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The Green Line is dead downtown
By adamg on Sat, 07/18/2009 - 5:44pm
Power problems mean shuttle buses and recommendation that passengers take the Orange Line between North Station and Back Bay.
Photo of people walking through a Green Line tunnel by Campi0n, who tweets:
Power problem at Arlington means hour wait in the tunnel of the failure pile that is the MBTA Green Line. How was your day?
At 4:17, Marie von Kampen tweeted:
Massive crowd at Government Center T. People apparently waiting a very long time and no announcements made why the wait.
An hour later, surliness ruled, Megan Carroll tweeted:
What horrible service. No one knew anything, rude employees-one person just got up and left! I can't believe I pay for this.
Shortly before 6 p.m., Rob Ramos tweeted:
Awesome. Nothing like traveling on foot in this heat. Where's the damn bus??!!
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Comments
Are T failures daily now?
We know that Boston and MA government have systemic problems, and we know that the MBTA has systemic problems.
Is it all fundamentally the same thing? Can we use T failures as a metric for more general decline? If so, is the T disproportionately reflecting the decline (e.g., we fix potholes for the Lexuses before we fix the subways of the poor people), or is the T foreshadowing the failure of other infrastructure?
All of the above
We clearly have been ignoring our intrastructure for years, with the debatable exception of the Big Dig. Even the MBTA's attempts at improvements have a tendancy to go wrong. (Kenmore is STILL not done, Copley has damaged nearby historical buildings).
What amazes me is that we hear practially NOTHING from our local pols. Where are the promises from Patrick to fix the issues? Where is Menino's outrage?
Hot potato?
I wonder whether the T is such a big problem that politicians prefer to distance themselves from it, rather than take it on and have their political fortunes tied to it.
Perfect storm
You've nailed it... this is the collision of multiple, independent acts of neglect perpetrated over the last several decades..
Putting on my Org Dev hat, I see that the T has people problems - the employees are no longer manageable due to bad contracts, the union's focus on anything but the organization's well being, and a longstanding culture that has allowed them to do damn well whatever they want.
Business-wise, this is an organization that has repeatedly re-awarded competitively-bid contracts to an elevator/escalator repair company that cannot keep the elevators and escalators running, and to a commuter rail contractor that cannot run the trains on time, reliably, efficiently, courteously.
Concerning operations, if you understand operations at all, you merely need to know that the T's public safety PA announcements use 80% of the allotted time promoting the person who is delivering the message, and 20% of the time on the message... and then when the message is followed, the well-meaning passenger's concerns will be ignored.
Oh, you need more in that space? Fine. The T lies about bus and train schedules to customers and has been doing so for years. Is that any way to run a railroad?
Perfect storm. this is going to take just about forever to clean up, if they could ever sweep out the entire hierarchy of halfwits who created the mess, and replace them with a few competent, sturdy people whose true motives are aligned with the T's professed motives, and who are willing to make the T's professed motives match the needs of T riders.
It hurts me to see things that could be wonderful, turned into things that are horrible, by the unimaginative, the grabby, and the lazy.
Government Center?
There were announcements at Government Center, people were just ignoring them. I was listening to my iPod and I even got the message to go downstairs, take the blue line back to state and head down the orange line. People complain when they are just too stupid to listen and just stand there like its any other day.
Yeah, but belivable?
The problem could be that in general MBTA announcements are (in my opinion, though I'm willing to bet I'm not alone here) lacking in much credibility. I fell for the "Take the next train to Park Street for BC service" announcement at Government Center, only to find the next B train through had people on it, that I simply stopped listening. It is possible that the MBTA was trying to impart useful information, but that is such an unexpected event that it is hardly a surprise that people had tuned out or disregarded the announcement.
Of course it is a minor miracle that the announcement could be heard at Government; the PA system at Hynes is virtually indecipherable, and I don't believe any of the speakers at Copley have power these days...
Exactly
T announcements have very little credibility. They did that to themselves.
Bad link to photo
Adam, you've put "event:" in front of the URL for the photo link...
Fixed
Thanks.
Help hasten the T's demise
Put this meandering beast out of its misery.
Mass transit in this city won't be functional any time soon unless we finally kill the MBTA where it stands. Wipe it clean and start over with a PUBLIC entity, included in the state budget, that responds directly to the governor or one of his cabinet.
We're reaching a point where people should be ACTIVELY trying to bring down the MBTA as fast as possible.
Serious question
Why is the MBTA still allowed to run the trains? Is there some sort of contract or charter that precludes Deval Patrick from saying "you guys fail at running the trains and buses, so you're all done?"
Nobody wants to be in charge
Nobody wants to be in charge of cleaning up the mess and building a real transportation agency.
What about Romney?
He doesn't have a job, and he's previously indicated that he's willing to work for free to fix things, seeing as how he didn't cash his paychecks as governor. I'll never forgive him for his healthcare bullshit, but the guy knows business. He'll fix the T.
How to hire Romney as MBTA General Manager
Promise him it's a stepping-stone to the Presidency, and that, once he's ready to start campaigning for 2012, he can phone-in for his MBTA responsibilities.
In addition, he will be allowed to reverse his previous official statements, and also to denounce the MBTA as a godless Sodom, in order to score political points with Red State voters.
I think we want a manager
I think we want a manager that actually shows up at work.
The Red Line would be a bus by the next morning
And most of the MBTA's rolling stock and infrastructure would be sold for scrap.
Meanwhile...
... my family and I were riding around downtown Toronto, on both subway and streetcars, without having to wait more than 5 minutes, without delays and without surly operators. And we paid, in total, $9 for the day -- for two adults and three kids, on a Day Pass that was dished out by a friendly, smiling attendant.
If you ever need to know how bad the Boston T is, ride anywhere else. My God, the T sucks.