It's painfully ironic that the long-awaited push for efficient transportation systems now being championed by the Obama administration which includes money for both inter-city and intra-city rail systems (specifically streetcars) should dawn just at the time when things look bleakest for metro-Boston's rail network.
Perhaps the federal government will step in and play the role of Boston's White Knight. Yet the hole our state leaders have dug, over the past several decades, for Massachusetts residents in the arena of public transportation is so deep, that no federal assistance can possibly cure our ills until such time as we get our own fiscal house in order. Certainly, when year after year, one sees state officials fail to address the systemic funding problems of the MBTA, ignore good ideas that have merit and kick the can down the road, activists and T riders alike have a right to be angry.
Winter can be a difficult time to get around and this winter especially has exposed the vulnerabilities of our public transit infrastructure and the perspective is scary.
Boston Magazine recently dissected the T's safety record, maintenance backlog and debit and posed the question: Is the T Safe To Ride? As informative as the article is, and as staggering as the T's debt is today, several important financial obligations were missing. Just to name two, there was no mention of the old commuter rail coach and locomotive stock rapidly approaching its end-of-life. Also beyond their 14-year-FTA-life-cycle are around 200 buses dating from 1994.
The Boston Globe did pick up on the aging commuter rail fleet in a piece today anticipating a meeting between the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad (the operators of the commuter rail network for the MBTA), the state transportation secretary, the MBTA general manager, and the House and Senate chairmen of the legislative transportation committee to discuss poor winter-time performance.
In January, fewer than 73 percent of commuter rail trains arrived at their final destination within five minutes of the scheduled time. Thousands of trains were delayed by more than 850 hours, and 111 were canceled altogether. [Possibly because] more than three-quarters of the 80 locomotives and 410 coaches owned by the T are approaching or have exceeded the manufacturer’s suggested life of 25 years.
But what about the courtesy of notifying the passengers standing out in the sub-zero temperatures? Anyone remember the “real-time” transit information displays which should have been working a decade ago – yet another testament to the T's failed project management.
In short, the T is loosing riders at a time when high fuel costs and consciousness over the health of our planet is attracting people toward public transit.
20-year rider Beth DelBono waited in disbelief as a train preparing to make its first trip of the day (the 602, scheduled to leave at 6:45 a.m.) had to be scratched before it could move. An electrical problem in the control car — the lead coach where the engineer operates on inbound trips, while the locomotive is pushing from the rear — forced the rail company to swap that car with the one on the next scheduled train, and to send a crew to repair it on site, resulting in a nearly half-hour delay.
"It just seemed like a final blow,’’ said DelBono, who works in research at a Boston hospital.
As a second-generation commuter rail rider, she was once an advocate for the financial and environmental benefits of riding the train.
For those of us who live along the Arborway corridor, chronic overcrowding and aggravatingly long travel times to go short distances like 2 miles are a painful daily reminder of the MBTA's 25-plus-year-long urban disinvestment initiative.
