Of course, we have accidents on our roads and highways all the time, but lawmakers like Mr. Baddour never suggest ending our massive annual investments in road and highway expansion. The truth is, expanding our public transportation system and reducing reliance on cars is the only way we can reduce global warming, reduce our dependence on foreign oil (and stop sending our money to the Saudi monarchy, and from them to Osama), and create walkable, liveable communities. The resulting cleaner air will mean longer life spans, fewer heart attacks, fewer asthma attacks, and fewer missed worked days. Even drivers benefit, as better public transportation reduces traffic.
It is true that the MBTA is saddled with a larger debt than other transit agencies. Unrealistically large pension and benefits are a small but egregious part of the problem, and should be reduced. But the main culprits, ironically, are Beacon Hill leaders like Baddour himself, who put the Big Dig’s transit commitment costs on the T in a fiscal shell game to avoid responsibility, and who force the transportation agencies to waste money year after year using expensive police details instead of flagmen.
Personally, I do not think that the T’s debt contributed significantlyto the crash. But if Baddour believes that the T’s debt contributed to this terrible accident, he needs to get himself to confession, and quick, since he is as responsible for the T’s debt as any person in Massachusetts.
Senate President Murray should react swiftly to Senator Baddour’s callow politicization of a young woman’s tragic death. The Transportation Committee is important. To chair it, Senator Murray should install someone with more vision — and more decency.
Senator Baddour, you can read the definition of pwn here.
It’s agreed that the MBTA’s overblown debts, etc., contributed greatly to this situation, and this was a horrible crash, which caused the horrible death of a young woman before her time. Here’s hoping the investigation gets underway and gets over with quickly and thoroughly, so that the causes of this horrible accident and tragic death can be looked into and necessary changes, if need be.
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p>I also agree that politicians should not be politicizing this horrible death. Senate President Murray should either severely discipline Senator Baddour for his insensitivity and put him on notice, if one gets the drift, or he should fire the Senator outright.
It’s agreed that the MBTA’s overblown debts, etc., contributed greatly to this situation
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p>It is? Agreed by whom? This diary is the first time I’ve heard it suggested — before now, I’d heard it was because she was on the phone or texting or something.
and therefore, nobody really knows at this time what caused this young woman’s horrible and untimely death. It’s possible that the young woman was on the phone texting or whatever, but who knows. Until a thorough investigation is made, there’s no way of knowing what really happened.
According to the NTSB as reported in this afternoon’s Herald, the operator was going approximately 30 MPH too fast at the time of the crash. What is looking more like negligent driving by a fairly inexperienced operator has bupkes to do with the MBTA’s debt.
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p>Senator Baddour has never struck me as one of the brighter bulbs in the Senate and clearly is more interested in finding a microphone than waiting to find out the hard facts Surely his constitutents can find someone better.
they think that speed had a great deal, if not everything, to do with the MBTA crash that led to this young woman’s tragic and untimely death? That’s possible, and, if that’s the case, the MBTA should crack down really, really hard on employees who either speed or cellphone and/or text while driving the MBTA subway trains.
Here it comes from me. If the T’s debt caused it to reduce the number of trips it made and if management encouraged drivers to make the fewer trips at a faster pace to make the public feel there was no decline in service then the debt would have caused the crash.
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p>The T has already admitted to reducing trips and deceiving the public. So this is not a streach but it just speculation.
the T drivers are in a union, and if management was encouraging them to be less safe the union would be up in arms, rightly so.
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p>Hence, still a stretch in my book.
then it’s certainly not speculation. Not everybody is fooled that easily. The service on the MBTA has been lousy and inadequate for as far back as I can remember. It’s just gotten worse. So, the MBTA’s being in debt contributed to the speed, which in turn caused the crash. That sounds like what you’re saying, to me.
This was a tragedy. We must learn from such events!
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p>How and why did this happen?
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p>A kneee jerk reaction is no answer.
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p>
When was the last time a passenger died as a result of MBTA malfeasance or lack of maintenance? 1.1 million trips each weekday, all perfectly safe, and you can find several fatalities on our roads every week.
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p>There’s no doubt we need to learn from this event, but implying that public transit isn’t safe… that is the knee-jerk reaction.
The statement that public transit is dangerous isn’t just knee-jerk, it is utterly stupid.
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p>From the journal of the Risk Assessment and Policy Association:
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p>
Subways and trains are, indeed, one of the safest ways to travel, and far safer than cars. And I highly doubt that the the debt load that Senator Baddour and his ilk placed on the T was a cause of this rare and tragic event.
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p>My point in posting was to call out the Senator for helping to give the T its huge debt, than saying that it’s the T’s fault, and the debt’s fault, for the accident, and (not his), and therefore we should rethink whether or not to invest in improving and expanding transit.
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p>This is the opposite of where our state should be going.
Kudos to Steve Baddour for having the courage to tell the truth. Since the 1980s, the MBTA has expanded far faster than any other American transit system, even though Boston is one of the nation’s slowest-growing metropolitan areas. The result of expanding with no way to pay either the construction or increased operating costs is a system so indebted that it pays more in debt service than it collects in fares and has a nearly $3 billion maintenance backlog. Actions have consequences — even in politics. For the T, the consequences of uncontrolled expansion are that we must now spend our resources on maintenance and paying down debt.
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p>Yeah, that’s just plain wrong, whether in percentage or absolute terms, using number of stops, ridership, or dollars spent.
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p>Got data? You’re making some rather bold claims without any backup…
Revenue miles are the standard measure in the transit industry. Look at the MBTA forward funding committee report (among other places). In terms of revenue miles, the T has expanded almost twice as fast as its nearest competitor.
An increase in revenue miles isn’t expansion; it represents an increase in usage. A revenue mile, more properly a revenue passenger mile, is one paying passenger travelling one mile. A bus with 40 people on it that goes 5 miles therefore represents 200 revenue passenger miles.
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p>So you essentially agree with stomv that the T hasn’t really expanded (stops, distances, etc) yet revenue miles have gone up. This means that ridership is increasing.
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p>Which in my book is a good thing. It should be encouraged, and it’s hardly something to be criticized.
Yes, increased ridership would be a good thing. Unfortunately, until the recent increase due to gas prices, T ridership has been down in each of the last few years. The reason is deteriorating service quality because the T was forced to plunder the maintenance budget to fund expansion. Some of the expansions that have made the T the fastest growing transit agency over the last 20 years (and I’m not saying these are all bad things):
Silver Line — South Boston
Silver Line through Roxbury
Worcester Commuter Rail expansion
Extension of the Newburyport Line
Extension to Plymouth
Greenbush
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p>Here’s another source. If you don’t believe me, check “MBTA Capital Spending: Derailed by Expansion,” 2002, from Mass Taxpayers/Pioneer Insttute.
Does road expansion and maintenance and parking and other public costs toward the movement of automobiles (that incidentally kill 400+ people and incapacitate 4,000 more every year in Massachusetts) pay for itself, then?
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p>In this country so often the public cost of promoting automobile use is called “infrastructure” while the public cost of public transportation is typically called “subsidy.” Why the hell is that?