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MBTA raising prices at many commuter-rail lots and ditching honor boxes and space numbers
By adamg on Tue, 06/02/2015 - 3:46pm
Here's one way to encourage people to sign up with the MBTA's pay-by-phone system for commuter-rail parking: Raise the cost of parking by $2 a day for people who don't use the system.
The T says the price increase goes into effect on July 16 for people who do not buy monthly permits. People who pay by phone, however, will get a $2 daily discount starting that day.
Along with the new pricing, the T is eliminating honor boxes and space numbers. Instead, commuters getting off the train at the end of the day will find a bill on their windshield - as well as the new threat of fines for not paying promptly.
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Comments
Great.
I commute with a very nice lady who does not have an I-Phone and uses the honor boxes and space numbers. So all those folks that don't have an inclination to have a smart phone and/or can't afford one (she lives on a limited income) have to dial a 1-800 number each day to register to park (as per the MBTA's website):
"If you do not have a smartphone or if you prefer to call in, you can register and park using PayByPhone’s dial-in service. Simply call 1-866-234-7275 and follow the prompts to either register or park."
or pay the extra $2.00 to park, per day?! Good going MBTA.
Welcome to 2015.
Welcome to 2015.
Your lack of empathy is disturbing.
n/t
You have a smartphone, don't
You have a smartphone, don't you? Why don't you take her money in person, and use the app to pay for her? Don't decry technology. You can always add a human interface (you) to make it work.
Actually, my hubby and I
will be downgrading our phones to non smart to save money. But, hey, thanks Dot net, for the helpful suggestion.
just sayin
I'm warning you that within a year or two, they are going to jack up the rates on non-smart phones. The cellular industry has virtually no interest anymore in non-smart phones (they lose money on them now), so eventually you won't be able to get a basic phone unless it's prepaid. As is, go into any cell phone store, and you won't be able to buy a non-smart phone (or they'll have ONE model left), it's getting harder and harder to do.
Smartphones are cheap
How much is your non smart phone plan gonna be? I pay about $15 for service for my smartphone.
I have a Z222 flip phone,
I have a Z222 flip phone, cost me $25 a month. I get remarks about it, but I don't need the smart variety right now. Smart phones, I've found, are only good for useless web surfing. Plus, no one's going to mug me for a flip.
I am sorry that it's 2015 and
I am sorry that it's 2015 and technology continues to progress, and that it's problematic for perhaps you, your husband, and others. I truly am.
But there's nothing we can do, can we? Time and technology moves on. Or we could keep using b&w TVs, or radio, exclusively. The T has done its best and offered the 1-800 solution back from the 90s.
The writing is, unfortunately for some, on the wall. By the way, this chart is over three years old. http://marketingland.com/pew-releases-more-smartph...
Save money?
Seems to me you'll be out $2/day because of your choice. I imagine there isn't a non-smartphone in the world that saves you $40/mo over a low end smartphone that could still run this app.
I fail to see the issue,
I fail to see the issue, assuming the dial in is a short series of prompts that takes roughly the same amount of time as using the smartphone app takes. I suppose one would also expect a public phone available (payphones still exist for a reason, I guess, and its a toll free number).
I've never parked in a T garage, would a monthly parking permit be cheaper and more convenient for a regular MBTA commuter, regardless of whether or not they have a smartphone to pay for a space with??
Of course you do.
So my friend should have to 1) purchase a cell phone if she does not already have one (my friend may or may not; you can get a cheap cell today, but she is on a limited income) and 2) spend time each morning calling into a 1-800 number to register to park or suck it up and pay an additional $2.00 per day?
Ah, public payphones are now very few and far between but that is beside my point.
Not trying to be that guy, but
Why don't you use the app for her and she can pay you back?
Yes, of course...
but see my post about how I am ditching my smartphone.
Yes
The measures are meant to be punitive in the hope that you will get sick of being 'gouged' and then convert to the new way of doing things, EZ Pass has used the same idea since it started. Shes lucky that the phone option is even offered (for now)...
These things tend to happen when only one entity provides a service (trains), what are you going to do if you don't like it? Take a different company's trains?
except the service being paid for
Is parking. Which other people could provide, and charge differently.
Thanks InternetGuy for your understanding.
I think she can go the route of purchasing a monthly pass, which we will assume will give her the discount.
Is there a phone where she is going?
You know, so that when she gets there she can dial that number and pay her bill?
Or maybe she can use your phone?
It really doesn't seem that hard for the few number of people who don't have cell phones anymore (and it really can't be that many, especially among people who do have cars) to pay, and charge extra for the people who require someone to walk around with envelopes collecting the parking money. We charge extra for people who can't go to a ticket window or machine when they're getting on the train downtown. This is the same kind of thing.
Everyone screams efficiency until it affects them. Then it's punitive. Please.
Hi Ari O
How about taking a different tack and saying that this new policy excludes folks, including the elderly, just by one way of an example?
A way around for her probably (hopefully) will to be to purchase a monthly pass. She does not have a computer at home but probably can log in at work during her lunch break (she is a receptionist and does not have the luxury to call, say, the MBTA, at her leisure).
How about *don't* have the
How about *don't* have the people with envelopes? Just put in a multi-space meter, like any other unattended pay lot in the 21st century.
You would still need a person
You would still need a person to write the tickets for scofflaws who don't pay. Same time/idea. Cutting the post-parking payment envelopes saves nothing.
Sounds like she has a choice
Life is choices, and she still has a good choice in the phone option. What's so bad about calling up every AM? Using the app or dialing in both take time.
In this day, the cash boxes are downright awful from both a user's perspective and administratively. Users are constantly screaming for more modern methods of doing something, and now when one is implemented, a very small percentage aren't happy. You can't please everybody.
waaaaah
She can buy the monthly pass or use the pay by phone option. Fail to see how this is anything but an improvement.
Your lack of empathy is disturbing.
n/t
Well
Well, she can get a monthly pass. It's cheaper than paying daily. You don't have to put anything on your dashboard; your license plate number is your pass.
Question
I don't park in MBTA lots so perhaps I'm missing something but why can't they just install the digital mutlispace parking meters that are in most municipal lots in the area? The type where you put the receipt on your dashboard or enter the space number/license plate? (Or use a phone App)
With the exception of Brookline these seem to work well enough for most cities and towns.
It sounds like they are putting in another system...
aside from the honor slots but if you do not use the automated pay system via phone, you will have to pay $2.00 more per day; pushing the cost to park at, say Readville, to $6.00 per day. Not everyone can afford that increase.
Right, so people go can't
Right, so people go can't afford it will just leave their cars at home and take public transit to ... oh ... Nevermind.
so use the automatic system
If they cant afford the $2 a day then maybe they should use the monthly pass or the phone option. I refuse to believe anyone who owns a car and enjoys the luxury of driving to the T cant afford the $2 penalty but if thats the case maybe they should walk or ride their bike to the station instead.
Wow, your lack of...oh, nevermind.
My friend drives a 13 year old car, Windypig, and she is on a fixed income. Many folks can't afford the $4 per day, never mind the $6.
if only the commonwealth
if only the commonwealth provided some way to get around that worked for people who cannot afford a car...
nah that's a pipe dream
It's money they'd rather not spend
Maybe it's just me, but that's more than a slightly arrogant thing to say. $2/day is $40/month. This is $40 a lot of people would rather not spend, especially to a government agency, and especially when they have a choice not to. Assuming that someone who drives a car has no problem blowing another 40 bucks on something is just stupid.
At the risk of sounding like en effing rich prick, my wife and I really wouldn't notice spending an extra $40/month on parking. That's not even a night of pizza and beer. But, being the self-admitted cheap pricks we are, we sure would avoid paying that extra $40 if we had that option.
Which is why
They SHOULD avoid it, and luckily there are count em, 3 ways to do so.
Well, that sucks.
Well, that sucks.
I strongly believe that all you should need to bring to use public transportation is some local currency.
Another downside of this change is that there's no way to avoid the bureaucratic mess of the T keeping track of who paid. Instead, everyone has to deal with the T's potential screw-ups in either the app/phone system, or the violation (aka "non-payment") system.
Wouldn't it be easier for everyone involved if they just installed some pay-by-space machines? That would also save the T money, since they could spot-check it, the same way parking meters have been enforced for the last 80 years. Instead, they have to send someone around every day to every station to put non-payment envelopes on windshields, and then they need to pay people to open thousands of envelopes every day and apply the payment to the corresponding entry in the database.
Commuter rail parking fees
Commuter rail parking fees (and fares) are waaay higher than just a few years ago. And ridership is waaay down. This will only make it worse.
Well
You can either fund transit infrastructure through taxes (say, for example, on gas) or though direct fees. Those who drive really have only their companions to blame.
Another option is to run
Another option is to run transit more efficiently, so it doesn't lose more and more money while fares rise and ridership drops.
The T Commuter Rail just plods along like it always did. They keep buying more of the same old-time equipment, which requires 4+ employees per train, and is too hard to break down into smaller trains off-peak.
It's not a tax, it's a fee.
Can't call out Charlie on his no taxes pledge.
If we are going to make it
If we are going to make it difficult and expensive to park somewhere it should be downtown Boston, not at commuter rail stops.
You are in luck
it is already expensive to park in downtown Boston
I wonder if anybody has ever
I wonder if anybody has ever tried to sue a public or semi-public agency over something like this or removing all cash lane options from a toll road.
After all, our currency - printed by the US Government - comes with the declaration printed on it: "Legal tender for all debts public and private"
I suspect the case would have been summarily rejected.
You can still pay cash
Get the ticket when you return to your car and pay with cash. All they are saying is that if you pay before we get to putting the bill on your car, then we'll give you a discount.
Key word -- "debts".
Key word -- "debts".
Creditors have to take cash (or, if they don't take it, cannot act as if you didn't pay them).
Sellers of goods or services do not have to take cash.
No entity is required
to accept payment in cash:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm
IANAL, but I would presume that because the agency gives people multiple options to pay the fee (as with the "Pay By Plate' option for those without E-ZPass in the case of the Tobin Bridge all-electronic tolling), the "but I can't pay cash" argument has no merit.
Pay this is the MBTA!
No one pays the fines when the Transit Police ticket Farebeaters so why should anyone pay if they get an a letter on their windshield. I would wager the MBTA is owed millions in unpaid parking tickets and millions more in unpaid fines from farebeaters.
Except that, if you don't pay parking tickets
you'll get a nasty surprise the next time you try to renew your car registration or dirver's license.
Offer fewer and fewer alternatives...
...now, if only Commuter Rails stations had safe and sufficient places to lock up bicycles, and reasonably safe ways to approach them by bike!
Sometimes I think the T doesn't really want Commuter Rail to exist, so they're doing their best to drive commuters to their cars. (I don't seriously think that, but it would at least align with their actions.)
Not for not
Places to safely store your bike at the station= MBTA problem
Reasonably safe ways to approach the station= town/city problem.
Talk to the T about the former, but you gotta talk to the town about the latter problem.
not my problem, not your problem, so the problem remains
I asked a town if they could install a prefab bus shelter at the commuter rail station, since there's nowhere to get out of the wind. They said it was the T's problem, even though the town runs the parking at this station so they have plenty of land and take in plenty of money every day. So I contacted the T, and they didn't bother to reply.
Space Numbers
I frequent park at Littleton/495, where spaces are under provisioned. People often park on the medians and so forth: it's WAY better to risk getting a $1 surcharge than try any other alternative, like driving to another station or to Alewife. It's odd that they are eliminating space numbers but not saying anything about the enforcement of the spaces themselves
I also wonder...
...how pay by phone works if there are no spaces available. I don't imagine they can track that in real time when they take your money. I've also parked on the grass at Littleton -- despite the surcharge, it seems that they really don't mind. Otherwise there would be harsher penalties. They definitely need more parking there.
Or underpriced
If so many people want to park at X price that they're filling all the spaces, the simple solution is to raise prices. Fewer people will be trying for spaces, so it's easier to find a spot, plus the T gets more money to spend on, you know, service, plus it creates more incentive for someone else to provide parking at a competing price. The T should not be subsidizing parking by having artificially low prices.
This is a bit different
Well, kinda.
First, nobody pays for parking anywhere in Littleton except for the T lot. So, market rate for parking isn't as applicable here.
The T, being subsidized, doesn't charge market rate for anything.
The T is trying to encourage riders to use its service. Why discourage potential riders by charging more for parking? Don't you want more riders?
They're only discouraging
They're only discouraging riders if they charge so much for parking that it's not nearly full. I've actually heard from many people that the parking situation is so unreliable in many places (because it fills up so early) that they will simply drive to work and not even try to take the T because it's such a crapshoot. If the T priced parking so that it doesn't quite fill up, it will actually become reliable. People will know they will find a space. And actually, the T would probably gain riders since a higher price would encourage more people to carpool.
I don't understand
I'm in no way an apologist for the T, but I don't see the problem here. For a long time, before the monthly passes were introduced, I used the pay by phone system. I had the number on speed dial and as soon as the call connected it recognized my phone and just asked me for my space number. I once timed it and it took about 20 seconds. Now I get a monthly pass, which is cheaper (you save $10 per month) and I don't have to do anything at all. Why is this not more efficient? It's certainly not efficient to have to pay people to take all those crumpled up bills out of the honor boxes. It's easier for customers, too, because you always have to have exact change and the little slots could only take up to two bills at a time and they had to be folded several times to fit. So if you park every day, there's no increase in price. If you only park once in a while, it's $2 more. I don't see anything wrong here.
Different perspective...
Makes sense. Servicing, coming out and changing the money etc in those machines costs money. People who use them should pay for them. It costs the MBTA less money to get their parking fees through the Apps, so why shouldn't they pass along those savings?
Are people equally as
Are people equally as outraged at the surcharge you pay for buying a ticket on the train vs buying one in advance?
This doesn't bother me...
...either. It takes time for the conductors to sell tickets, especially if the train is crowded. I think part of the objective, also, is to keep conductors from having to carry a lot of cash. If you can buy a ticket in the station, why not do so? If you get on at an unattended station there's no surcharge.
Given that the
on-board
extortion effortsurcharge was eventually eliminated at all stations except North and South Stations, I'd say there was outrage from people.They often apply it at
They often apply it at stations like Porter.
Do they apply it at suburban stations where the ticket outlet is a convenience store two blocks away?
Acording to theMBTA website
"A $3.00 surcharge wil be added to tickets purchased on-board all trains departing from North Station, South Station, and Back Bay Station.
Monday-through-Friday customers will be charged $3.00 surcharge by the conductor when a ticket is purchased on board from a station with an MBTA ticket vending machine or where a Ticket Vendor is open."
Oh, I didn't realize they got
Oh, I didn't realize they got rid of it.
Received a parking invoice?
Not sure if this is an isolated case, but I just received an invoice from the MBTA parking gods for all the days I parked in the lot since the honor boxes went away. I printed out my receipt report from the PayByPhone app for all the days in question, so I'll send that in when I dispute the invoice. But I'm just curious if anyone else has encountered this given we're just over a month from when this change went into effect.