessarily the answer, but when a state agency runs itself into such deep debt, that doesn't do the general public any good either.
Ahem
Some achieve deep debt; others have it thrust upon them.
Your argument might work if
Your argument might work if the MBTA actually ran itself into deep debt rather than having the state inform them that they were now in deep debt.
Swirly & Tape
I actually was unaware of that. Where is the source of the debt from? The Big Dig?
The transit projects that
The transit projects that were part of the Big Dig environmental mitigation agreement, including the Silver Line and Greenbush commuter rail.
These projects were obscenely expensive and of questionable usefulness. But they are certainly transit projects.
The source was Charlie Baker himself
Large federal programs (such as the big dig) come with various stipulations: that the state should pay a certain amount, that certain funds be earmarked for certain purposes, etc.
The Big Dig funding included a stipulation that a certain amount be spent on mitigation -- public transit and other infrastructure improvements.
During the Weld administration, Charlie Baker (head of Administration and Finance), faced with massive budget overruns on the Big Dig, decided that the mitigation costs should be covered by the MBTA, rather than paid out of Big Dig funds. This accounting sleight-of-hand shifted $1,700,000,000 in costs from the Big Dig itself to the MBTA, causing the Big Dig to look slightly less badly in the red than it was, but saddling the MBTA with a huge debt.
Now some Baker apologists are saying this was proper, because the mitigation was related to public transit, and the MBTA should rightly bear the debt for public transit expenses. The problem with that line of reasoning is that this $1.7 billion was not paid for transit improvements that necessarily made sense as part of an overall set of public transportation priorities; it is $1.7 billion that would not have been spent if not for the big dig. It is money that we had to spend in order to qualify for the Big Dig funding, and not necessarily for any other reason.
It's rare that such a blatant "kick the can down the road and let some future person deal with it." move actually comes back to bite the very person who set it in motion, but that's what is happening to Baker: Now that he's Governor, the chickens that he hatched while he was running A&F have come home to roost.
Of course, Baker's got an awesome PR team, and they're doing a pretty good job of not making this stick to him, in part by distracting us with featherbedding, bloated pension benefits, absenteeism, bad management, and a whole lot of other T woes.
All these other issues are of course legitimate, but there's no way around the fact that $1.7 billion of the T's total debt ( that's around a third of the total) can be attributed squarely to the Governor's prior action when he was head of A&F.
Not only that debt
But the operational debt everyone likes to say "wasn't a part of the Big Dig" was *BECAUSE* of the Big Dig debt. When significant portions of the stupidly allocated "forward funding" budget you're given are going to the debt you were ALSO given AND the "forward funding" budget isn't increasing at anywhere near the rate it was promised when penciling out the budget for the first 10 years the legislation was enacted...when all that hits but you have to keep running the trains, the costs for paying the debt AND paying for increasing fuel prices has to come from somewhere...it came from debt taken out to keep the system running.
No Big Dig debt and we might have even weathered the declining sales tax associated budget through the recession. So to say that the debt is only a fraction of Big Dig debt is to deny the stupidity of the legislation that strapped the T's success to the sales tax revenue AND simultaneously made it pay a portion of that on debt it had no business paying. Far more of the current debt is *DUE TO* the Big Dig debt than just the amount it was handed in 2000 minus what it's paid down on that debt so far.
except they aren't
Look at the T's budget (see CKD's post noting "source" about the middle of the comments here: http://www.universalhub.com/2015/sorry-charlie-mbta-general-manager-quits )
The amount paid to debt service as a percentage of revenue has actually gone down over the past 15 years from 27% of revenue to 22% of revenue. The budget has doubled and almost all of that has gone to payroll/taxes/benefits - NOT debt. The concept that the T is over-indebted due to the Big Dig is a big lie.
I have more faith in Charlie Baker than others. And certainly more faith in him than the collective wisdom of any legislative body. Someone needs to own this. One person. Charlie has stepped up to the plate. I'll take a single - wishing for a home run.
Not really a big lie
Around $1.7 billion, around one third of the T's massive debt, is directly attributable to Charlie Baker, back during the Weld administration, having shifted Big Dig expenses to the MBTA. That's not the only problem with MBTA finances, but for sure it's a significant part.
Not really
Remember - they gave them an additional piece of the sales tax to pay for that. And since then they've added two ADDITIONAL revenue streams. I've heard that the extra sales tax hasn't lived up to expectations - but that is offset by that fact that the interest rate on that debt is now about half or 1/3 of what it was when they absorbed it. Plus even recent nominal inflation has made it worth about 1/3 less in today's dollars than the day they inherited it.
The T's problems have somewhere between zero and less than zero to do with the Big Dig.
I agreed with you from reading any number of articles - then I looked at the numbers - and they don't support that argument. If anything they refute it.
They work great as a scape goat
So if you're an elected official and things still suck you can blame someone and claim you both didn't cause the problem and are powerless to fix it.
It also helps the general public if that general public just to happens to own shares in the company which runs said division.
Privatization works for things that should turn a profit, like state run oil companies. Not so much for things that are by their nature public goods.
Never
But it has typially done quite well for well-connected rich people/corporations and the politicians they have bought.
Privatization worked well for taxpayers
when the Big Dig was built. The state, through a republican governor who did not believe in the public sector, handed over the roles of designer, builder and most importantly owners ( you Mr. taxpayer) representative, to the private sector. The template came right out of the corporatists think tank cabal. Privatization is hailed by the Pioneer institute, Beacon Hill Institute, Hudson institute etc. etc. etc.
These libertarian fantasy proclaimers are masters at pay for opinion marketing which has focused on destroying any and all government programs that serve working people. Schools, roads, public transportation, public safety. They believe that your tax dollars belong in private sector pockets rather than being spent by government for the benefit of all.
Re: Privatization worked well for taxpayers
That is just idiotic, and I am to the left of left of center.
Yep - follow the money
We all know who has been funding the Pioneer Institute and chipped in PAC money for Charlie's campaign promotion.
Hint: same anti-American democracy destroyers who have Scott Walker and Brownback on their hands.
Swirly
Did you see that one of Charlie's board appointees is from Pioneer? HMMMMMM
Yes, I did
Of course they would probably deny that that particular person was paid out of a particular Koch donation to the institute, though.
And all the big labor
And all the big labor donations to politicians aren't conspiracies against the public for preferential treatment?
One big difference
Union labor built the middle class.
Unions don't bankroll wholesale disenfranchisement of large groups of people.
Unions aren't trying to destroy democracy on an unprecidented scale.
Union contributions are only a small fraction of political donations. I'd be plenty happy to ban them IF we got rid of the corporate personhood bullshit at the same time.
Disagree. Most taxpayers are
Disagree. Most taxpayers are not members of unions and many want nothing to do with unions. It is 2015, their value is questionable. This is not 1915, totally different time and place. Many middle class people today are not union, probably most are not union. You can argue that they "created" the middle class but really, no one cares. Again, let's deal with 2015.
In my opinion, most people do not support the Carman's union in this case. Probably because most of us know MBTA employees. They are members of our families, neighbors and friends and that gives us an insight into the employees at the T. It's an eye opener how they work out the sick and OT games.
I'll agree that if we get unions and corporations out of political donations and we may get somewhere. But never one without the other.
"Unions aren't trying to destroy democracy on an unprecidented scale" ???? Do you mean TPP? I can't imagine what else would be destroying democracy on an "unprecidented scale", this administration?? Not sure what you're going for to be honest.
You have heard of the Koch Brothers, Yes?
You have heard of widespread attempts to disenfranchise voters.
Yes?
You realize that these laws are often introduced in boilerplate form, word for word, from the Koch Brothers foundations.
Yes?
You realize that the legislation and attempts by governors to bust unions and nullify contracts by force are all based on boilerplate from the same organization.
Right?
If you are going to be ignorant of history, blind to current events, and incapable of following the money and legilation to the source, all the while parroting the talking points, you might consider a move to Michigan, Kansas or Wisconsin. I hear their economies are doing wonderfully well after being gutted by foundational boilerplate and puppet Governors.
Except they aren't. You can believe that it is utopia there, because faith, and feel free to move. Good luck finding a job, and best of luck not getting sick, too.
Actually Swirly, I've more of
Actually Swirly, I've more of a brain than you give me credit for.
Not a union person, never have been and most likely never will be. A union did not get me to where I am so your attempt at trying to make me "miss" something I never had is a waste of your time and mine.
Yes, I've heard of attempts to disenfranchise voters and not just from the big scary Koch brothers! Those dastardly Koch brothers!! How are they even allowed to breath?
And no, I'm not ignorant of history or blind to current events. I just disagree with you and you have a hard time with it, so it seems.
Today you're funny. Thanks.
PS, I've been here my whole life and not planning to go anywhere.
Oh please
This is absurd. It’s about getting bang for your buck, which in many cases having the government run everything has proven that you don’t get that. It’s not about private vs. public - it’s about people getting their money’s worth and given the way the budgets have gone and general trends in bureacracies tending to grow and grow unconstrained as service drops because public interests have been captured REGARDLESS of it being “public” or “private” service. Your preconceptions about “They believe that your tax dollars belong in private sector pockets rather than being spent by government for the benefit of all.” simply because it’s called being “privatized” is childish.
Both private and public functions can be captured and lack accountability. Public functions are generally the worse in regards to these over time. Privatization doesn’t implicitly mean POLITICIANS giving favors, and public doesn’t implicitly mean noble. If anything privatization is saving schools that have been strangled by unions for ages now at the victimization of generations.
We need to strike a balance, but private firms running transit systems are not at all unusual and generally successful when given the ability to actually run them which the senate seems committed to undermining.
Really, you can't think of ONE in Boston
We've been battling over Charter Schools now for a decade.
And they've been rather successful.
By all means
Please demonstrate the success of said example with something beyond an anecdote.
Brooke Charter schools
http://www.schooldigger.com/go/MA/schools/0007101747/school.aspx
Honestly though, this debate has been beaten to death and has little to do with the MBTA. A school can be funded as a separate entity within a larger system and budget in a way that a transportation system can't. We need the MBTA fixed in a total, system-wide manner as one system. It's nothing like school reform as an issue.
One indivudual charter school
One individual charter school does not "charter schools as a concept and system" make.
So name a successful
Boston Public HS outside of the exam system!
Boston Arts Academy
Despite the crappy building they have.
Quincy Upper School.
After you answer the question
Turning the question around does not provide any support for your fiat declaration that charter schools are a rousing success.
Two things
It's three charter schools, serving a few thousand kids.
It's an example of a charter school working. That's it. I certainly don't think a charter model is a cure-all for the BPS - they are part of the solution. The failings of BPS are not 100% the fault of charter schools and charter schools are not 100% of the solution.
Boston Collegiate
http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/massachusetts/district...
Success is easily measured
when you do not serve special needs students, non english speakers and disciplinary disasters.
No, they've been mixed
There are lots of public schools which are excellent and charter schools with lower test scores. It's a wash at best. The idea that the private industry is turns everything they touch into gold is fairy tale.
But private public transit has been tested -- by all means the private managers of the CR should have been better able to get the trains running on time during and after the snow. Instead it was the CR that took weeks longer to resume normal service. By all accounts they are not any better run then the rest of the MBTA.
The commuter rail isn't
The commuter rail isn't really privatized. Management is contracted out to an outside vendor. That's way different than a privately owned and operated transit company.
It's like comparing the MBTA's the Ride service to Paul Revere's corporate bus service and trying to claim the Ride is "privatized".
The commuter rail is
The commuter rail is absolutely contracted out to a private company. It's not just "management". They answer to the MBTA, and most equipment belongs to the MBTA, but all employees are Keolis employees, not state employees, and all operations are Keolis.
They are a private company told by the MBTA to run these trains on these routes for these fares, and meet these standards. If they make a profit, great, but it's on them.
True And...
If they could do anything they wanted they would start by cutting services or jacking up the fares on all late night and most weekend trains -- anything which is currently "losing money". Maybe they would invest in new equipment but seeing as how they wouldn't have any competition you could expect comcast style customer service.
No one is talking about completely privatizing any services for this reason. Some people make the argument that public managers and employees are never going to be as good as private managers and employees because the private ones have more of an incentive (more cash) then the public ones. Either way it costs the "government" the same. In the case of a private company some of the funds go to shareholders and others executives. In a public model the money is more evenly spread out over the workforce.
Can't their "successes"
be attributed to selection bias? They get the students whose parents are interested in and motivated enough about their children's education to apply to charter schools. Those are the kids predisposed to success in school. They leave behind the kids with disinterested parents. Those are the kids who are less likely to succeed in school and more likely to be disruptive to kids who otherwise might.
It depends on what 'works' means.
I've come to conclude that the privatization fetish is really about giving right wing corporates new ways to set up rentier money siphons.
Cholly never met a money siphon he didn't love.
It's a facet of how our economy has moved from manufacturing to services.
Grandpa Cholly would have been setting up a factory contract for defense dept stuff.
The current version likes these simple minded sleaze-athons where everyone loses, just a bit, except them.
It's a right wing MBA wet dream to have a fat service contract to assume some government function. It's like money in the bank. Ideology is just a mask. These goons LOVE gubmint when it comes to getting the checks, more or less like everyone else.
When has anything the MBTA
When has anything the MBTA unions have done "worked for the general public"?
Privatization is not a dirty word
Public-private partnerships are the future for most public services, and the best way of controlling costs and keeping budgets sane and sustainable. It works all over the place, you likely just don’t notice. Many park management, garbage collection, even fire services often get contracted out and the incentives on operating sustainably are much more likely than if it’s just another 100% government service that ends up just reinforcing it’s own inevitability.
An interesting move by the Senate (and its President)
Here we have an "opposition party" governor, who is quite popular, saying "give this huge problem to me, and I'll own it". In response, we have a legislative body saying, "eh, not so fast, we'll give you a little, but not the big things you want."
If you believe that fixing the T requires big changes, as I think most people do, I don't see how this could possibly work out for the Senate. Among other things, allows the Governor to say (when big change is not delivered), "see, I told you to give me the whole thing."
In short, I see this a further enhancing the Governor's popularity (even if he fails to make the T work better), while further diminishing the Legislature's (and Senate in particular) popularity. For that reason, I do not understand this move at all.
Further, as DeLeo and the House have been closer to the Governor on this, I don't see how this helps the Senate or its President with its ongoing feud with the House and Speaker, respectively, over the joint committee thing (and other issues).
What is the Senate's play here?
Maybe the Senate is standing up for the people of Massachusetts
.... while DeLeo and Baker are eager to cut deals that make various private interests happy.
Bottom line for me -- if DeLeo is for something, presume there is something wrong with it.
Private Interests
Like my private interest in having a properly operating transit system so that I don't get stranded in the rain and the snow?
Projects like this need ownership by one person. You throw a few dozen at it and everyone ends up like the classic family circus cartoon with little "Not Me" ghosts running away.
The buck has to stop somewhere - not get passed from Senator to Senator when things fall apart again.
But
The flaw with your view though is that you assume that what Baker would consider to be fixing the MBTA will align with your interest in having good, reliable, frequent service. I think Baker wants to reduce service along with the state's financial obligations to the MBTA and he'll then declare it fixed and walk away. I don't think he's as dedicated to the MBTA as a crucial part of the regional economic infrastructure as he should be.
Yes, because outside of Deleo...
Our elected representatives have always shown their out for our best interests and not their own (or those who donate the most money to their campaign allowing them to continue their political "career" for as long as they feel like serving).
Not saying the others are great....
... or even fair-to-middling, but I distrust DeLeo most (by a fairly wide margin).
Can't disagree with you there
Can't wait for his indictment, gotta keep the Speaker streak alive! Who would be next in line for the Dems?
I can only assume....
... that too many members in the House are terminally lazy -- and prefer a Speaker who gives them orders they must follow -- to one who actually would make them work or think or exercise anym independent judgment. Otherwise, why (when a Speaker gets nailed for corrupt practices) don't they refuse to pick a new speaker until rules are changed to disallow the dictatorial powers that have been abused time after time (with ultimately dire results for the person given such unconstrained powers).
incentives
IIRC the speaker of the house controls committee assignments and appoints house committee chairs. If you're elected to the house and you want to advance your career, you have a big incentive to vote as the speaker wants you to vote, especially on key house votes. It's a little bit of a racket. Someone did an analysis of casino votes under Dimasi and DeLeo and concluded the speaker of the house controls 100 votes.
It is possible that there is a principled reason behind move...
but that has not been my experience with either part of the General Court.
I think Rosenberg is doing some interesting things with his apparent democratization of the Senate, but I just cannot figure out what is going on here (from a political standpoint, which, as I alluded to above, has been the only standpoint in my experience - both inside and outside of the state transport apparatus).
If the Senate is, as you say, standing up for the people of Massachusetts (which, presumably, means taking immediate and substantial measures to provide for a better public transportation system in and around the state's economic core), then that is great. That presumes, however, that the T can be fixed by the Senate's shorter-reaching approach (I do not believe the representations that that they will later give the Governor more authority later on - that's the oldest line in the political playbook). I am not sure that many people believe that to be possible. I think that most people are looking for something further on the continuum toward the "nuclear option" after the debacle a few months ago.
I was inconvenienced massively...
... during the winter "debacle" -- but attributing most of the problems to MBTA incompetence rather than to the impact of unprecedentedly bad weather seems opportunistic on the part of Baker and pals -- in the extreme.
Even attributing it to the
Even attributing it to the winter isn't right. Search UHub. Plenty of problems in the summer too.
Maybe it's the beginning of Bakers gelding.
It's pretty easy to do good poll numbers when you don't do much that is readily noticeable.
It's only a matter of time before the legislature starts yanking the leash to remind Cholly who has the power.
There has already been lots of hog trough rooting over the past decade. There are a bunch of privatized transit entities ringing Boston. DeLeo's town has a private company that picks people up at Orient Heights. He probably likes the patronage/nepotism options.
I've used a some of these systems in MetroWest, (the worst), Lowell and Lawrence, (both quite good). They use Charlie cards and have fairly low fares.
MetroWest is crappy mini buses where the employees might blast radio, sports talk or whatever, the things have lousy sight lines for seeing your stop, their schedules are aspirational and their coordination for transfers is weird. It's run by the same huge Canadian conglomerate that owns Greyhound.
You can get a MetroWest 1 bus to the Natick Mall from the Woodland T station. Try it some time if you want to experience a crap privatization contract.
The Merrimack systems are like the T only with lower fares and a boarding system that entails picking a safe spot along the road and waving at the driver.
I do give the Metro West RTA
I do give the Metro West RTA credit for starting up a bus system from scratch in the last few years.
Other similar outer suburbs of Boston have zero local transit service.
First Transit, the contractor
First Transit, the contractor that runs MWRTA, is also the same contractor that runs MVRTA. The schedules, equipment, routes, and fares are determined by the transit authority not the contractor.
Fulfillment of contract is the key.
Wouldn't it be grand if schedules were facts rather than wishful thoughts?
And who wouldn't love a simple quiet ride free of radio blare?
The contractor is responsible for that. Nice deflection but I like routes, fares and schedules just fine. The only problem with the last is failure to reliably follow them.
Maybe MVRTA is more closely monitored than easy breezy Metro West?
The crappy website design where one gets to read the engrossing schedule fiction needs work too but it isn't a deal breaker.
If the contractor is given a
If the contractor is given a schedule to run that is not realistic (given an hour to run a route that really takes 80 minutes) it is up to the authority to change the schedule to one that works.
That's some tasty whining.
How hard is it to figure out time frames for a drive between the Natick Mall and Woodland in a straight line along route 9? I use buses a lot and the T is generally solid barring acts of nature or rush hour.Metro West rarely has that many passengers so stops are few. And the blasting radio is probably a driver distraction. Ever see that on the T?
One of the funniest things about this place is how shills come out of the woodwork to wag fingers and say.... "no no no..we do not suck.".. over nearly anything ever derided here.
The faith in the platform is truly touching. Now go tell your boss ya done good defending the sullied honor of MetroWest on a news blog. Maybe you'll get a box of dunkies as a bonus.
It's too bad Adam isn't making as much money as he need given this touching faith and dread of criticism at U Hub.
Is the Globe choking that badly?
My guess about the schedule ineptitude is that it's the hyperactive radio dispatching to arrange transfers. And I use it off rush hours.
Here, since you have managements ear.
1. Get rid of the stupid paper transfer systems that a driver has to hand write on the fly. It's Mayberry RFD stuff.
2.Get some signage up at Woodland, like you eventually did at the Mall. It's an express, (HAH!), portal to and from Boston.
If more people out at the Woodland Station know you exist, they might even use the thing.
3. Make up your mind about where the stop actually is and make sure drivers know where key stops like Mass Bay Community College are located. I had to cover one on that one.... you owe me.
They have my sympathy. It's basically driving around all day with a bus full of nothing and a passenger is like an event, off peak. But still, they'll have a better shot at driving the big rigs if they know the rules and standards.
I'll continue to use it as I'm never in a rush.
I'm guessing you're not exactly paying your drivers exciting wages
Baker's Xanatos gambit
On the one hand, you'd think the politicians in the Senate would love someone, from the opposition party, to say "I'll take responsibility for that," right? Then every time it fails they can blame the other party.
Except in this case, Baker has a history of turning large, lumbering, dysfunctional entities like the MBTA around. He did it before with Harvard-Pilgrim Healthcare. Several news articles have already drawn the comparison with what he did with Harvard and how it looks like he'd employ the same techniques with the MBTA. So the Senate is rightly worried that if he takes responsibility for the T, he will fix it, making himself and the Republicans look good and the Democrats bad. So, they oppose it.
Truth is, this is probably win-win for Baker, and lose-lose for the Senate. If they hand Baker control, he fixes it. If they don't, it continues to fail, and he can lay the blame squarely on the Senate.
More recent history suggests
More recent history suggests that when you hand Charlie Baker control of a large public-works project, he'll make it "succeed" by funneling money to private contractors and then dumping the costs onto some other state agency. So you'll forgive my skepticism as to how exactly he's planning to fix the same MBTA that he hamstrung fifteen years ago.
Also, as I've mentioned in other threads: previous success in private industry is in no way predictive of Chaz's ability to run a state government. If Lowell is the worst-performing school district, you can't sell it off and restructure. If the Fairmount line is bleeding money, shutting it down isn't an option.
This is an ancient passive aggressive mud wrestle.
It all began when the Conservation Law Foundation successfully sued to mitigate auto emissions from all the idling cars on the Distressway.
The Big Diggers including Cholly were now stuck with a significant expansion of commuter rail.
The Old Colony Line and Greenbush were substantially rebuilt.
So the GOP Stooge unit tried to kick it back to the T. There are many ways a reasonably good sophist on either side of the argument could spin it for their interpretation, but a significant reason for Public Transit is emission reduction. Everyone has to breathe, even Cholly.
After years of watching this stuff I realized that public/private quarrel really is about the MBA cult's extreme distaste for arrangements where job descriptions for the people are indirectly crafted by the people these jobs serve rather than a bean counter chiseler.
The T was once private...
It's pretty much forgotten that what is now the T was a bunch of private profitable street railway companies. Then, over time, for various reasons they became unprofitable but their services were still considered a public good and they became a public agency. Privatizing them is just an excuse to make public transportation go away and avoid the question of how to manage the subsidies and/or run the damn things well. If you've ever been on public transportation in Europe or Asia you know how f'ing pathetic the T is and it's one of the better systems in the US.
I'm sure Uber's surge pricing will make sure that getting to work will be easier when the T is no more. Maybe we can stop subsiding the roads and have bake sales to fill potholes after we've transferred all the tax money to the 1% consultants who couldn't run a business without their inbred corruption.
Hmm. Your ideas are
Hmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Have the MBTA lease out it's
Have the MBTA lease out it's land holdings for operating capital. Works for the Japanese transit companies. They make a ton of money on real estate leases to subsidize their rail operations.
You gave me an idea
With the challenges of Uber,
now must be the time to make cab companies Public to protect them by lowering fares with subsidies!
Privatizing late-night
Privatizing late-night service gives us all a good idea where things are headed. In Baker world the T will become primarily a rush-hour service. Don't work 9-5 or use the T for things other than work? Sucks to be you!
Late Night T-Passes
Sell two types:
- The Workers Pass - If you work late and need the train to get home, pay the commuter rate. Must be validated through a purchase program on your late (early?) work schedule.
- The Laymans Pass - If you don't work late and just want to ride the T or CR home because you were out late drinking, pay the higher rate. Otherwise, find a nice place to sleep it off.
Then you're taking into consideration people who use the T because they need to and those that use it because it's better than a DUI.