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Everybody ordered off the train at Jackson Square; cars can't be controlled, just not fair

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Keeping promises:

2-3% annual raises
generous health care benefits
generous pensions

Little or nothing to do with actually keeping the trains running.

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MBTA workers should be paid a decent wage, have access to good healthcare, and a pension. It doesn't need to be an either or situation where we have working trains or good jobs. Baker needs to summon the willpower to fix it.

For what its worth, I was stuck on that train this morning. It took two more trains to come through before I could get back on.

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Pensions are becoming (have already become) a thing of the past for the vast of workers in the private sector, with companies instead moving towards contributing towards a 401K or something of the sorts. Pensions are simply not sustainable in the long term and there are an alarming number of pension funds that are dangerously underfunded. With this repeating cycle of new workers entering an already underfunded pension fund, it's quite obvious how this can contribute to unexpected costs to help make up for this. In this case it's helped lead to increased fares and taxes to the consumer, with no improvements at all in service (in fact, service continues to worsen).

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"I lost mine so FUCK YOU"

buddy instead of ripping on people in the public sector, maybe y'all should unionize and demand back the benefits that created the middle class in this country in the first place.

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Nobody gets a pension these days except government/agency workers. The trade-off used to be lower salaries for good benefits. Now they get salaries on par with (or superior to) the private sector AND amazing pensions

Healthcare the same. They've cut back a little on the health benefits, but for the most part they are still far superior with what's available in the private sector where high deductible plans, HSA's, limited provider networks etc. have become the norm.

Decent wages - fine - but you can't have your cake and eat it too. On top of the bennies above, there was a report in the Globe some time ago that people working for the T make significantly more than a similar job position with the state of Mass.

We are OK for now and can afford it here in Mass - but states like IL, CT, NJ and more are learning the hard way that their promises were bigger than the politicians' mouths and far bigger than their wallets. If you only have $2 billion a year to spend on transit, you can't spend $2.5 billion.

You've heard the expression time to pay the piper? For the T - the time is now.

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Union jobs are not the problem. Paying a good wage to workers isn't the problem. Why is it every time something like this comes up it's the union workers people want up on the block?

The total lack of mismanagement for decades and our pal Charlie signing the death knoll with his Big Dig bs when he was with the office of Administration and Finance is the problem.

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is all well and good, but that doesn't come for free. The three biggest line item increases in the FY2020 MBTA budget vs FY2019 are regular wages (+$21.2MM), pensions ($15.3MM), and payments to Keolis/Northeast Corridor expenses (+$11.8MM). The increase in wages is projected to be mostly offset by a decrease of $13.3MM in overtime.

The MBTA and the Commonwealth don't have a money tree, so someone has to pay for the increased costs of operating the system, and the good union jobs are 49% of the T's operating expenses (and 61% of the year-over-year increase).

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He filmed that solemn scene at the station and had a pithy comment about the fare hikes. It was also good to see no use of “Really MBTA? Really???” I disagree with the use “So....” to start off the tweet but no big deal. The use of “trynna” works well but it would have been cultural appropriation if he were white. Glad he is not.

As for answering him on the fare hike, at the request of many here, I have already posted at length about the broken system and misplaced incentives which is our local government and MBTA. To borrow from Orwell, if you want a vision of the MBTA and its fare hikes and incompetence, imagine a boot stamping on a human face- forever.

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This 15 cent fare hike is just killing me! I need that money to buy a few tootsie rolls, or maybe save up for a week and get a banana or can of soda.

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So you're ok with a 15 cent gas tax increase, or will that cut into your tootsie roll budget?

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So you're ok with a 15 cent gas tax increase too? Or will that cut into your tootsie roll habit? How about every time the fares go up, the gas tax goes up the same amount? Seems fair.

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you spend a lot of time trolling lol

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I put up that Republican post in jest once which you quickly spotted but all of my others have been in earnest. There were also a couple posts which Adam, in his infinite wisdom, posted a reprimand. For example, one was about phenotypes of people who don’t shovel out parking spaces while another was about dudes with facial features which indicate low testosterone. I do not stand by anything in those posts.

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He filmed that solemn scene at the station and had a pithy comment about the fare hikes. It was also good to see no use of “Really MBTA? Really???” I disagree with the use “So....” to start off the tweet but no big deal. The use of “trynna” works well but it would have been cultural appropriation if he were white. Glad he is not.

if you wrote this paragraph in earnest... lol

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When you assumed I was trolling, I naturally thought you were referring to the part where I said many people here had requested I post about the MBTA. No, I did not receive any such requests so that was taking liberties with the facts (a lie), but if my internet posting instincts are correct, there is a groundswell of demand for more Kapil Posts here at Universal Hub.

Do you like my Posts?

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All MBTA tweets need to tag @MassGovernor

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Because at the old fares, they didn't have the money for things like maintenance and procurement of new vehicles to replace the 40 year old one you were booted from.

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On a Friday at rush hour 4:50 or so, 3 or 4 weeks ago, got on a packed train at Downtown Crossing; the train went into a similarly packed State street station when the operator shouted "everyone off the train, the brakes don't work!" I feel sympathy for the rightfully unsettled daily operators of this old and faulty equipment, must be nerve racking at times. They have to operate the trains all day.

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Best guess on the uncontrollable cars is that the control system failed. The controls on the trains will operate the train in the direction it is facing. There is no reverse setting. So the train could be operated from the 3rd car's set of controls to move in the desired forward direction but that would leave the operator unable to see where they were going.

In such instances they will place a T supervisor at the front of the train as a spotter who will relay the signal conditions back to the operator on the PA system or by radio, then at the end of the line they will take the train out of service until it is convenient to move it to the repair facility.

When operating with a spotter they can only run at 25 mph or slower and even slower through stations.

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