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State Street incident now blamed on fact Orange Line trains are literally falling apart
By adamg on Wed, 02/17/2016 - 12:51pm
New Orange Line cars like these can't get here soon enough.
MBTA General Manager Frank DiPaola says an exterior metal panel fell off a southbound Orange Line train at State Street last night and then a second train ran over it, leading to a chaotic scene that involved passengers kicking out windows to escape the second train when it and the station began filling with smoke. In a statement, he says:
It is believed that last night a body panel fell off the side of an Orange Line car and onto tracks near State Street Station because the panel's fastening fixtures had deteriorated.
Specifically, he says, a body panel 12 feet by 12 inches near the bottom edge of one car fell on the tracks:
The train ran over this panel, causing the train to become disabled as it entered State Street Station. It is believed the body panel struck a wall and then the third rail, causing an arcing event, which led to a residual smoke situation.
Officials didn't realize the panel had fallen off, let alone fallen against the third rail, causing smouldering and smoke that at least one person on the platform videoed. Then another train entered State Street:
As Train 1217 traveled toward State Street Station, it also struck the piece of body panel that was still on the tracks. The impact caused an arcing event leading to another smoke situation. Train 1217 became disabled and was not yet properly berthed at the platform area at State Street Station when smoke was seen by passengers. Several emergency alarms were pulled by passengers onboard who became rightfully concerned. Because Train 1217 was not fully to the platform, the doors were automatically in the lock position, causing some concerned passengers to disembark by using doors at the end of some of the train cars and by kicking out windows and crawling out of the train.
Following the incident, T workers checked body panels on all 120 Orange Line trains - and found 13 that needed to be better secured. He adds:
The MBTA is immediately incorporating a more thorough exterior check of body panel hardware as part of regular maintenance work on Orange Line cars. Bolts and rivets of body panels will now be examined every 12 thousand miles, which is approximately every 8 or 9 weeks, when Orange Line cars are taken into a garage for scheduled comprehensive maintenance. This maintenance already includes checks of the safety system, evacuation equipment, propulsion system, brake system, suspension system, communication system, doors, wheels, lights, seating, and other interior compartment items.
DiPaola says permanent relief should come when the T starts rolling out an all new fleet of Orange Line cars in 2019, assuming nothing goes wrong with the factory the winning bidder recently started building in Springfield.
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Comments
And why isn't the review board
working to accelerate the delivery of the new equipment? Because it NEEDS to be constructed in Springfield?
BS, and shameful that the media and others aren't calling out Baker on this SHAM he calls a 'review board'.
Baker wasn't the one
Baker wasn't the one insisting on the stupid 'made in Mass' requirement which is delaying production of the new rolling stock by YEARS and increasing costs by millions. Blame the legislature for that.
But Baker has the power
to override that silly requirement. Haven't you heard of an executive order?
And if he refuses to do that, he's no better than the members of the Legislature who demanded that clause.
When Kersaiotes was head of the Turnpike Authority, one of his first actions was to suspend work on all active and pending construction contracts for a comprehensive review. In several cases, he had the contracts re-negotiated to accellerate construction and/or reduce costs. This sort of thing is precisely what Baker's "review board" should be doing at the T. And a "build in Massachusetts" clause is the perfect target for elimination, especially if removing it means we'll get the much needed new trains much sooner than presently scheduled.
You do know you can be sued for violating a contract
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmNeuAUc2oo
Note that Roadman said
re-negotiate the contract. And there's plenty of legal precedent for doing so.
Nothing can be done now
Sadly, the only tool in Mr. Fix-It's bag is a dull pair of scissors.
True enough
But see my previous comment about the media.
There's actually a federal
There's actually a federal law, not just a contract clause or state law, that puts this kind of rent-seeking in transit contracts. Baker can't do anything about that.
Correct
But Buy America allows for certain exceptions. And if it means getting much-needed new subway cars sonner than later, Baker's review board should be looking at ways to invoke those exceptions. It's called "thinking outside the box."
Just further proof the "review board" is really an elaborate farce.
Kersaiotes
You mean James Kersaiotes the convicted tax fraudster? The same Kersaiotes who was asked to step down after federal auditors denounced him for staying deceptively mum for months about $1.4 billion in looming cost overruns. That James Kersaiotes?
MA requirement was all Patrick
The contract was awarded in the fall of 2014, when Patrick was still governor.
Baker?
You do know this was a contract which went out to bid and was won by a Chinese firm.
http://www.boston.com/business/news/2015/09/02/the-chinese-company-build...
Additionally, this firm was recommended by, wait for it......... DEVAL PATRICK in 2014.
http://commonwealthmagazine.org/transportation/007-chinese-firm-to-build...
And in Deval fashion (especially in his last 2 years) he turned this into an opportunity to travel on our dime. Further, per the above link it was DEVAL helped get the plant built in Springfield.
Bet you think it a great idea now that a uber progressive guy like Deval helped negotiate the deal, not a right wing maniac like Charlie!
Nope
Unnecessarily restrictive clauses like "Buy America" and "Build in Massachusetts" are bad ideas, regardless of who's in charge.
For that matter, so are bidding laws and procurement restrictions that preclude agencies from going to a previous equipment supplier for new rolling stock.
Nope what?
A restrictive clause doesn't make the contract void!
My "Nope"
was in response to this:
I'd agree with you, but I'm conflicted
It'd be good to have a train factory in the US making subway cars again. And if it's Mass, that's more potential tax revenue for when other cities start ordering new subway cars to renew their fleets and Made In US would be a nice bonus. My understanding was the Chinese firm in question agreed to build it here out of exactly those considerations.
In 2014, the fact that the T was falling apart was honestly not on my radar one bit, so I would've been OK with paying a little more and waiting a little longer if it meant there was a train factory in the state that wasn't there before. And I'd even be OK with Deval giving away factory jobs to his friends' constituents with taxpayer dollars as just a cost of getting things done...if it meant a Made In US sticker on some big heavy moving machinery.
Given what I know now, I might be inclined to agree with you, but not 100%. Like I said...conflicted.
There ARE train factories in
There ARE train factories in the US making subways. There's a plant in New York. The 'Built in Mass' requirement kept some companies from bidding because they didn't want to build a second plant.
Granted, the bid we got from the Chinese was lowballed because they're hungry to get into the US market and are using the Springfield plant as a stepping stone, so in the end it'll probably be a net positive for the state, but there were definitely made in USA options that would've been faster turnaround if not for the inane MUST BE MADE IN MASS rule
Unfortunately...
...there's:
A) Already several plants in the US building railcars. Kawasaki has at least two, and Alstom, Seimens, and others also have plants here.
B) This was the same argument that sold Philadelphia's SEPTA that they had to go with Rotem for their commuter rail EMUs - we're going to build a new plant which will build cars for the whole country. To date, the MBTA's commuter rail cars (which we're still trying to get to work properly) are the only other order that plant in South Philly has produced. You're probably only looking at 50/50 odds the Springfield plant ever builds cars for out-of-state, and Massachusetts won't supply enough orders to make the plant viable in the long-term.
Pfft. Baker's in office now;
Pfft. Baker's in office now; everything is his fault. Don't you know how politics works around here?
It is not slowing down the
It is not slowing down the deliveries, the Blue Line cars were ordered in 2001 and the first ones didn't enter service until 2007-2008. The first two pilot cars for the MBTA order are being built in China and their delivery will be in January 2018, the plant in Springfield will be ready by then to assemble the production cars. They are still finishing up the final design engineering work, there is no real way to get them here any faster,
http://www.mbta.com/uploadedfiles/About_the_T/Board_Meetings/FINAL%20-%2...
They are still finishing up
So we awarded a contract to a company that doesn't already have the design engineering capability in place to figure out how to build these cars? Preliminary design engineering is something you should have in place PRIOR to preparing a bid, not once the contract is awarded.
And yes, I agree with the posters below that is impractical to have a final design in place before the contract has been issued. However, if this company is as experienced in designing and building subway cars as they claim, there should be only a minimal timeframe between award of contract and construction of one or two prototype cars for testing.
There's no standard off-the
There's no standard off-the-shelf subway train you can buy, especially not one that fits the MBTA. Buying new rolling stock is more like building a new building from scratch than buying a new car.
They should have dusted off
They should have dusted off the plans for the 1800-series Red Line cars, and the proposal for bids should have said "build this". Those work just fine after 23 years.
The Orange Line would be a little trickier. A scaled down version of the Red Line cars would be the best idea, since it could share an inventory of repair parts.
The 01800's on the Red Line...
...are already obsolete. They used an early type of AC traction system which is no longer produced. If they ever get enough new cars to envision a mid-life overhaul for them (which is already several years overdue), there will need to be a serious look at whether it's better to rehab (and possibly replace major components) or just buy more of the new cars.
There once was an off the
There once was an off the shelf design for transit equipment designed and built right here in the U.S. and eventually all over the world. PCC.
No, final design comes after
No, final design comes after you award the contract. The builders respond to a request for proposals, they put together a basic design but not a final design. Do you expect every builder to fully engineer a final spec for a rapid transit car order that they don't even know they will win the contract for? Look at the timeline for the Blue Line car order, contract award in 2001, cars in service 2008. And the initial pilot cars will need to be tested for at least a year before production cars will be delivered. Do you want them to just start cranking out cars before they discover any bugs? The last time they did that was the Boeing LRV.
You are correct.
I was referring to preliminary design engineering, and also the time between award of the contract and developement of the prototype cars. For a company claiming to have such extensive experience in building subway cars, this shouldn't be that long. And if it is, that speaks to either poorly written specifications, or a company that really doesn't have the experience they claimed in their bid.
I have modified my inital post accordingly.
A subway car has to be built
A subway car has to be built to the specifications of the station. What's OK for the Green Line may not be OK for the Blue or the Orange.
Every single train has to be custom built,because of the way the stations were built. They have to fit in the stations.
Not exactly true. the chassis
Not exactly true. the chassis and car body have to be "custom fit" but most of the mechanical components can stay the same. The Blue & Orange Line cars built by Hawker-Siddeley Canada were nearly identical mechanically.
literally unbelievable
I would have thought that any public transit authority would regularly inspect its trains and buses anyway, but I especially would have thought that the MBTA should be inspecting every inch of its old-ass trains all the damn time. Was this really not standard operating procedure before now?!
Inspections cost money
and involve labor - UNION labor - to accomplish. Not to mention the down time that equipment is out of service and not serving passengers.
Enough said. And if it's any consolation, private transportation companies are generally no better at performing routine inspections on their equipment. Read almost any NTSB report concerning a crash involving a tractor trailer or passenger bus, and look at the imspection/compliance information.
And that's....
What we like to call "a distinction without a difference." If the MBTA contracts inspections out to the private sector and their resources sit underutilized without direct work such as inspections or other maintenance activities, they're wasting money on both inspection costs and employee costs.
ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure
But yeah, that makes sense, according to the nightmare logic of the T. It's still awful, but it makes sense.
You seem like you would know these things: do other mass transit authorities - in New York, Chicago, etc. - also put off inspection like this?
"An ounce of prevention"
"An ounce of prevention" competes in people's minds with "cross your fingers" unfortunately. Typical people would rather choose "take a chance by spending $0 where I might end up spending $1000 to fix stuff" vs. "spend $100 with certainly to maintain stuff." It's human nature to be completely irrational when dealing with chance and probabilities; if you don't believe me, go find the nearest PowerBall billboard.
human nature is one thing
Government is another. The MBTA is proof of a massive failure in public policy over several decades. Policies shouldn't be based on the most cowardly tendencies of the most small-minded of us; they should be based on elected officials' ideas for how to ensure that society works as well as it can for as many citizens as possible. I'm a lefty idealist nutter, of course, so dismiss these ideas if you like.
i mean look @ the reliability of the mbta
and tell me you literally can't believe they suck at maintaining their shit?
Don't conflate cause and effect
You can't maintain for shit if all you have to maintain IS shit.
These cars are old enough to sleep with Yer Mom and still be older than her.
why the f
are you talking about anything sleeping with my mom
Because
YER MOM is famous. That's why.
I tell you this:
No, I can believe it. I just don't want to.
We cant afford this system as
We cant afford this system as is, we need to cut out the highly taxpayer subsidized commuter rail and focus on the core subway and bus system. Unless of course the wealthy burbs served by the commuter rail vote republican, then Charlie should cut lines not used by "his" people, like the Mattapan line, long promised green line to somerville and Medford, and raise fares to keep buying new cars to keep the commuter rail going for his voters.
The lowest ridership commuter
The lowest ridership commuter rail line is the Fairmount Line, should that be cut first?
No, nothing should be cut..
But they shouldn't be getting reduced pricing either!
I'd agree, but
If the lower fare at a single station can somehow bring up ridership significantly, without of course capturing existing ridership from nearby stations, it would make sense economically. If there is no increased ridership, or if any increases in ridership is coming at the expense of other CR stations, bringing the fares in line with the rest of the system would make sense.
Nothing should be cut
It's possible to improve service without cutting anything. Enough with the stupid trade-offs.
^^^ Has cake and eats it
^^^ Has cake and eats it every day for lunch.
Got a problem with that?
Every time there is a MBTA problem we're told things need to be cut. Cut late night service. Cut number of train runs. Cut the Mattapan line. Cut all plans for expansion. Cut maintenance. Cut budgets. Cut personnel. Cut entire service branches.
Except fares. Those they never cut.
Cuts don't solve problems. At best they temporary resolve budget shortfalls. But you can't cut your way to better service any more than you build a house with only a saw.
you know why?
We have to cut cut cut to keep giving everyone generous salary increases and bennies.
Was on the orange line sunday and it looked like the rust in the corners of the train both under and over the paint was the only thing holding the whole thing together.
Obviously the entire MBTA staff should be fired...
... and we should solicit volunteers to do everything for free.
look at the income statement
The T has roughly doubled its oncome in tha past 15 years. Almost 100% of that incremental $1 BILLION has gone to persinnel cidts and almost nothing to debt service which is effectively a proxy for capital investment.
eh, that debt
a lot of it isn't the Ts fault.
eh, what debt?
Debt service has dropped from about 30% of revenue to less than 20% of revenue today. Roughly 90% of the $1 billion in ADDITIONAL revenue since 2001 has gone to "other than debt service" i.e. mostly salaries and bennies. If little is "the T's fault" that means they've spent almist nothing on capital for 15 years.
Saleries
MBTA employee pay is not why the Orange line is rusting through. Cutting employee pay isn't going to replace fix the trains. Cutting employee pay is only going to make things worse in the short term.
Perhaps the union contracts are overly generous but that's not a fix to the systemic problems the T is facing.
see above
It's a zero sum game. There's only x amount in the budget. It goes for people or "stuff". For the past 15 years it's gone almist 100% for people which is why all we have is crappy old stuff. If you can gind a nockel under a cushion for the T in the state's current budget call the governor. Deval (and the legislature) left him in a giant hole and I'm sure he'd use every coin to forge a shovel
We agree it's a problem
You can't cut base pay due to contracts. You can cut overtime but that hardly improves service.
They best they can hope to do is keep wages locked to inflation and even that's hard when you consider that things like healthcare are rising faster then inflation.
The only solution is to raise the budget and try to keep HR expenses flat. But instead of doing this they just cut services with no long term strategy on how to improve the system and don't hold the line on Union contracts. It's a lose-lose for riders.
The FMCB is the long-term
The FMCB is the long-term strategy. They took the first year to put together a detailed report, which came out last month, and now they're going to work on coming out with solutions.
Which I'm sure everyone here will decry (after not having done anything to affect the process nor actually doing anything to affect the process going forward).
One of the FMCB's own reports
One of the FMCB's own reports said the biggest increase in costs with the T over the past few years has been healthcare and pensions. It might not literally be "pay" that's the problem, but it's certainly the employee costs.
So what's your revenue
So what's your revenue raising plan?
Better Yet
Tolls on the arteries and at the NH border to pay for maintenance of the roads and pay off the Big Dig debt that caused this mess.
I mean, I get it....
But there's really only one toll in NH for inbound/outbound, and it's on I95. You won't hit a toll on I93 until you get to Hooksett, which I doubt has a high amount of people traveling to it from MA every day. Maybe more of a case for those work in say, Bedford or Merrimack, which have tolls along the F.E. Everett. And it's very easy for people driving up those ways to avoid the tolls if they really want to. I guess for good measure there's one around Rochester area of the Spaulding Turnpike. If you know your way around, or your way around google maps (re: 'avoid tolls'), you can miss those tolls without much hassle. None of those roads are like the Pike where they have booths at every entrance/exit.
Not to mention, if someone from NH works here, they pay MA income tax. People who travel short distances in NH don't face tolls, and I'm willing to bet the drivers tolled the heaviest along NH roads, with the exception of I95 are those who are from NH in the first place.
NH already has a "taxachusetts" mindset. Speaking as an NH native, those are largely my anecdotes. And I'm all for finding new revenue sources for the Commonwealth, but maybe not one that gets more people from NH itching to find a new job in NH because they won't have to pay tolls or MA state income tax.
NH tolls 95 but not 93
NH tolls 95 but not 93 because MA residents use 95 to get to NH but NH residents who come to Boston for work tend to take 93. I don't really care what people in NH call MA, let them make up little rhymes about why they hate MA, but make them pay to use the roads we pay for. Many people who work in MA but live in NH skip MA income taxes because they are contract workers doing construction work. Plus they don't pay local taxes that pay for MBTA and highway fees the towns and cities pay in MA. Less NH residents in MA jobs means more jobs for MA residents, especially in construction. We need a Trump wall along the MA-NH border with tolls for entering.
I support the border fence
Funny, people up here say the same thing about the idea of a border fence - to keep Massholes from moving up here and trying to turn our state's political system (and taxes) into a copy of yours.
NH tolls 95 in Hampton
and I-93 in Hooksett because those highways were built prior to estabilshment of the Interstate System.
NH does not toll I-93 between Manchester and Salem because that section of highway was built with Federal funds as part of the Interstate system.
The New Hampshire Turnpike (I-95) and the section of the Everett Turnpike between Manchester and Concord (I-293/I-93) were given Interstate designations initally to closew gaps in the system. Those designations have remained because it was deemed impractical to construct parallel free Interstates to these roads. Note that neither section of highway receives any Federal funding for new construction or maintenance - which is why the state can have liquor stores at safety rest areas accessible only from the Interstate.
...Sort of. F.E. Everett Tpk
...Sort of. F.E. Everett Tpk serves Route 3 from the....Route 3 road at the Tyngsboro/Nashua junction in NH. It runs up merging with I293 in Bedford, where you'll hit the first toll. It continues up to Concord, but to label it as I-93 isn't quite accurate because no where from that Pelham/Salem stretch until it hits 293, running along the west side of the Merrimack River is it F.E. Everett.
And just so I can chime in to B-C'16, I don't buy it, re: tolling I95 and not I93. I93 and I95 undoubtedly are utilized in different circumstances, but here they are, mostly: people from MA driving through NH to get to ME to vacation every weekend in the summer. Regardless of that, when I hit the 101W and 93S merger on a late afternoon in the summer time, I93 is backed up all the way to Manchester. Plenty of traffic from MA flows into NH to the Lakes Region every single weekend.
There's a viable solution to this issue. But blaming everyone from NH isn't the answer.
Correct about the Everett Turnpike
Except that the Bedford Tolls are south of the junction with I-293. I-293 through Manchester to the junction with I-93 is free.
more people from NH itching
>implying there are jobs in NH
People who ran up north to duck taxes and put daily, significant wear and tear on our roads should be tolled to pay for them. MBTA riders have to pay a fare, why don't drivers? And DON'T say the gas tax, the gas tax is an ever shrinking pennies to the dollar of what it costs to maintain driving infrastructure.
Hold up - people who have
Hold up - people who have offices in NH but live in MA are still subject to paying MA income taxes in MA for wages earned. Sure, there are ways to dodge them.
If anything I might be alluding to making the case that maybe I93 should be tolled similarly to the Pike, not saying that the gas tax is sufficient. No where did I ever make that case. In any event, NH drivers are likely filling up in NH rather than in MA when they can handle it, so, no, I don't think the gas tax is sufficient in that regard. Don't put words in my mouth or draw up straw men like that.
And, you're right, there are lots more jobs in the GBA than in NH. But that's to say that there aren't jobs in NH, either. You still have plenty of big corps in NH such as BAE, IBM, Oracle, HP, and so on and so forth, and arguably Nashua, Manchester, and Portsmouth all have robust economic opportunities, just not nearly as robust as Boston, Waltham, Cambridge, et al.
What I was implying, on the other hand, is that I'm sure there are many in MA who drive up to NH every day who do not contribute to NH's roadway funds through tolls because, like I said, they're easy to avoid and the roads aren't heavily tolled aside from I95.
Then raise the damned gas tax
Then raise the damned gas tax again. Of course the MA legislature seems to be more interested in trying to pass pass-the-buck gas tax legislation - peg it to CPI so they don't have to have their names on a gas tax bill every couple years - so they got spanked down hard by the voters last year.
If we didn't have such ignorant voters
in this state, raising the gas tax wouldn't be an issue, as it would be connected to the CPI. But I suppose you believe that having legislators debate a gax tax increase every two years or so - with the inevitable "I'll support the increase if you agree to fund my pet project" compromises is a more efficent solution to the problem.
To me an ignorant voter is
To me an ignorant voter is one that gives our legislature an easy out on a tax increase. I think you've lived in this area all your life, then you should know better. Our legislature runs with a mile if you give them an inch. Never.
There's no way I and many others will let them get off that easy.
I say bring up a gas tax now. I'll bet you won't find much resistance.
And yes, it would be an issue connected to the CPI when gas is over $4 a gallon again.
Linking the gas tax to the CPI
is NOT an easy out, it's a logical way to insure adequate and consistent funding for our infrastructure.
We can agree to disagree.
We can agree to disagree.
The state and feds are already making how much per gallon? Much more than the gas distributors and oil companies (usually less than 10 cents per gallon). That tax income is going where?
We pay an excise tax to keep up with local road maintenance. Maybe the excise tax needs to be looked at as well. Is that revenue put in a general fund, or solely used for road maintenance?
And I will forever believe our elected officials need to work for a living. If it means presenting a tax increase, then so be it.
Enough with hitting the working persons pocket without looking at the whole picture.
How about this as a compromise
We change the gas tax to be a fixed percentage of the price per gallon (similar to the sales tax). Automatically adjusts to changes in price, therefore, it's automatically indexed to inflation. And it avoids the political shitshow that currently happens every time it's suggested the Legislature raise the gas tax.
Tolls on Interstates are
Tolls on Interstates are against federal law without some kind of waiver they won't grant.
Tolls at state borders are unconstitutional. (It would be one of the few examples where the "interstate commerce clause" would be used the way it was originally intended, to stop states from trying to tax/tariff people traveling across borders.)
Taxpayer subsidies
The CR is only expensive on a "dollars per ride" subsidy basis. If you look at just any any other measure--fare recovery ratio, subsidy per mile, etc, it's nearly as good as the subway and much better than the bus system. For example, ballpark FRR for the subway/CR/bus is something like 60%/50%/15%, or so (this is off the top of my head from the fiscal review board's data from last spring).
Also, since the wealthy pay more in taxes, increasing taxes to subsidize CR service isn't a whole lot different than just raising fares. In fact, it may be more progressive.
Dollars per ride is the most
Dollars per ride is the most important metric! Plus you aren't adding the other large subsidy for commuter rail riders, all the parking. We just spent 20 million redoing Salems parking garage.
You seem to be casting aside the most important way of measuring expense for an underfunded system. For the cost of 1 person on the commuter rail from say Worcester or Wellesley, you can get 5+ people on the subway. The people who least need public transit (those who own cars and mostly drive to commuter rail lots) get subsidized
Why should we subsidize suburban living so much. Why subsidize living farther from your work more, this just leads to sprawl, the same way our freeways do.
Well from a practical
Well from a practical standpoint, enabling cost-effective commuting from suburbs effectively lowers the housing crunch in the urban center. Sprawl is not efficient, but increasing the urban population isn't a practical option due to the current lack of housing and rapid transit capacity.
Subsidizing suburban public transit reduces auto traffic, improves air quality for everyone, reduced road costs, and reduces traffic congestion for those who do still drive. And that's just a handful of the positive externalities that justify subsidizing it.
I think the question regarding the proper subsidy metric points out the challenge with how to measure the financial performance of any transit system. Do you it on a cost basis? On a realized rider benefit basis? On net benefit basis (including externalities)? For example, which is a better transit system: one with a million rides and a $1 subsidy per ride, or one with 100,00 rides and no subsidy? I don't think there's a "correct" answer, at least from a practical standpoint. That's why I think considering all metrics to some degree is important (fwiw, the MBTA gravitates towards the FRR metric, but that may be self-serving).
A transportation problem.
This is an interesting point. I'm not so sure everyone would like it if the "rich suburban set" all decided to suddenly move back into Boston. Getting rid of the Commuter Rail might go a long way toward achieving that, however.
I subscribe to the theory that we have more of a transportation problem than a housing stock problem. If it reliably took only 20 minutes to get from Brockton to South Station, does anyone really think that Brockton (or Lawrence or [Insert name of relatively nearby Gateway City here)] would be as it is now (or that the rents/housing prices in not very nice areas close into Boston would be as high as they are now)?
Better vehicles have been damaged or destroyed by FOD
I never expected the Orange Line and the Concorde to have something in common before this.
Except that the FOD that destroyed
the Concorde didn't come from another Concorde.
Less likely for a piece from
Less likely for a piece from the Red Line to end up on an orange line track.
I'd comment
But I'm too busy trying a picture a situation where - let's say a bridge on 93 - was falling apart, everyone knows it's falling apart, and the chances of it collapsing and killing people grow by the day, and the powers that be being comfortable saying "We'll keep looking at it but it will be fixed in 2 years, probably, and we'll probably be OK until then."
But since it's just the T, screw it.
transit
is racist
It's not just the T: google
It's not just the T: google the I-35 bridge in Minnesota.
Water mains under city streets also tend to be left alone until they break and flood a street, if not a subway tunnel.
Yes, this is a real problem, but "handle maintenance and replacement parts for the T as well as for the rest of our infrastructure" wouldn't be enough.
The I-35W collapse was partially due
to lack of maintenance. It also had a lot to do with MnDOT increasing the loading on the structure (on more than one occasion) without first evaluating the structure to see if it could take the increased loading. Even the NTSB acknowledged this in their final report on the collapse.
And of course, MnDOT's failure to adopt their consultant's short term repair recommendations had much to do with the ultimate collapse as well.
The I-35 bridge
Were its problems common knowledge? Did everyone drive over it with a ghoulish, "Crap, I hope today's not the day" thought on their minds, the way MBTA riders are getting used to?
One, comparing a bridge to a
One, comparing a bridge to a train car is a bad analogy. Try comparing a bridge to a bridge. If the T found one of their train bridges to be structurally deficient, how quickly would they fix it?
And two, you forget that up until about a decade ago, our bridges were crumbling and being ill-maintained. States had put the same (lack of) priority on highway infrastructure safety as they are on the T. It took a serious bridge collapse out in the midwest where people died - not some kind of pro-motorist bias you and so many others love to blame - for us to get the current political climate of fast-tracking every single bridge repair/replacement.
Shedding Metal
My husband was on an orange line train last night that had a "banging and flapping" noise. He said it was really loud for a while.
I picked him up at Malden Center just a bit after 8pm - Plenty of time for it to make a return trip to Forest Hills and back to State St.
Maybe they need to brush them more often if they are going to cough up hairballs like this.
Hmmm
He wouldn't be sufficiently OCD--I mean aware of his surroundings in a completely healthy and not at all abnormal way--to recall the number of the car he was riding in, would he?
And they want us
And they want us to pay more for this service.
I get it, trains are coming. But how dare this "control board" ask us to pay more when it just gets worse and worse. Fix the service first, then ask for more money.
The T is becoming unsafe now.. and we're going to pay more for this.
It's pretty clear, if it has been realized already, that Baker really doesn't care about the T, he only cares about breaking it up and privatizing it.
The fare increase is to plug
The fare increase is to plug an op budget hole; it has nothing to do with the state-of-good-repair issues. (As is the talk of service cuts, ending late-night, bustituting the Mattapan line, and ending the art program.) They haven't even started trying to figure out how to pay for the SOGR issue.
What's your solution for eliminating the op budget hole?
Did you present it at the fare hike hearings?
Did you go to any of those hearings?
T-Madness
Where were the Transit Police and other T-workers? Thank God for Boston Fire, what will happen when the train is filled with schoolchildren or disabled passengers in wheel chairs and a fire breaks out in the station.
Why there wasn't anyone else there...
There weren't any other workers there because MBTA management got rid of Collectors in stations and Guards on the trains. Now there is only one person on a train and many stations are empty. There are Inspectors but they have to cover multiple stations; if he/she isn't at the particular station then he/she has to take a train to the site of the problem.
The idea of have only one employee on a train charged with looking out for 1,400-1,600 passengers is frightening!
Gotta love the "reactive
Gotta love the "reactive maintenance." They're only bothering to inspect the bolts now because some already got so bad they fell off.
A couple of items not discussed
There's a strange disparity in news report about these latest T incidents. Every news outlet has a slightly different story. was it a 12"x 12" panel or a 12'x 12" panel? A body panel? There are no removable body panels on these transit cars. It was a component access panel under the car. There are a number of comments here and elsewhere attacking union workers for this. The workers don't determine when to inspect rolling stock-MANAGEMENT does—this is a management failure.The fact that the equipment is older about 36 years old (which is well within the life span of transit equipment) is not a problem. The problem is the MANAGEMENT at the MBTA bought cars that weren't stainless steel or aluminum so they have rusted out so badly that a rebuild is not economical and they didn't not maintain the exteriors so they wouldn't rust out in the first place. Workers, union or not don't make these decisions MANAGEMENT does.
The MBTA is not a profit making endeavor, it never really was and never can be; the state, as any state must, subsidizes public transit, Boston and the surrounding communities would wither and die without cheap public transit. The entire state benefits from this.
Why was there panic? Why did a Red Line train run away in December nearly the entire length of the South Shore extension? Why did a couple perform a sex act on the platform at State St. last May? &c. &c. Because the T MANAGEMENT took guards off the trains and collectors out of the stations. How can one person fight a fire AND evacuate a train in a tunnel? How can one person manage 1,200-1,600 passengers in a dark tunnel? How can passengers report a problem in a station immediately if they don't where or even if there's an attendant in the station? These are all problems created by MANAGEMENT with the duplicity of the legislature, governor's office, the Pioneer Institute and the press to bash T workers and create a favorable environment for privatization—a hand off of a public asset (& public monies) to private concerns. It is not the union and the front line worker that is trashing public transit; it is bad MANAGEMENT and bad public policy, deliberately done.
Maintenance and Replacement
Properly maintained equipment will last a very long time. Although choosing to replace cars, complete rebuilds of existing cars is a posibility which was excersised on the going MBTA Type 7 cars. If MBTA truly makes additional effort to improve what equipment is currently onhand, frequent inspections isn't neccesaruly enough. It is a known fact that the cars are old, and parts are starting to wear out. It is critical in maintaining fluid operations that not only do cars continue to be checked for issues, but that if a trend is observed, cars must receive repairs promptly. Keen observation of developing problems, and prompt response key. Waiting until the last minute, or until a red fiag forces things to change, will never do. In order to provide the kind of service that MBTA patrons need, the company will have to improve their matenence department. It is not difficult to find railroad companies who lack proper care to maintaining their equipment, and if it weren't for shortcomings like this, public transit might be much more dependable, and attract further ridership. Getting new trains is not enough. Even new trains will wear out if an owner does not take proper care of them. If MBTA can't stay on top of their current fleet, who's to be sure that the new cars will improve things quite as much as we think? It's high time MBTA stepped up their game, and I'd like to see some improvement here.