Today Gov. Charlie Baker announced a blue ribbon Comission to study the MBTA’s current state of affairs and recommend changes. While Gov. Deval Patrick also had a commission (Headed by former John Hancock CEO David F. D’Alessandro) study the same question in 2009, there was little if any feedback on this report from Beacon Hill.
“Do you know how many legislators called me after I did that report? Zero.” – David D. D’Alesandro, Boston Globe Feb. 15, 2015
Gov. Patrick did push for a $13 Billion transportation bill that was signed into law last year which funded a number of capital improvements for the MBTA. This includes the GLX Extension into Somerville & Medford, new rolling-stock for the Orange & Red lines, funds for South Station Expansion and money for South Coast Rail. However none of the structural issues of the identified by D’Alessandro were addressed.
To that end during his press conference today, Gov. Baker was quoted as saying:
“We cannot continue to do the same thing and expect a different result,’’ – Gov. Charlie Baker
So we shall see if Gov. Baker can be “The Great Reformer” of the MBTA or if this is just another distraction to throw voters off the scent. A recent poll by WBUR has shown that most voters blame previous governors & the Legislature for the state of the MBTA, so this could be a great moment for the Governor to deliver on his reformer image, or it could be another example of a conservative governor punting and leaving the commuters of Greater Boston to rot.
However, looking at the Gov’s commission, it is stacked with a pretty good set of members who really could deliver the goods for those of us who depend on the MBTA:
- Jane Garvey, former head of the Federal Aviation Administration under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and the Massachusetts highway department. Had been considered for the Secretary of Transportation cabinet post by Obama.
- Katherine Lapp, former executive director of New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority under Republican NY Governor George Pataki, who served in many other roles in NYC government. Current Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer of Harvard University.
- Paul Barrett, former Boston Redevelopment Authority director
- Robert P. Gittens, a vice president at Northeastern University who sits on several nonprofit boards. Served as Secretary for the Executive Office of Health and Human Services under Republican MA Governor Jane Swift.
- Jose A. Gomez-Ibanez, a professor of urban planning and public policy at Harvard University. He teaches courses in economics, infrastructure and transportation policy.
- Brian McMorrow, chief financial officer at Massport’s aviation division
- Braintree Mayor Joseph Sullivan, former co-chairman of the Legislature’s Transportation Committee
The Commission will have 30 days to review the MBTA’s operations. Paul Barrett will serve as the Chairman.
You can read the Governor’s Office press release & bios on the panel members here.
Here is a listing of the MBTA Panel’s objectives:
MBTA Special Panel’s Objectives:
1. Develop a fact-base from available data and recently published reports to enable the MBTA and the Commonwealth to ground its future plans and recommendations.
- Synthesize the findings and recommendations of the previous reports
- Prepare a ‘state of the operations’ review on the strengths and areas needing improvement and attention; topic areas to include: maintenance, maintenance planning and preparation, operations, communications, decision-making, and governance
- Conduct benchmark review of similar transit systems operations
2. Undertake a rapid diagnostic on the state of MBTA asset management and maintenance, including:
- A review of reports and/or Request for Proposals issued by the MBTA related to asset management, system preservation, State of Good Repair and maintenance planning, budgeting and implementation at the MBTA
- An investigation of the current size of the MBTA’s State of Good Repair backlog, assessing the extent to which previous report recommendations related to asset management and system preservation were followed and evaluating what information the board received as it relates to these issues
- A review of the MBTA’s overall capital program to assess the processes for selecting projects, allocating funds between maintenance and expansion projects and delivering capital projects on time and on budget
3. Make recommendations to improve the MBTA’s governance, structure, financials, and operations in both the short and longer-terms to enable the MBTA to plan, operate and maintain a 21st century public transportation system.
I don’t believe you.
…that you can get 1% to agree to just about anything in a poll.
me to the punch.
They call her “Katie’ over there for that winning folksy touch. Yes we have a credential.
Good to know Mother Harvard is in the thick of the fray.
This should rise above mere kabuki to touch the glimmering edge of true pageantry as they earnestly belabor the obvious til thaw and rains come and we can see if the public’s attention span still carries the T on its shoulders.
Another “blue ribbon panel”, another “study”. When in doubt, STUDY.
I would like to know what Mr. Baker and Mr. DeLeo expect to find in this newest study that isn’t already available in the 2009 D’Alessandro report. Of course, they’d have to actually READ that document in order to answer the question.
This is like investigating the personal habits and wardrobe of a rape victim, instead of pursuing the perpetrator.
If a “blue ribbon committee” is needed, it should be addressing the following:
1. What is the size of the current MBTA debt, and what options are available for transferring it to the State?
2. What total dollar amount, per year, of increased in MBTA funding is needed in order to provide safe, convenient, and affordable public transportation?
3. What are the options for increasing tax revenue by the amount specified in item 2 above?
4. For each alternative answered in item 3, how much would be raised, and what are the demographics and wealth distribution of those whose taxes are increased?
5. What are the political and legal obstacles standing in the way of each option identified in item 3 above.
Throw some poobahs at the problem to see if the wheel can be reinvented.
And once said poohbahs trot out their solemn findings to reassure the peasantry, we’ll be happily back to square one but with snow gone.
the Governor’s move, but then I thought, what was his alternative? Put his new staff in charge of it? There are definite political advantages with this commission, but someone has to put the ducks in a row. Why not them?
In order, like this:
1. Come out now and say look: there are clearly a bunch of capital projects which need to get done for reliability. So I’ve found $xxx million to get them started immediately. Lay out the projects, and how they will help reliability.
2. Put together your panel, but 30 days? Come on. It’s not enough time to do a very good job. Let them take longer, work it through, but you’ve already started (1) above, so at least something that was already identified (by the MBTA or the 2009 study) is getting done without the wait.
3. While (2) is in process, turn the screws on cities and towns. What can they do to improve the MBTA service in their community? Relocate bus stops. Pledge to shovel the stations and adjacent sidewalks with local services. Work with the MBTA to implement bus rapid transit (BRT) or traffic signal prioritization (TSP) to improve speed and schedule adherence of buses and trolleys. Whatever.
This way, three months from now, you can say
(1) we’ve already begun working on some of the physical problems by doing the actual physical work,
(2) we dug into the MBTA and we’re improving their processes to squeeze out waste, etc., and
(3) hey Central and Western Mass — we are asking more out of the local communities who have MBTA service
and, for a nice long term project,
(4) roll the other transit agencies in the state into MBTA. Need not be all at once. Heck, start with a single Charlie Card state-wide. The more integrated the public transportation agencies are across the state, the easier it is to get legislators from Gateway Cities et al to support the MBTA, because they’d be supporting their T, not just Boston’s T.
It works with the Metro West system, Lowell, MVRTA, a Bristol system out of Attleboro, a Cape Ann thing, Worcester Regional and Montachuset Regional.
That is pretty sweet coverage but I’m not sure much has been done to make this more widely known.
where you still have to get a new physical pass every month.
The only holdouts are Pioneer Valley and Franklin County.
And looking all this up gave me a sense to what an extensive public transportation commitment the Commonwealth has made everywhere. The places beyond metro Boston do have something scaled to demand.
The other systems are all bus based but that’s fine. Seattle was a bus based system for the entire time I was there with a bit of rail to connect to Tacoma and Everett.
So you would have statewide Charlie access by just adding those two systems. That would be great.
Franklin County has public transportation? It can’t have much. There’s nowhere to go but Greenfield.
In the Five College area, Northampton, Amherst, South Hadley, and I think Belchertown, the bus is free. Service is reduced in the summer. No Charlie card needed.
They’d wait if you showed effort.
“If you run , you ride, if you walk, you walk.” was a motto. Yes Franklin has some interesting service. You can get a bus out to Charlemont, no less.
This is great. I could get to Sprringfield, run PVTA through the 5 College zone to Greenfield to go camping in some state park near Charlemont.
Don’t you think it’s funny that the Commonwealth has provided a fairly extensive set of options but everyone is so hung up on Boston and the T as to be nearly oblivious to them?
I like Greenfield. And it is funny to find there is always a further backwater for someone in a backwater.
more often than I’ve been to Greenfield in the last 15 years, that is, twice and never. I occasionally go whitewater rafting on the Deerfield and the Charlemont Inn is great place for a burger. Greenfield has a brew pup and the Green River Festival, but neither has drawn me there yet.
Leonard Bernstein wrote West Side Story in a farm house in Hawley. The area is more popular with New Yorkers.
The old Mohawk Trail stretch of Route 2 was like an open air museum of 50s and 60s tourist attractions as it was popular before the advent of cheap flights.
That’s been one of my more interesting exploration elements, the changes in leisure time venues. In Longfellow’s time, Wellesley was as remote as people wanted to go.
By the turn of the 19th century, the railroad had people going up to Andover for summer dances at Pole Hill.
By the 1930s Sharon was like a local Borscht Belt getaway.
And then the Mohawk trail answered the early rise of road trip vacations.
People in those long gone times were more easily entertained by simpler things closer at hand.
Next step: transition so that the only card is the Charlie Card. And, of course, make sure it works for PV and FC, for MBTA commuter rail, and for everybody’s multi-use pass (monthly, etc) and not just to decrement value.
Thanks for the research!
I don’t have a car to just get into. But I have lots of places I want to cover for web content. The town of Andover Board of Selectmen will be using a segment I did of a trail portion that crosses a power line right of way and they want to renew a trail easement.
People use the abandoned rail stuff I make and the bike path stuff I work on. It’s cool to have one of the people of substance here see the merit of really knowing the system.
I am of the belief, however foolish, that every town here has to be given its deserved gravitas and the aim of electoral success, once your candidate isn’t a stiff, is to run on all cylinders and have a handle on the whole place. It’s the only way to convince the public in these places you are for real and not just another glib metro Boston airhead with a plan.
Besides, we need to know what’s out there if we are to properly castigate ward heelers over transportation plans.
Wouldn’t it rock to tie the whole thing together with one card to rule them all?
Commuter rail is using smartphone apps to check tickets but they haven’t figured out a hand held device for conductors yet.
Having already mocked the whole idea of more commissions and more study (idea: Why not ride the T a few times to “learn more”), I’m going to stop.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating and we should be at least willing to be pleasantly surprised.
I’s been years since the D’Alessandro report and any manager is going to want a current assessment. A month is not unreasonable. Politically, a clear message from the Commission could reset the stale old positions and create the space to discuss new revenues.
I am not nuts about the makeup of this group but it is not a bunch of lightweights either. So I say lets see what happens.
This does not constitute any sort of rosy prediction. My cynicism will be intact and ready to use as needed in a month. But let’s see, shall we?
It’s a generous outlook and pointing out the many defects in process has probably moved out of the realm of cynicism and into the land of basic observation.
I’m sure we will.
I noticed that there are two people here from government air transport agencies. I would be curious to know if the health care industry has paid more attention to aviation experts lately than the ground transportation people have. There is quite a literature out there on applying high reliability principles developed in aviation to patient safety.
Has anyone surveyed how their state Reps and state Senators get to Beacon Hill? If I were in an area serviced by the T (I’m not) I would question my representatives and find out why he/she doesn’t use mass transit to get to work. Ditto for their staff. It should be a question asked when they run in their primaries (it’s a forgone conclusion they will be Democrats).
Fair enough. I have a pretty good idea of what Denise Provost will say, she’s a strong and effective proponent of funding the MBTA, and she was one of the few who had the courage to oppose the most recent power grab by Mr. DeLeo.
If I were in an area NOT serviced by the T (I’m not), I would question my representatives and find out why NOT! Ditto for their staff. I would demand that they address the highway congestion, the enormously expensive (on a per-capita per-mil basis) expenditures on highways, and the depressing economic impact of making it so difficult for workers in my town to get their job and for workers in other parts of the region to get to potential jobs in my town.
I would point to the dramatically positive transformation of cities and towns that chose to demand access to commuter rail and the MBTA, and ask my state rep and senator why they aren’t doing the same for me. It should be question asked when they run in their primaries.
In particular, it should be a question asked of REPUBLICAN candidates contemplating a run. Here are two easy policy points that I think could bring about a true resurgence of GOP representation in Massachusetts government:
– Create jobs by funding and expanding public rail transportation
– Tax the wealthy more so that the tax burden on the rest of us can be stabilized or reduced without further damage to essential public services like the MBTA
Today’s democrats in the legislature, led by Robert DeLeo, have destroyed public transportation in Massachusetts. They have also created the impression of a pervasive culture of corruption on Beacon Hill, with Mr. DeLeo again leading the way. The reaction of Massachusetts Democratic Party officials to the Probation Department scandal creates an ENORMOUS opportunity for GOP candidates to run on a platform emphasizing genuinely good government:
– Good government is sized to meet the needs of society, not small
– Good government is honest, not corrupt.
– Good government is honest about what taxes are needed and from whom
– Good government is honest about where public funds are spent and to whom
– Good government is honest about the likely impact of changes in public policy and about the changes in tax policy that accompany them.
If we had had good government for the 40+ years I’ve been here, we would NOT have:
– A collapsing public rail transportation system
– Bridges and highways that are carrying well over their capacity
– Bridges and highways that are crumbling, rusting, and decaying from lack of maintenance
– A state where more than half of the residents are within one paycheck of poverty while a literal handful are among the wealthiest individuals in the world
– A state dependent on current revenue from a regressive Lottery that plunders the poorest and most desperate of our population in order to fund our most prosperous cities and towns
– A state dependent on future revenue projects from a casino gambling industry that is collapsing and that, even if successful, will be just as regressive as the Lottery it will cannibalize.
– A state that cannot find the political will to raise taxes, for even the most compelling reasons, because so many state officials have been prosecuted and convicted of so many crimes — and whose loudest and most heartfelt public statements are “Everybody does it, it’s just politics”.
I don’t think I’ll get much serious argument that we have not had good government, especially since the turn of the century. It is an objective fact that the Democratic Party has totally dominated that government during that time.
So long as the GOP continues to offer corrupt bozos who offer NO realistic alternative to the corrupt bozos that we already have, the GOP will not be a player.
I most strongly encourage you to spend more time changing the behavior of the state Reps and Senators who DO represent you than offering empty attempted gotcha-points to the rest of us.
n/m
I’m sure you’ve never been to Charlton but it would be a ridiculous waste to hook us up to the T (or any mass transit really). The population density is very low and the assesments that went with it wouldn’t be worth it. Personally I would rather get service to Providence or Hartford which is where I go if I fly. We drive out here and have to. Every household on my street has one heavy-duty 4 wheel drive, since we’re on a dirt road. I agree funding government through gambling is regressive (lottery or casino) but if people are stupid, they’re stupid. I gamble, expect to lose and that is fine. Our government is corrupt, that is why the starve the beast mode has a lot of traction out here. A friend was working on his cousin’s state rep campaign a few years back. He really wanted him to win since it was explained that if he was a second term rep he would get to pick a couple of people to go to toll booth school and my friend would get a cushy Mass Pike job. 3rd, 4th term reps got to pick more. Judging by the probation dept things haven’t changed much. I’m not a GOP’er. I can give you one quick solution which will solve white-collar and government corruption crime in a heartbeat. No special federal white collar prisons, general population for everyone.
though. You could spend half the day there if you had nothing better to do.
I hope someone can confirm for me that this is no longer happening.
since the Commonwealth is doing away with human toll collectors and replacing them with digital license plate readers on top of the existing transponder system.
One of the great difficulties in talking about what is wrong with government is that the discussion gets taken off course by people who genuinely believe stuff that is demonstrably false. Caution: don’t believe every BS comment from friends, cousins and crazy neighbors.
I could get behind a campaign for Gen Pop For All!
n/m
It was a few years back as I said (80’s), now it might not be toll collectors it might be gaming commission inspectors. Do you know it wasn’t happening at the time?
happening in the 80s or 90s. Yup, I was there and in the center of the mess.
Moreover, the lege leadership never gave a rat’s ass for a member based on their length of tenure, merely their fealty to the ring (which was usually planted in the back pocket of the pants of the Speaker and/or Senate President, slightly above the right cheek of the buttocks).
I do NOT think Baker intends to let unqualified people become gaming commission inspectors… although he has done far worse in both his private and public sector careers. There is usually a great gap between what a politician wants to do and what they will settle for. I much more fear Baker’s ideological bent than his personal corruption index, which I think is low.
I was relating an anecdote from years ago which in light of the many recent convictions for corruption didn’t seem far fetched to me. You were there and say it didn’t happen. I will refrain from mentioning government corruption situations for which I have no proof.
One of the dangers in democracy is that people believe the things they are told if they lack other information or a broad understanding about government that is not taught in schools (and I am not referring to you but your friend, and my own brother for that matter).
The Probation Dept scandal was real and deep. It reinforced the public belief that government is for sale. It pains me greatly to see the names of progressives (yup, I tilt towards the left) who I once considered friends and allies named in the proceedings as participating in the edges of the scam. People who have not gone swimming in that pool see all of government as tainted even though most public employees are no more nor less corrupt than people in the private sector.
I did not take your original post to be ratification of your friend’s belief, merely a mention that is how at least one person was thinking. Just like my brother thinks.
Please don’t stop ASKING questions about the integrity of our government. Please don’t, as we cannot afford to have people in the ideological center of US politics (where I think you reside) not ask questions.