Is it time? As I waited almost half an hour the other day for a Green Line train to show up, a woman near me started to talk about the French Revolution. I’m typing this on a commuter rail train with no lights and no heat, so I’ll be brief since the air temperature in the car is well below freezing and I can’t type with my gloves on. There is open discussion about burning things – though for now at least I think it’s only in the context of avoiding hypothermia and not violent protest.
Rather than just complain or follow that would be Madame Defarge down the road to chaos and destruction, I think we should try for creative solutions. Here’s one possibility that occurred to me the other day when the MBTA clearly wasn’t using the tracks for anything, and a few of us started kicking around the idea of just walking to North Station from Prudential… along the tracks.
A friend of mine likes to point out that we go to our first world high tech jobs on a third world transit system. Why do we stand for this? Shouldn’t we just admit that we’ve thrown in the towel on adequate public transit? It’s time to turn one side of the underground Green Line tracks over to bike riders and the other side to pedestrians. Given that on many days you could walk from North Station to Hynes Convention Center almost as fast as you can cover the distance by T, it’s just common sense. People would be protected from ice in the winter and heat in the summer, and they would benefit from exercise. With the success of Hubway, and the numerous bike paths already created on abandoned rail routes, how could we go wrong with the Green Line bike trail?
SomervilleTom says
If our legislature were NEARLY as concerned about having a functional transportation system as it is about women’s bloomers, Massachusetts would be a better place to live.
HR's Kevin says
Are you saying that it should be legal to take pictures up women’s skirts without their consent?
fenway49 says
nothing of the sort, but that our legislature clearly is capable of rapid response in SOME circumstances. Getting our transit system up to par should be among those circumstances.
HR's Kevin says
Does anyone think that there is anything useful the legislature can accomplish on transportation in less than a day that would not cost any money to implement?
fenway49 says
there was the funding for the “Fast 14” bridges. I’m not saying, and I don’t think Tom’s saying, it has to be in a day. Obviously it’s a harder legislative fix than adding a clarifying sentence or two to a statute. But it would be been addressed more satisfactorily long before this, had it been treated with any degree of urgency by the legislature.
The point is only that we should treat improving our transportation infrastructure like a priority.
SomervilleTom says
I note that MassDOT managed to both fund and perform the “93 Fast 14 Bridge Replacement Project” when drivers were endangered by failing infrastructure.
As you say, I am in no way suggesting that upskirt pictures should be legal. I am, instead, making an observation about our priorities.
HR's Kevin says
Point at something really easy that the legislature did in a day doesn’t really say anything about their priorities for the hard stuff.
In any case, it is going to take much more than money to fix the green line. As long as there is only one track, anytime something goes wrong anywhere on the line, the whole system is going to get backed up. Same with all of the rail lines.
SomervilleTom says
I guess that what is and is not “stupid” is in the eye of the beholder.
Aside from stereotypical Boston puritanical attitudes, juiced up by 90s-style political correctness, I think that perverts taking upskirt pictures has to be near the very bottom of things that I worry about — legal or illegal.
For crying out loud, kids are getting SHOT all over the city, and getting shot in schools all over the country, and all our courageous legislators can do is mouth a few platitudes before they scramble for shelter from the big bad NRA.
This action was stupid. The issue is stupid. The law allowing upskirt photos was stupid and the new law prohibiting them is stupid — not because I oppose it (of COURSE it should be illegal), but because the legislature has such a LONG list of far more important things to address.
But what is REALLY stupid is destroying our public transportation system, while our legislators and media dutifully worry about whether somebody takes pictures of women’s bloomers.
I guess we all have our priorities, though.
Christopher says
…that there is a lot more to fixing the problems you cite than fixing the upskirting issue? Just because something gets done faster doesn’t mean it is the most important. In the case of upskirting I doubt there was any disargeement and it wouldn’t take much effort to rewrite the appropriate couple lines of MGL to fix it. Fixing transportation takes money, which involves raising revenue, so of course it will take more time and more debate. I don’t see the NRA as having much influence on our legislature and I believe our gun laws are already among the toughest in the country.
fenway49 says
Rep. David Linksy and Sen. Cindy Creem have been working to make them even tougher after the Newtown shooting, as CT and NY and even CO did. At every step they were hounded by GOAL Northeast (Gun Owners Action League), closely associated with the NRA. These people have a large email list of folks who will spring into action as soon as they receive a message. They’ve got half our legislators quaking and that bill is going nowhere.
I only hope one day we’ll have equally effective mobilization for something good.
HR's Kevin says
Sorry Tom. But you are walking a pretty tenuous line if you are trying to suggest that you think that “upskirting” should be illegal but it is wrong for the legislature to make it so, even if it only takes half a day. I am sure there are plenty of good examples of how the priorities in the State House are out of whack, but I don’t see this as one of them.
Let me toss this back at you. Is ranting on this website really your *top* priority? Aren’t there more important things for you to be doing? Why aren’t you doing them.
SomervilleTom says
You ask a perfectly fair question.
When I’m not blogging here, I think I do a reasonably proficient job of maintaining a full-time job, being a reasonable landlord with an old house, being a reasonably dedicated father of five children, and being a reasonably dedicated and loving husband of a wife of eleven years (and counting).
If I saw more evidence that the legislature was, in fact, doing even a little bit to address the urgent and immediate priorities of Massachusetts, I would react less cynically to this cute little exercise.
To me, it has the some of the import of polishing deck chairs on the Titanic. This is the same legislature that just last year torpedoed the best proposal we’ve seen in decades regarding how to fund our transportation and education systems. This is the same legislature that clearly prefers raising money through predatory gambling to increasing taxes on our wealthiest residents.
I look at the Dookhan scandal, the McLaughlin scandal, the Cognos scandal, the earlier redistricting scandal, the probation scandal, the long string of pension and disability abuses that continue essentially unabated, the undisclosed twenty-five million dollar MBTA pension fund loss, and a long string of similar symptoms of a deeply entrenched culture of corruption, and all of that makes me view the upskirt circus as, well, proudly presenting another brightly polished chair.
The ship is already listing so much that those polished chairs are sliding across the deck … and still they polish.
This thread is about the APPALLING condition of our subway system. I’d have far preferred the legislature spend that half-hour or whatever it was announcing a new initiative to fund the much-needed improvements in our public transportation system.
kbusch says
You seem to be getting into trouble a lot today, somverilletom. You might want to stick with analytical and lay off provocative for a few days.
Maybe a trip to Southie on the T with your camera would help?
SomervilleTom says
I don’t mind stirring the point every so often.
HR's Kevin says
Thanks
JimC says
This is a little unfair to the T, but I’m game for discussing how to improve it.
HR's Kevin says
But you haven’t offered anything constructive.
jconway says
Pretty basic what’s happening.
Step 1: Cut government program
Step 2: Government program starts to function more poorly
Step 3: Use ‘poor performance’ of government program to justify more cuts, repeat Step 1
This is how the right continues to win. It’s how they are getting away with privatizing the postal service, public schools (notice how they call them ‘government’ schools these days), transit, infrastructure, and how they keep health care private (‘it’s so bad now imagine if the GOVERNMENT ran it!’).
I think stories like this feed into that cycle, this only serves to give ammo to people that will vote against a sensible gas tax this fall and creates drivers out of riders.
I think the converse, when stomv and Tom occasionally suburb or driver bash, also fails since the T’s current population should not be pitted against it’s future population. That also helps fuel this cycle (‘im paying for something only those city folk use’).
I think, if we are truly a commonwealth, that we can solve this problem together. How do we solve the ‘entitlement crisis’-by expanding social security? How do we solve the transit crisis? By spending the money to get the T into every major community over 100k in the state, and connecting them to Boston and to one another, and to have the service be reliable. It will require a collective effort.
stomv says
and I don’t mind being called out, but I’ve been arguing for the same thing you are — spending money to get (mass transit) into every major community over 100k in the state. I’d use a number lower than 100k btw: only Boston, Worcester, Springfield, Lowell, and Cambridge top 100k; New Bedford, Brockton, Quincy, Lynn, Fall River, and Newton are all 80k-100k.
Certainly they should all be connected to the same commuter rail. Whether or not they’re all part of MBTA or some get their own regional transit org is an interesting question.
jconway says
And I didn’t mean that to come across as an admonishment. I had the same attitude until quite recently. But, I now recognize affording urban life would be difficult for me as I try to transition back to the Boston area from Chicago. And I get what you are saying, that we can and should make gateway cities and suburbs far more accessible via transit. The green line extension will make Somerville and Medford stakeholders, the silver line is supposed to go out to Everett, and I don’t are why we couldn’t expand the blue line to other North Shore communities. Linking the transit lines together will be quite an undertaking and selling this to current drivers is essential to getting them to buy into the short term costs for the long term investment. And it requires a governor with vision working with policy makers. We have a golden opportunity to make sure we stay globally competitive for the 20s and this should be the highest priority next to education.
stomv says
as I’ve argued multiple times, it requires allowing substantially more commercial office, retail, and residential development in our cities. Boston real estate prices are expensive because of where supply is meeting demand. Want price to go down? Either decrease demand (lower quality of life in Boston) or increase supply (more places to live, work, and shop!).
Of course, doing just that in a reasonable, appropriate way is a challenge. I’m of the opinion that the BRA isn’t your momma’s organization; they’ve changed substantially for the better. Still, we need to allow something taller than a 3 decker built near the T stations. It will help bring down real estate prices in a sustainable way, all while giving the MBTA more paying customers.
jconway says
Ok we aren’t that far off. I have been saying these problems are intricately linked, and a big reason Boston should have an easier time with this than Chicago or other cities is that our suburbs are already quite urban in their core. It’s getting the next ring out connected and on the transit lines where it becomes harder. West of Burlington and you’re out of old New England town center model and into exurb territory. Perhaps forcing new development to be mixed use and having local transit systems (like the Lowell trolley, Pioneer Valley bus, and MetroWest bus) linked up to a regional hub (like an expanded commuter rail).
I’d also be interested in seeing mixed use development tied with new transit hubs in zoning preferences, like in suburban Portland, but we are probably pretty far off from that. I’ll take the Green Line Extension and a few more commuter lines.
SomervilleTom says
I note that MassDOT found NINETY EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS virtually overnight to repair a road:
This is for a highway that is essentially impassable, in one direction or another, for at least six hours each day.
I think that the kind of congestion pricing we’ve been discussing for highways like I-93 could:
1. Address the congestion problem directly, using the “invisible hand” of the market
2. Provide sustainable funding, at least in the short run, for desperately needed commuter rail and subway improvements and extensions
3. Provide a sustainable source for funding preventive maintenance on highways like I-93, so that these emergency measures are unnecessary.
There are many places in Massachusetts where one hundred millions dollars of transportation funding (in TWO MONTHS!) could be invested more wisely.
This nearly-invisible subsidy, as handled, only reinforces the lie that our roads and highways are essentially free. We do not demand that the highway system that automobile commuters require pay its own way — why should we then make the same demand on commuter rail and the subway?
I don’t see any of this as “bashing”. I think it is, instead, facing the reality and consequences of funding decisions we make every day, month and year — and have been since the end of WWII.
peter-dolan says
Thanks for taking the time to write this. I wanted to raise that other side, but my fingers were literally freezing as I typed and I was using a borrowed cigarette lighter to warm them – tricky business since when your fingers are numb you may not feel that they are being burned by the flame. From my experiences with public education issues, I’m sympathetic to several of your points.
Don’t you think, though, that it may only be through some kind of demonstration and protest that we will actually get a better public transit system? When people on the platform started talking about walking to the next stop, it occurred to me that they may have been onto something, especially if there is no third rail to worry about.
Also, my idea for a pedestrian and bike thoroughfare would be a government program, integrated into the broader public transportation plan, with side benefits such as public art space on the walls. If we can close the Government Center stop for two years, do we really need to be driven from, say, North Station to Boylston? I’ve walked from North Station to the Pru in a little over half an hour, and that’s following a somewhat winding route through city streets cutting over Beacon Hill.
kbusch says
The Occupy Wall Street movement unlike the Tea Party suffered from amorphous demands and displaying a melange of points of view, not all of them savory or salubrious, but it accomplished something. It put income inequality on the front page. It woke the political class up from their over-concern with inflation and debt; hey, today’s unemployment is important too — and not just because of today.
Outrage, even inchoate outrage expressed by the not-very-bright (Revolutionary War dress up time anyone?) can have an important impact. Let’s not underestimate it.
peter-dolan says
Occupy with a focus, a theme, who knows maybe some goals, could make a big difference. It felt like there was plenty of rage building on that T platform the other day. A little more, someone making the right suggestion in a loud enough voice, and maybe it could have been off to the races.
As much as I like the thought of having legislators ride public transportation (described above as eating their own dog food), I just don’t see it happening. No, more likely we’ll get to a crisis and public transit will improve or we’ll just keep muddling along.
Patrick says
Legislators should have to eat their own dog food:
http://red.ma.altercate.net/2013/12/11/mbta-eat-their-own-dog-food/
Question candidates. How often do they ride the T? Would they agree to campaign for 1 week using only public transportation to get where they need to go? Would they ride at least 1 day a month if elected?
sabutai says
So some state rep from North Adams has to use public transportation, even though everyone living there knows such things don’t exist? My state rep here in Middleborough should ride the T one day a month because, well just because? Can we put them all in the commuter rail, too? And spend a day a month in a public school? And in a hospital? And in a library?
We’ve had an Amtrak-riding VP for six years now…do you think that’s done a lot to help American rail?
Christopher says
Did the T fare better under Dukakis, who is of course a big fan of public transit?
rcmauro says
I missed out on that decade of Boston experience, but remember hearing that 1990s Boston was internet boom extraordinaire (as in $50/hr to write HTML) and that housing was extremely scarce. How did that work in terms of public transportation? Why weren’t improvements to transportation needed then? To me the current T is the same old slow T that I was cursing back when I was a student.
SomervilleTom says
Green line service, in particularly, was noticeably (and measurably, in terms of average time per trip and average number of trips) better than today.
Patrick says
You get a per diem only to the closest commuter rail. Be serious.
SomervilleTom says
Neither our public schools nor our hospitals are in the nearly the same desperate condition as public transportation. Neither suffers nearly the same underfunding, year after year, decade after decade.
It seems to me that ANYTHING that can heighten the awareness of our legislature to the catastrophic impact that the unfolding collapse of our public transportation system will have on the entire region (including North Adams) is something we should at least consider.
Amtrak is in much better condition today than it was by the end of George W. Bush’s second term (although it is still woefully underfunded). Having an “Amtrak-riding VP” has certainly helped.
sabutai says
“Neither our public schools nor our hospitals are in the nearly the same desperate condition as public transportation.”
Simply. Not. True. Does anyone project future incarceration rates based on transport outcomes? Because that’s how they figure future prison populations – results in our underfunded schools. Just because the Sagamore Bridge (oops, only supposed to talk about transport around Boston on this site) … er, Tobin Bridge hasn’t fallen down, it’s in fine shape. Our schools are in desperate form, especially after the State Lege passed a bill to throw money at infrastructure and stick it to public education.
I get your interest in infrastructure, and its underfunding. That doesn’t make it the direst problem in the state.