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Some North Station commuters pissed off at impending changes in commuter-rail schedules
By adamg on Sun, 11/22/2015 - 6:56pm
The Globe reports on complaints about service decreases on some lines. The T basically responds the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, says some lines are getting more service.
State Sen.Patricia Jehlen and reps Sean Garballey, Paul Donato, and Christine Barber, all of whom represent parts of Medford, are in the pissed category, due to changes on the Lowell Line.
Eliminating several trains during morning and afternoon peak hours will have disproportionately negative impacts on commuters in this area. These changes will make it impossible for parents of elementary school children who work in Boston and rely on dependable, frequent service in this area to take care of their families, get their children to school or daycare, and then arrive at work at an appropriate time.
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Comments
... And The Needs Of Keolis Outweighs Them All?
Vote them out.
That is how you get change.
Who?
Vote out the HDR Engineering consulting group that came up with this crap? Or the MBTA officials who hired them and then just used their plan without any rider input? Sadly none of these folks are elected officials.
The T should be privatized as
The T should be privatized as a benefit corporation, a new kind of corporation that combines the benefits of operating in the private sphere but with the ability to act for the public good (i.e., they are for-profit but profit maximization is not their primary, or even major, goal). Shareholders in such companies (its voters) can hold the company liable for not acting in the public good, in the same way that traditional companies can be sued by their shareholders for making money-losing decisions.
MA passed a bill creating these in 2012.
Vote for legislators which
Vote for legislators which will appropriate money to buy more train sets.
Years ago I remember reading
Years ago I remember reading that something like 3/4 of the legislators run unopposed. Is that still true? How are you going to vote them out if no one bothers to run against them?
Bingo
Bingo.
That comment was re the Lowell line but applies to Fitchburg Line as well. Go from a sucky schedule to a ridiculously sucky schedule. Sure, that works.
What am I missing?
The Lowell line is what I use so I was keen to look at the changes. In the morning no train is more then ~12 minutes earlier or later then on the old schedule. For me I actually prefer the new schedule.
I'm sure this screw over some people with tight schedules but what train where people depending on that is now changed that they can't either board 10 minutes earlier or later then previously?
Short of adding more trips there is nothing that can be done which won't piss off people who had become accustomed to the previous schedule. (I think many of these problems would be resolved with 2-3x service and smaller trains but that's a no-starter without more funding.)
Elementary School Start Times
If you drop your kid off at school at 8:30 in Winchester the next train you will be able to catch is the 9:43. Currently you could get the 8:39, 8:53, or 9:23. This schedules presumes you need to be at your desk 15 minutes from North Station at 9:00. Except for many people that is not how it works. Professionals that may come in a little later and work later are screwed by this schedule, which acknowledges no shoulder schedule. You either work 9-5 (except for those that work 6-3) or you make do with one train an hour and occasionally an hour fifteen.
A possible solution
Drop the kids off 11 minutes earlier and get the train that departs 11 minutes before the current train.
Yes, these changes will be a pain, but at least in theory the schedules will be more reliable.
Severe Weather
Except some of the schools don't start until 8:45 and if you are coming from Lowell the trains start going hourly at 8:15. Also that 8:28 is now designated Severe Weather and easily cancelled so likely to be less reliable.
My employer out in the Seaport runs a bus from North Station until 10 AM, because lots of people don't have to be at work until then. This new schedule brings no trains into North Station between 9-10. My job is not 9-5, which is true of many people I know. This new schedule, however, is not only optimized for that schedule but the only way it is workable. I imagine many of these people will now be driving.
In theory...
...but some of the changes seem to indicate they were made without any practical knowledge of the railroad itself.
Some of the most glaring things (sorry for ones that have been repeated here):
1. Lowell inbound local #304 scheduled to arrive North Sta just four minutes ahead of express #306 - even when 304 is on time, 306 will likely be running at restricting speed on bad signals from 304. Any slight delay to 304 and 306 is late, too (unless they hold up outbound moves and run 306 around 304 on the outbound track).
2. In evening, Lowell outbound local #337 leaves North Station 5 minutes AHEAD of a Downeaster at 6:05 PM. The Downeaster is scheduled into Anderson non-stop five minutes before #337 gets there...but there's inbound traffic at that time, so it'll be hard for the Downeaster to overtake.
3. The most bizarre for the folks in Wakefield - I understand the logic of skipping stops on expresses is to save time, but a lot of that is lost as there's a 10 or 15 mph speed restriction (just guessing at the speed, need to find an employee timetable to know for sure) for nearly a 1/2 mile or more around the station in Wakefield. So train #215 won't stop, but still has to crawl through town. (And, it can't get to Reading too fast, since there's an inbound due out of Reading at 5:38 and that station's on single track).
4. Meanwhile, at least two trains (and possibly three) to the Merrimack Valley (Andover, Lawrence, Haverhill) make so few stops that I suspect they will have very low ridership. In particular, inbound train 208 runs on a similiar schedule now and usually isn't more than about half-full leaving Ballardvale. And outbound "super-express" 211, leaving Boston at 3:30, non-stop to Ballardvale, just defies all logic.
It just seems like the "common sense" filter was never applied to these after the initial creation.
ooohhh
....I love it when you talk train. #transitnerdSexy
Seriously, I think Boston's transit nerds could go head to head with any other metro region's train-geeks.
When I read about these new
When I read about these new schedules and all the complaints, I assumed, okay, the T must've built these schedules entirely based on the exigencies of running a rail network - trains not getting in each others', or freight trains', way - and now you're telling me the opposite. There are still trains too close together, and if one is late, it's going to have the same kind of ripple effect onto other incoming trains as it does now.
Basically the T could have come up with an equally appropriate schedule by just drawing little pictures of trains with numbers on them on scraps of paper, then throwing them up in the air and seeing where they land.
Another wonderful decision by the MBTA.
It's a shame
That would go a long, long way to getting more people to embrace using the T, which in turn would boost revenue. It's also way easier to tolerate a canceled train if you know you won't have to wait an hour for the next train.
I looked at taking a trip to Chicago earlier this year and commuting from the outskirts into a convention in downtown. I was floored to see that almost all the Metra lines have generally 15-minute service windows or less during the work rush, and outside of that, it's still pretty good. None of this "two hours between trains" nonsense.
Not all Chicago is perfect
The BNSF line has very, very frequent (and fast) rush hour service, with three tracks and a train arriving at Union Station every 5 minutes, on average. Then it ramps down to two hour headways. But there's a reason for that: the BNSF railroad has very heavy freight service and needs non-rush time for those trains. This is not an issue here; and several other Metra lines run more frequently midday. I wrote about this a couple years back: about half of the lines in Metra's district have hourly service. Where they don't trains at least run predictably, which is not something the T does.
Metra certainly has "two hours between trains." But it's less nonsense, because for the T it's "2:13 or 1:52 or something between trains." In Chicago, it's 2 hours.
That applies...
...to many stops on many lines. All four lines have some pretty glaring omissions.
I assume
that none of the complainers voted to roll back the automatic gas tax adjustments last year
Nah
Actions only have consequences for poor people! Smaller government!
If the gas tax needs to be
If the gas tax needs to be raised the legislature can still do that. The ballot question only eliminated the automatic part which allowed taxes to be raised without a vote.
What's the problem with having our legislators vote and be held accountable for their records? It's part of the job they signed up for.
The zealots are coming for you, anon.
I tried to make this distinction last week, and the basement-dwelling pitchforkatariat was screaming from the cellar all day. Steel yourself.
That's kind of the point
That's kind of the point though, isn't it? Politicians always take a hit when they raise taxes, even when they do so reasonable and responsibly like with the gas tax for sensible infrastructure improvements. The whole point of indexing it was to ensure that vital services receive (at least closer to) adequate funding without constantly re-living the same relatively small minded fight every few years.
Because tax-and-spend types
Because tax-and-spend types always want to make it easier to tax more. The idea that taxes could go up each year with no oversight, no accountability, just because some technocrats out of DC raised the CPI, is a tax-and-spender's wet dream. People can gripe and gripe about the increased taxes but they can't do anything like vote those responsible out of office.
Indexed taxes don't increase
They stay the same, proportionally speaking.
Assume you make $50k a year, and the tax works out to $5 of your income, or 0.01% of your total salary.
You get a 2.5% raise at the end of the year. Your income is now 51,250/year. The $5 tax is now 0.009756% of your total salary.
With an indexed tax, assume the same rate of 0.01%. The relative gas tax on your raised income would be $5.125. Did the tax rate go up? No.
Inflation happens, and is real. By not tying these taxes to the inflation rate, your intention is to let inertia and political gridlock force services to buckle under their own weight.
What?
Is this some twisted liberally acceptable victim-blaming? Or at least a decent dose of schadenfreude? At any rate it's absolutely baseless.
'' Jennifer Boettcher started
'' Jennifer Boettcher started a Change.org petition that asks the agency to reinstate a stop after officials revealed the new MBTA schedules would eliminate a 5:35 p.m. Wakefield stop on a Haverhill express train. More than 900 have since signed the petition.
While Wakefield commuters can still get dropped off at several other times during rush hour, she said many riders will find it difficult to change their schedules to make the other trains — and many of those trains are already packed.
“It really creates a hardship for a lot of working families,” said Boettcher, a Wakefield resident who estimates that at least 100 people get off at the Wakefield stop at 5:35 p.m ''
So 900 sign the thing, 100 actually use but some can adjust, Well you know what Frank Sinatra said, Frank Sinatra - That's Life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIiUqfxFttM&feature=youtu.be&list=RDKIiU...
The train in question already goes through
Wakefield. Further, it has to deliberatly slow down so the opposing inbound train from Reading clears the single track.
So explain the necessity for this train to skip the Wakefield stop, especially when over 100 people would benefit from having it stop - like it does today and has done for over 25+ years.
And, with respect, perhaps it's MBTA and Keolis planners and managers who need to understand "That's life." After all, their business is supposedly to serve the public, not to force the public to adapt to them.
There's another fallicy often at work...
...when judging how the elimination of one train impacts people. People don't ride the same train every day. #215 might average 100 riders/day exiting at Wakefield, but many more than that may use it as their schedules change from day to day. I happen to ride 215 most often, but in the course of a month I'll typically ride every outbound between 4:30 and 6:55 (RIP train #221) at least a couple times. That coverage is what keeps me riding. So, in my case, axing the 6:55 outbound will also tamp down my usage of #208 inbound, as they're making it hard for me to get home on days I work late.
I've taken several surveys recently, and they usually ask a lot of questions about how and when I travel. Unfortunately, they always say something along the lines of "tell us which single train is the one you use most frequently." I suspect that might be part of the data they got that tells them "no one rides after 6:30 PM." I might take the 5:15 train more often that others, but it's not the only one I use.
That's what happens
When a survey is designed to produce a desired result.
''After all, their business
''After all, their business is supposedly to serve the public, not to force the public to adapt to them.''
Road ,
Its more like a public service than a business. They arent showing a profit, are not self-sustaining. They are trying to jig the system to service the masses and relieve some bottlenecks. I dont care if they dont adjust anything anywhere, I will adapt to it.I am sure that those 100 people can do the same .It would probably be convenient not to have to , but that's life. With respect to the T and unreasonable expectations, I introduce this article in today's Herald ( I know it is verboten to read it and be in this club ) . Roll on, !
Chabot: Pols look to cuts to save Green Line extension
'' Somerville pols are bracing for sharp cutbacks to the bloated Green Line extension meant to run through Somerville and Medford as state officials scramble to find savings in the embattled project.
“They’re going to be cutting back a lot of the fringy stuff in the design,” said U.S. Rep. Michael E. Capuano, a Somerville Democrat who has been fighting for the expansion for decades.
The cuts — forced after the project ran $1 billion over budget — could mean Green Line riders will wait for the train in open-air stops vulnerable to brutal Boston winters instead of heated, indoor stations.
“It will go from looking like the Assembly Square stop to more like the Riverside station,” said Capuano, who added that his focus is on simply ensuring the expansion occurs. “Service is the most important thing to me.”
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/hillary_chabot/2015/11/chabo...
Capuano to Herald:
People can wait outside despite the "brutal" Boston winter (and take note, the winter in the Northeast Kingdom might be brutal. Somerville's is not). They're tough. And by the way, just to bust your fricken bubble, waiting outside is the norm - even people in tony, leafy Newton do it. See? I can play your silly incendiary adjective game just as well as you.
I was always kind of "meh" on Capuano. These comments have nudged him toward the "like" side of my spectrum.
Capuano always seemed a bit
Capuano always seemed a bit out of his depth in Washington; he seems like he'd be better off as a mayor, maybe someplace like Somerville?
We don't need giant glass
We don't need giant glass boxes to keep people warm. Just install a prefab bus shelter. If there's some extra money, add a door and heater.
Has the T ever operated in
Has the T ever operated in such a way?
The service cuts are one thing...
…. the other thing is designating certain trains that can be cancelled during “severe weather”. They are actively getting ready for failure. Who will decide what is “severe weather”? Will it be 6” of snow? 12” of snow? Temps below 0? Look to see these trains cancelled at the drop of a hat without penalty.
The Washington DC Commuter railroads...
...already do something like this, and if it's done wisely, I think it's a good idea. When a significant storm is forecast, it takes much longer to get trains over the road AND a lot fewer people commute, so on those days it does make sense to have a "reduced" schedule.
But like most, I lack confidence in the MBTA to handle it judiciously. If they can, I'll be the first to say this is a good idea.
there's the rub.
That might be a lot of the issue right there. If you're attempting to privatize a system and the other part of the system that is already run by a private entity cannot meet the performance goals how do you make the argument that this is the best option? Simply change the metrics. On time rates will go up once they eliminate needed service or exempt the severe weather routes from the calculations or extend the "on time" definition to "no more than 25 minutes late" or some other horseshit. What will get reported and trumpeted by the administration (and an obedient press) will be how much improved service is under Keolis.
Bad enough that the fines assessed to the contractor for failure to meet their metrics was then provided back to the company to "improve service," they'll now have the bar lowered enough for them that the fines will be few and far between. There needs to be a lot more transparency on how they will measure performance and how that relates to service provided prior to these schedule cuts.
Bad harbinger for this plan: commuters in Lincoln, Concord, Acton, Melrose, etc. are getting annoyed -- it's inconvenient.
Too cold, too much snow, too
Too cold, too much snow, too hot (warped rail), autumn ("slippery" rail). Yeah, expect these trains to just never run. Maybe once or twice in the spring.
"Don't be on the Roads during this snowstorm. Officials
urge everyone to take public transportation instead..."
But the T plans on REDUCING service during bad weather. It should be the opposite!
Service cut
Willing to bet if someone actually takes the time to count up all the trains, times, miles traveled, whatever, you'll discover that on-the-whole this is a service cut. The T just decided that this time* their way of obfuscating a service cut was to redo the scheduling for the entire network. If people point to one missing train, the T can point to one added train elsewhere to make it seem like it's not, but on the whole, I bet this is a service cut.
* Remember "ghost buses"? Several years ago the T was discovered to be intentionally not sending buses out at certain scheduled times on some lines. Basically an unpublished, unannounced service cut.
All this complaining about
All this complaining about the schedule is sorta funny when you remember the commuter rail is so often late the schedule is meaningless...
That's a big part of the problem with the new schedule
Trains are often late, or cancelled, which is why multiple options during rush hour made it worth the gamble. If a train didn't work out you'd have a fallback in 20 minutes or so. No big deal.
Now, for the NBPT/RKPT line at least, the four closest stations are losing two key rush hour trains each way. If a train is cancelled, that's it, you're getting to work or home really, really late, no way around it. Commuters at these close stations won't take that risk, and they'll turn to their cars instead. More cars on the roads. Great.
It's a horribly short-sighted plan they're putting in place.