Coming right at you:
"Second derailment in days sends T into chaos" by Laura Crimaldi and Matt Stout Globe Staff, June 11, 2019
Less than three weeks before the latest MBTA fare hike takes effect, a derailment on the Red Line Tuesday morning plunged the city transit system into chaos, turning the commute for thousands of riders into an hours-long slog, and prompting the agency to announce plans for an outside review.
The T restored service on the Red Line by the evening commute, but trains were running at reduced speeds for part of the way, and riders were warned to plan for 15 to 20 minutes of extra commuting time, and on Wednesday morning as well.
Tuesday’s derailment was the second in four days, and the second on the Red Line in under a month. The latest occurred when a southbound train went off the tracks outside JFK/UMass Station in Dorchester around 6:10 a.m. — just as the morning rush was beginning.
The incident forced riders onto shuttle buses that inched along under the crush of Boston traffic, or to take ride-hailing services Uber and Lyft charging $60, $70, and even more for the trip into downtown.
See: Ride-hailing prices skyrocket to more than $100 amid Red Line turmoil
In the old days it was called price gouging.
“I’ve seen people pushed to the brink today,” said Jake Bayless after reaching Park Street Station just before 11 a.m. Bayless, who was visiting Boston for a work trip, said he saw frustrated commuters on a shuttle bus exchange heated words and threaten to call police.
While insisting the subway system is safe to ride, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority general manager Steve Poftak announced the agency is hiring an engineering firm to review derailments from the last two years.
“A derailment is always a bad event at a transit agency and we take every one very seriously,” Poftak said at a news conference outside the JFK station, adding the MBTA “would turn over every stone” to pinpoint a cause. “We hear very clearly and we understand very clearly that this situation with these derailments is not acceptable. And we are taking steps to address that.”
I'm tired of exhaust from corrupt and negligent officialdom that exist to provide excuses while feathering their own nests.
Transit Police have not determined what caused Tuesday’s derailment. The MBTA said the operator of the Red Line train was a 39-year-old man who has been working for the agency since October 2016, but it did not release his name. He is not operating trains while the T investigates.
On Saturday, a Green Line trolley derailed on the D Line, injuring 11 people, including the operator, who was found at fault in a preliminary investigation.
I'm sure they will blame the operator here, too. It provides the corrupt agency a cover and spurs the AI narrative.
The MBTA has had a high number of derailments compared to other major US transit systems — 43 in the last five years, according to federal transit data.
There have been five already this year, including another Green Line train on Feb. 5, the day of the Patriots Super Bowl victory parade, near the Beaconsfield stop in Brookline, and yet a third Green Line train on March 30 that was not in service at the time. On May 21, a Red Line train that was not in service derailed at the Ashmont train yard.
The firm hired by the MBTA to examine the derailments, LTK Engineering Services, will limit its review to incidents involving trains that were serving passengers when they went off the rails, said Joe Pesaturo, an agency spokesman.
How much is that going to cost as the system gets $hittier every day?
Poftak, who became MBTA general manager at the beginning of the year, has been implementing a five-year, $8 billion spending plan authored by Governor Charlie Baker’s administration to repair the aging transit system. For example, the agency has multimillion-dollar contracts to upgrade the signal systems on the Red and Orange lines to reduce the large number of delays caused by trip-ups in the T’s electrical connections.
Related:
"The cost to fix or replace the MBTA’s aging equipment and upgrade to new, modern infrastructure is now valued at a cool $10 billion, a dramatic jump from the already eye-popping estimate cited just four years ago. The new figure, unveiled at Monday’s meeting of the MBTA, accounts for nearly all things transit: trains and buses, tracks and power systems, culverts and tunnels and bridges, and more, but some elements of the system have not yet been closely analyzed, and their costs are based on best-guess placeholders — meaning the figure could still jump once the analysis is complete. For years, experts had said that the $7.3 billion estimate made in 2015 was probably too low. On Monday, officials from the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority stressed that the earlier figures and the more recent number are not directly comparable, because they used different methodologies to reach their conclusions......"
Where the hell has all the money gone all these years, as fares rise constantly.
Speaking in Springfield Tuesday after attending an unrelated event, Baker declined to address the cause of the derailment, but the Republican, who has long pushed back against calls to raise new revenues to help the T, argued the agency is still doing the “overdue” work to update its aging equipment and infrastructure, some of which is decades old.
“We want to make sure we get it right,” Baker said. “I wish we could install it all tomorrow. We can’t. But I believe we’re heading in the right direction on that stuff.”
The two major incidents within a few days prompted a number of advocates to call for more urgent intervention by the state in the transit system, and for some commuters to complain about the pending fare hike — the fourth since 2012. On July 1, subway fares will increase to $2.40 from $2.25, and monthly subway passes will cost an additional $5.50.
Related: T board approves 6 percent fare hike
Don't worry, it will only cost you a few more nickels and dimes.
“The T is totally unacceptable,” said Annette James, an accountant from Quincy, who was forced to commute into Boston on a shuttle bus that was sweltering because its air conditioning wasn’t on.
“I just think the reason why all this happens is there’s no competition and we have no choice,” James added. “If there was competition, I think it would be a lot better.”
What do you mean?
The contracts are put out for bid.
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Time to get ‘moving, folks’:
"MBTA among nation’s worst for derailments, records show" by Vernal Coleman and Matt Rocheleau Globe Staff, June 11, 2019
Amid a national uptick in transit train derailments, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has steadily amassed one of the nation’s worst safety records.
I'm so proud I live in Ma$$achu$Etts, and that flies in the face of all these years where the Globe hailed how great was the T.
MBTA trains derailed 43 times over the last five years, the second-highest total of any metro transit system in the country, federal records show. Only the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority, with 72 derailments on a smaller system of streetcars, logged a worse record.
Thank God someone is worse, 'eh?
The federal statistics do not include the MBTA’s Green Line derailment on Saturday, which injured 11 people, or Tuesday’s Red Line derailment, which caused massive gridlock across the city.
“That’s not normal,” railway safety expert Keith Millhouse said of the MBTA’s derailment history.
Millhouse, a California-based transit consultant with Millhouse Strategies, said the repeated derailments are a sign of a “real lax safety culture at the MBTA — and that culture emanates from the top.”
Noooo!!!!
MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said Tuesday that the agency’s rise in derailment rankings may be due to stricter reporting. In 2017 the MBTA began collecting data on derailments of maintenance vehicles and that effort is believed to have caused an uptick in reported derailments over the past few years, Pesaturo said in an e-mail.
Shoveling sh!t must be a prerequisite and qualification for the job.
Derailments can be caused by a number of issues, including operator error, poor rails, or shoddy equipment. The T’s derailment Tuesday is under investigation. The agency suspended the driver involved in Saturday’s incident.
Millhouse and other specialists attribute the rise in derailments across the country to the government’s failure to improve and maintain train system infrastrucuture.
Look, when you are wasting massive amounts on mass-murdering wars based on lies blared by the pre$$ along with the waste, fraud, and abuse of $elf-$erving political patronage and lavish political lifestyles along with ma$$ive corporate welfare, what do you expect?
Ten years ago, the number of reported heavy-rail derailments among US commuter transit systems stood in the single digits. By 2017, it reached a 10-year peak at 28.
The derailment on the Red Line was the fifth this year, putting the T on pace for the most in a decade, according to the agency’s own records.
They are just getting worse as the decrepit infrastructure can't hold up.
Former state transportation secretary James Aloisi said the derailments are having an impact, further eroding the public’s trust in the MBTA.
“We have an old system that’s been underinvested in,” he said Tuesday. “It’s not complicated. It just takes political will to do it.”
He is one of the problems in the revolving door of corruption!
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Can I see your ticket please?
"New MBTA fare collection system is delayed" by Adam Vaccaro Globe Staff, May 3, 2019
The MBTA’s $700 million effort to convert to all-electronic fare collection is behind schedule, a blow to a high-profile project that the agency has cast as a near silver-bullet solution to many of its service problems and pricing limitations.
Maybe it's $ilver bullets on the tracks causing the derailments.
Officials declined to specify how long it will now take to implement the fare system, originally scheduled for completion in 2021, nor are they saying exactly what has gone wrong, but the delays apparently involve technology issues with the T’s vendor, as well as difficult policy decisions, such as how to conduct random fare checks that the new system will require.
WTF?
“It’s a complicated system that literally touches every customer every time across every location and every vehicle,” Steve Poftak, the general manager of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, said in an interview Friday. “We believe that right now, more time is going to be required to deliver the project that we want for our customers.”
On Thursday, the vendor the MBTA hired to implement the system, a San Diego-based company called Cubic, told investors it would “probably adjust some of the milestones” for the MBTA project. Matt Cole, a Cubic senior vice president, said the company is confident the project will get done eventually.
“These systems are highly sophisticated and there are always technical challenges that need to be overcome in order to successfully deliver the project on behalf of the customer and their riders,” Cole said in a statement.
Both Cubic and the T declined to outline a new schedule, with Poftak saying the agency is working on that with the vendor, which built similar systems for London and Chicago and is installing one in New York.
The new system is largely modeled off the London system. It will allow riders to use a smartphone or credit card at fare machines, in addition to issuing a new version of the electronic CharlieCard. It is also expected to speed up bus service by allowing boarding at all doors. Officials have said the new system should increase fare collections, especially on the commuter rail, where crowded trains often prevent conductors from checking every ticket, but it is far more than just a convenience. The T sees an integrated payment system as the technological linchpin for a radical change in the agency’s fare pricing, allowing it to, for example, offer discounts to low-income riders, or charge different rates based on distance or time of day or put a cap on the amount of money riders pay each month. It would also facilitate single fares between the subway and the commuter rail, or even with outside services such as the BlueBikes program or non-MBTA buses.
The project is designed to replace the time-consuming collection of cash payments on buses and trains with a vast network of CharlieCard vending machines across the region, including in public spaces and convenience stores, to serve low-income riders who rely on cash.
Unlike many major transit projects, all of this was supposed to come relatively quickly, with test programs in place this year, the system partially installed next year, and the work complete by mid-2021.
The cause of the delay appears to be twofold. There is some sort of technical problem, which MBTA officials have refused to describe in detail; Cubic said it involved a problem with how the system communicates with a mobile network. Poftak stressed the MBTA will not pay the company until it has fully installed the multimillion-dollar system, adding that the contract with the company has other “tools within it that allow us to work toward a remedy.”
Secondly, Poftak said, the agency may need more time to resolve thorny issues raised by the new system, such as how to conduct random fare inspections to ensure riders paid, or where to put new vending machines.
It's a $h!t $ervice but they are $o worried about the money!
Some transit activists welcomed the delay. Stacy Thompson, director of the Livable Streets Alliance, said she always felt the T’s schedule was too aggressive and risked going into place without the big policy decisions being fully thought through. She said the T should factor in time to sort through policy issues when it sets deadlines on big projects.
What?
“From day one, we didn’t actually think that the T did enough public outreach before they did the contract with Cubic,” Thompson said. “We think it’s going to take more work or more time than they were saying. Let’s learn from this and do better with the next major project.”
Pffft!
The MBTA had hinted at a problem in April, when officials said they would install fare gates at some key commuter rail stations by the end of 2020 — even though the new electronic system was scheduled to come online just a few months later. It confirmed the delay Friday after Cubic discussed the setbacks during its investor call the evening before.
Cubic has said its New York project is on schedule. That contract is worth about $540 million, but involves less change than the MBTA job. For example, Cubic is putting new fare readers on existing gates for now, rather than replacing the gates outright.
The New York transit agency has begun testing Cubic’s technology at select stations, and plans to slowly roll it out and replace the old system over the next four years, whereas the T is planning a more abrupt transition from old to new.
SIGH!
Cubic’s 2013 installation in Chicago was troubled, with scores of fare readers crashing during commutes, escalating costs, and delays of several months before it was finally completed.
Can't anyone make a functioning piece of software other than ATM machines?
WTF?
At the MBTA, the fare system is one of several major improvement initiatives the T has struggled to roll out on time, even as it has stressed the need to get better at managing big, expensive projects. For example, the first of more than 150 new Orange Line cars are delayed due to a software issue, and another major initiative — a collision avoidance system on the commuter rail — is at risk of falling behind because of a problem with equipment installed by a subcontractor.
Poftak said the way the T has handled the fare project shows it has gotten better with big jobs, noting the contract is structured to withhold payments from Cubic until the work is finished.
They just won't tell you the problems!
The MBTA said the delay won’t add any further costs to the contract, about half of which pays for infrastructure and half pays Cubic to operate the system for a decade.
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Related:
Baker wants to revamp T’s pension fund, but his appointees often skip meetings
The privately run T fund has a $1.4 billion unfunded liability, and they left it on autopilot and in rever$e:
"One in three MBTA retirees last year was under 55, putting another strain on pension fund" by Matt Stout Globe Staff, April 15, 2019
Nearly one-third of the employees who retired from the MBTA last year were under the age of 55, and dozens were still in their 40s, adding to the flow of younger retirees state lawmakers had hoped to stem years ago.
The Legislature passed a law in 2009 intended to dial back a lavish public sector perk at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, but because it only applied to new hires, many employees retiring now still fall under the old rules — and potentially collect pensions for longer than they actually worked at the T.
Continuing waves of younger retirees could further strain a $1.5 billion pension system already beset by other concerns. More pensioners — 5,600 in total — are collecting benefits than there are workers paying in, and T officials have raised alarms over the growing payments the agency is funneling into the separately run pension fund.
The Legislature moved to stop T employees from cashing out an early pension a decade ago, when it ended the agency’s famous “23 and out” retirement provision that allowed workers to collect substantial pensions and free health care after 23 years on the job, regardless of age.
More than 1,200 of those receiving a T pension — or about 22 percent — began collecting before they turned 50, and Joe Pesaturo, a MBTA spokesman, said there are 500 current employees who are eligible to retire because they’ve worked for more than 23 years.
Crawford, the fund spokesman, declined to comment on what impact younger retirees have on the pension system’s outlook, saying it relies on an annual report provided by its actuary “to identify trends.”
“I can’t speculate on generalities,” Crawford said.
Currently, the largest pension belongs to Sean McCarthy, a former chief operating officer who retired at age 50 and has been collecting $97,617 a year since 2015. He’s followed by James M. O’Brien, the current president of the Carmen’s Union, who retired two years ago at age 57 and is collecting $91,015 annually.
Lori A. Barrett, who left the T’s Power Systems Maintenance Department at age 56, is earning the highest pension among 2018 retirees, at $83,235 a year, but that information — and its possible ramifications on the taxpayer- and rider-funded T — hasn’t always been easily accessible.
Why not?
Where is the tran$parency in Ma$$achu$etts?
MBTA pension had been posted to the state’s now-defunct Open Checkbook website, but it only included information through 2015. State budget officials shuttered the site in January 2018 after the state comptroller’s office created a financial records platform called CTHRU, but while CTHRU includes information on retired state workers and teachers, it’s never included data on pensions being collected by former T employees.
After the Globe inquired about the data, Pesaturo said the agency sent the comptroller’s office retiree lists from 2017 and 2018. Jeffrey Shapiro, the state’s first deputy comptroller, said the office can’t require that agencies provide such information, but it intends to create an online portal for the T data as “quickly as we can.”
“Our focus is to continue to put more and deeper data on” CTHRU, Shapiro said. “It’s never our intent to have less.”
The release of the new data could turn a spotlight on a fight policy makers and union officials have engaged in for years over the MBTA Retirement Fund.
The light at the end of the tunnel!
Two years ago, the T proposed drastically changing its pensions rules, including creating a new sliding scale to determine the pension rate. For example, payouts to teachers and most state workers are determined by multiplying their years of service by an “age factor” — a number that increases from 1.45 percent for 60-year-old retirees to 2.5 percent for those over 67.
In contrast, at the T, the age factor is 2.46 percent for all eligible retirees, giving less incentive to keep working.
Officials said at the time that any changes would likely have to be negotiated.
The union, right?
In 2017, the Legislature passed a measure pushed by Governor Charlie Baker that allows — but does not mandate — the state’s Pension Reserves Investment Management Board and the state’s $70 billion pension fund to manage investments of the MBTA Retirement Fund, but in the two years since, there’s been little movement.
More on that after this article.
Now, some state lawmakers also want to reexamine who’s a part of the fund. Representative William M. Straus, the House chair of the Committee on Transportation, is proposing the Legislature create a commission to study the impact of moving future T retirees directly into the state pension system, a move the Carmen’s Union opposes.
“We don’t have much luxury time left to address this,” Straus said. “This could end up being the most significant problem that the T faces in having resources to perform its mission.”
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Related:
MBTA pension fund needs $1 billion, report says
They got $hort$leeved!
Struggling MBTA pension fund took a $151 million hit in 2018
I'm told they lost $50.1 million in the financial markets last year.
Looks like Ponzi scheme!
Also see:
MBTA, union officials quietly renegotiating pension fund amid budget gaps
Three years later, MBTA pension fund still has no permanent leader
One-third of MBTA workers made $100,000 or more last year
Yeah, who cares if your train is on time if you reach your destination late?
"MBTA’s Orange Line trains delayed again, this time until summer" by Adam Vaccaro Globe Staff, March 25, 2019
Orange Line riders are going to have to wait until summer for their eagerly awaited new ride.
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority said Monday that the first new Orange Line train in decades will debut in the summer, marking another delay for a project that transit officials have often described as a crucial service improvement. Once promised by late 2018, the first train’s maiden voyage already had been bumped to winter 2019 and later to “early spring” before the latest delay.
Officials said the problem won’t slow the long-term plan to replace and expand the entire Orange Line fleet by 2022. MBTA Deputy General Manager Jeff Gonneville even described a silver lining to the delay: By the time the T is ready to introduce the first six-car train, it will also be ready to introduce a second at the same time, and a third will soon follow. The previous plan was to introduce just one train at a time.
OMG, a setback isn't a setback!
Where do they find these dissemblers!?
Gonneville acknowledged the delay is still a “setback” for the agency and its riders who are anxious to see new trains to address the breakdowns and overcrowding that often plague the line.....
The holdup is a problem with a system within the car that is manufactured by the French firm Alstom -- and Schumer is worried about the Chinese!
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FLASHBACK:
T reversed half of fines against Keolis for winter turmoil
The MBTA went ahead and issued the fines, and for riders who had to wait for hours on frozen platforms and pack into overcrowded trains, it felt like a measure of justice, but seven months later, the Globe has learned, the MBTA quietly reversed course. The decision to forgive the fines has never been publicly disclosed and drew angry rebukes from elected officials and commuters alike when they learned of it.
I agree with the rescinding of the fines because Keolis took over a neglected decrepit system that had been looted by the previous well-connected firm that ran it into the ground, and that is not how you welcome someone to the state; however, I am angry about the secrecy surrounding the decision.
