Orange Line service delayed even more due to possible electrical arcing on some of the new cars, MBTA says

So here's what happened.

jmeltzer mentioned

In one week after Charlie leaves, we will find out (one hopes) the scope of the mess he's leaving Maura.

I am not optimistic.

I merely noted in reply

Maura probably will get a transit system no more messed up than the one Charlie was given by Deval.

Remember when we found out that the T had no one to run the snow removal equipment. The guys who could run them didn't leave in January 2015. They were out years earlier.

You decided to chime in

The best even a Charlie Baker apologist like yourself can muster up is "no more messed up than Deval." Ok, let's ignore all the shut downs, the 15 minute headways during rush hour, the deaths, AND the need for the feds to step in and call out all the management failures, the lack of oversight from Baker appointees, and the critical understaffing that the Baker administration covered up.

Even ignoring all that, what would you call a governor that took over a "messed up" system, asked for and was given more control of that system, and in eight years left it just as "messed up?" Me, I'd call that governor an abject failure. And I'm going to keep saying it because this guy is going to run for higher office, and he's going to count on apologists like you to ignore what happened during his watch.

At that point, I would say that I've got two posters who are implicitly making it seem like this shitstorm is uniquely of Baker's making. I, in turn, note

I'm not defending Baker.

As always, I'm just noting that the d[y]sfunction with the MBTA goes back further than the Baker haters delude themselves into thinking.

Baker may own the mess now, but by the same function Patrick owned the mess 8 years ago, just like Romney owned the mess 16 years ago. I'd love to be optimistic, but the reality is that 8 years from now, there's a good chance that Healey will be passing on a messed up T to her successor.

As others have noted, the problems with the MBTA both exist within the system and are a product of legislative inertia. I tend to think the former is the main problem. How many administrations are going to release reports saying that safety and infrastructure investments are being ignored in favor of expansion until safety and infrastructure are taken seriously?

So, on the one hand, you've got me, who has been pointing out for a while that dysfunction at the T is a long term thing, versus you who continues to ignore the shitstorm that the T was when, to say the least, Patrick and Romney were governors. Ah, the Romney administration, when people would ride the Orange Line from Green Street to Forest Hills in the morning so they would be guaranteed the chance to get on an inbound train.

But yeah, keep thinking that the T was great when Patrick ran it only for things to fall apart when Baker took the corner office. It wasn't, and if the problems that Romney, Patrick, and Baker were told about aren't dealt with, in 4, 8 or how many years down the road, Healey's successor will be dealing with the same things. The difference between you and me is that I remember how shitty the T has been going back decades. Heck, I was trapped on a Red Line train whose wouldn't open back when Dukakis was taking the Green Line to the State House. Old trains and lack of upkeep aren't a new thing.