A big crowd of legislators and transit workers gathered on the State House steps last Thursday afternoon to protest the Baker administration’s outsourcing of pubic transit services.
I was outraged to hear that the Baker administration decided to forgive $839,000 in fines leveled against Keolis, the outsourced operator of the commuter rail system, behind closed doors and without any notice to the public. As co-chairs of the MBTA Legislative Caucus, Senator Linda Dorcena Forry (D-Dorchester), Representative Sean Garballey (D-Arlington), and I sent a letter to Governor Baker yesterday last week, urging him to hold Keolis fully accountable for its poor performance.
The winter of 2015 was brutal for Massachusetts commuters and residents. Nearly two-thirds of Keolis-operated trains were late or cancelled in February of that year. Due to performance-based provisions in its contract with Keolis, the state justifiably fined the rail operator for its failure to ensure timely transportation services.
However, without notifying the public, the Baker administration decided to waive $839,000 of those fines in November of 2015, citing unforeseen extreme weather as an excuse. Given that commuters did not receive their money back when trains were overcrowded, late, or cancelled, it’s puzzling that Governor Baker supports forgiving Keolis, a multi-billion dollar global corporation hauling in $5 billion in revenue in 2015.
Unfortunately, the Governor’s tolerance with Keolis’ poor services is the latest of a series of disturbing decisions that seem to prioritize corporate interests over working families. In 2015, the Baker administration gave back additional fines to Keolis to allow them to hire more staff, and earlier this year, Governor Baker rewarded Keolis with an extra $66 million over six years above its agreed contract despite the company’s continued poor performance.
Mayor Walsh standing with elected officials at rally opposing Governor Baker’s outsourcing of MBTA jobs
It seems that when a multi-billion dollar global corporation makes multiple mistakes, Governor Baker is not just ready to forgive – he is comfortable spending tax dollars to bail them out.
At the same time, when it comes to MBTA cash counters, bus drivers, janitors, and many of the MBTA’s professional staff that make the state’s transit system work, workers are blamed for the T’s overall problems, early retirement is pushed, and jobs are outsourced. Additionally, Governor Baker continues to cite reduced revenue to justify his opposition to make necessary investments in essential government services. If the state can’t afford to invest in its people, then it’s fiscally irresponsible to let Keolis off the hook when it fails to deliver its contractual obligations.
Last week, multiple elected officials, led by Mayor Marty Walsh, stood side by side with workers in strong opposition to Governor Baker’s agenda to outsource transportation jobs and services. That rally could mark a turning point in the Legislature’s go-along to get-along attitude with the Baker administration. In the interim, the public deserves answers on how Baker’s corporate welfare will lead to a better MBTA system for Massachusetts commuters.
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is losing as much as $42 million annually from fare evasion on commuter trains, Green Line trolleys, and buses, according to figures released Monday by the T and its commuter rail operator.
Officials believe that commuter rail customers are responsible for by far the biggest portion of the loss. They avoid paying up to $35 million each year, while Green Line customers avoid paying up to $4.5 million and bus customers avoid paying up to $2.4 million, according to estimates that the MBTA believes are the first of their kind.
anecdote My wife went with seven of her friends to visit a daughter of one of the friends who lives in Boston. The daughter swiped her “charlie card” three times to get them all on the subway, and said it was routine for groups travelling the subway to crowd through so not everyone has to pay.
Any plans on making people pay what they are supposed to?
This is a quote from a story in April. You need to quote your sources. Please don’t post direct, but unattributed, quotes from printed material . Don’t put BMG in that position. acknowledge all third party sources.
35 million per year is a large number, unless you compare it to the Commuter Rail operations budgeted at nearly $400,000,000. Then it’s not so large.
And the MBTA figures that it would cost well over an additional 2 million to appropriately staff every station on the Green line and even more to redesign the stations to corral riders. This would better collect fares as the ridership during peak hours overwhelms the ability of staff to check every fare. This is a function of the architecture of the Green Line Trolley system.
The problem is not people actively avoiding making payment. On sections of the commuter rail trains, inbound AM and outbound PM, there is standing room only and the (smaller number of) conductors can’t get to everyone. The problem is, again, a too small workforce chasing a too large workload. More conductors, more cars and maybe even more trains would solve the problem of ‘fare evasion’ likely costing more than it would recoup…
Massachusetts has a huge workforce that enters the city every morning and exits the city every evening. You can’t manage that on a tightfisted budget and a skeleton crew. Why would you think you could?
You can’t swipe the card multiple times at the same station within (I think) a 20 minute window. The turnstile timing can allow people to ‘slip through’ and ‘double up’ and, again, this happens most often at peak times when there are surges of people trying to get to and/or from work and/or home….
None that I know of that won’t cost about as much as they’ll reportedly recoup…
There’s no doubt that fare evasion is a problem, especially on commuter rail. I know loads of people who buy multipacks and know they’ll be dinged about half of their rides. It’s nuts.
There are plenty of ways to get commuter rail riders to pay full freight for their use, and $35M out of $400M is still significant.
The Green Line? That’s way harder. Much more work with limited space for substantially fewer dollars. You could get a little better by making more stations gated so riders pay to get into the station area instead of on the street car itself, like Riverside. The challenge: ensuring that you don’t incite cheapskates to hop the fence and walk along the track, which could cause significant delays (to say nothing of carnage).
There is also no doubt that the entire system of collecting fares on the train is cumbersome and inefficient. Commuter rail conductors should be trained for safety and for crowd control and that’s about it. However, at present, in addition to those duties, they have to maintain a ‘cash drawer’ on their person and, minimally, conduct a transaction with every rider (even if only to inspect a previous purchase). They can’t keep up with demand on peak capacity trains. I’m not sure anyone could.
The 35 million is not significant as an amount because it is not “$35M out of $400M.” When you consider that the train runs whether or no the seat is empty, filled with a paying customer or occupied by a freeloader. If I go to a restaurant and eat $35 worth of food and don’t pay for it… I’m eating directly out of the operating budget of the restaurant. But, with the commuter rail, the cost of running the train empty is (mostly) the same as when the conductor lets only paying customers (that is to say, catches the freeloader and kicks them off the train). If we counted every empty seat as a lost fare, in the same manner we are counting a freeloader as a lost fare, we’d be in the hundreds of millions of dollars of lost cost. (I believe airlines calculate cost in the way) The only way the 35 million could be significant is if it represents 35 million dollars worth of freeloaders actually and actively displacing paying riders which is not what is happening: it’s more a measure of the inefficiency in the system.
The fare collection system is completely orthogonal to the operation of the train.
I say, stop charging on-demand for trains, subways, buses… everything. Fund its operation with a dedicated transportation tax. Make it jump on/jump off and streamline the operations: take away the gates and the ticket takers and the whole layer of extraneous barnacles and carbuncles that doesn’t involve physically moving people back and forth. Simplify. Streamline. Make it primarily about safety and speed. Eliminate the entirety of the secondary and tertiary systems (where most of the bloat is likely to accrue, anyways).
I’m aware that some cities have tried this only to judge it failure, but they only did so in the hopes of decreasing car ridership. I’m not sure that should be a goal, but I also don’t think they gave it enough time. But, so far as I know, no system has been returned to ‘first principles’ wherein the system itself is streamlined and made simply about transportation.
But I think there’s plenty of problems with your argument
1. The “empty seats don’t pay” is a fair argument if and only if the freeloading rider wouldn’t ride if he knew he had to pay. For those riders, the revenue for the MBTA is the same whether or not they’re actively collecting. But, for the rider who is willing to pay (but would just assume not), failing to collect that fare amounts to the MBTA and, by extension, the public, giving the few dollar subsidy directly to the fare skipper. I’m not in favor of random subsidies that don’t follow from a specific public policy objective.
2. I’m sorta-kinda okay with a no fare scheme. That is to say, I like it in some places a lot more than others. Where I like it the best: the bus. Bus fares are the lowest, the delays caused by bus fare collection are enormous and really inconvenient (everybody else in line is getting rained on outside, and all the riders are delayed too), and the bus ridership is the poorest of all the MBTA riders. There are exceptions of course (SL, CT, some others), but by and large, bus riders suffer the most from fare collection from a transit efficiency and economic perspective. I’d let them ride for free. The other extreme is commuter rail. My expectation (I’ve not seen the studies) is that most commuter rail riders are solidly middle or upper middle class. They don’t need the economic subsidy. My bet is they’d rather pay a few bucks in exchange for better service.
3. The MBTA did streamline payments when it went to the Charlie Card. Not 100% of course, but they got rid of exit fares, created uniform fare structures, made it easier to pay without cash, etc. My sense is that in the next few years (maybe 5?), we’ll go Charlie Card 2.0. A single card for all MBTA, including commuter rail, ferry, payment for parking lots, the works. Maybe even a single system that also works with other public transit options across the state. Hell, maybe even a system that also works with private systems operating entirely within MA (Bridj, Hy-Line/Steamship, Hubway, be creative!). That roll-out will provide the opportunity to both (a) make it easier to pay your fare, and (b) to easily identify and ticket those who haven’t.
3. There is a really nice example of how eliminating fares works. The Staten Island Ferry shuttles 22 million passengers a year from Whitehall to St. George Terminal. Float past the Statue of Liberty. Boarding and alighting is really fast because — it’s free. No fare. So the schedule is easier to keep, the total commute time is reduced for passengers, those with strollers or rolling carts or wheelchairs don’t have an extra challenge, etc. It’s really great. Sure, some percentage of passengers are tourists who are merely riding the ferry to see Lady Liberty, and they’re essentially freeloaders, but so what? So there’s an example of it working really well — but, here again, who got the benefit of the bargain? The poorest NYers who typically live in Bronx or out in Queens? Nah. They get the bus, and they get to pay for it. Instead, it’s the borough with the highest median income, Staten Island.
4. The MBTA doesn’t have enough money to operate effectively now. You think there is political support state-wide to make up the lost revenue? I sure don’t, and I don’t think it will happen until a much higher percentage of Massachusetts citizens ride the T every day.
The ferry is operated by the NYC DoT. It helps to have an agency with a $700m budget, if you want “free” service.
Also, Staten Islanders subsidize the heck out of the rest of the city’s public transportation, which is operated by the MTA, and which uses bridge and tunnel tolls to subsidize subway, train, and bus service. The toll on the Verrazanno Bridge is $16, collected in one direction only. $32 for trucks. Islanders that want to move a vehicle on or off the island pay through the nose to do so.
Perhaps a better method would be to transfer the Tobin Bridge and the tunnels to East Boston to the MBTA, and then raise the tolls to $10 per trip.
Staten Island does have subway service (Staten Island Railway). It could have more if Staten Islanders would quit fighting the North Shore Branch expansion. And SIR rides are free unless you enter or exit at St. George or Tompkinsville!
Sure the Verrazano Bride is $16 cash. It’s $11.08 on EZ Pass;. But it’s only $6.24 toll for Staten Island residents who cross the bridge 3 or more times in a month. And hell, put 3 or more people in the car, and that toll is now $3.08.
Bronx-Whitestone, Throgs Neck, & RFK Bridges; Hugh L Carey1 & Queens Midtown Tunnels are all $5.54 with EZPass, and there’s no resident discount.
Staten Islanders don’t really pay more on the bridge than NYers do elsewhere, and they get somewhat free STI service, and they get a free ferry ride.
As for Staten Islanders subsidizing… what makes you think that Staten Islanders aren’t using the rest of the city’s transportation. You think those 70,000 daily passengers are all walking from Whitestone to work? You don’t think that most of them hop on the subway and ride the rest of the way to work — in which case they’re not subsidizing the subway, they’re using the subway?
Yeah, I think the Staten Island Ferry is a great example of both (a) how you can go fareless and make things work far more smoothly, and (b) an example of how a wealthy community gets a break not offered to communities less well off in the same municipality.
The railway you mention does not connect to the rest of the system. So, If you want to ride, you pay a subway fare, and then pay again to get into the subway. The rest of the city is a single-fare zone.
I’m not so sure that the North Shore right of way is stalling because of local opposition, or because MTA doesn’t want to spend money– now they talk about a bus line using the right of way– something like the Silver Line here.
I didn’t know about the resident discount–I guess I’m not one anymore. I get hit on my EZPass for $16 every damn time. But, nevertheless, there are no options. From elsewhere, bridges and tunnels can be avoided– I have not used the BBT for many years, because the Brooklyn Bridge is free. Same thing with Triboro, with 3rdAve/Willis Ave bridges right there. From Staten Island, you are stuck with hefty tolls.
One of the reasons I no longer live there is because of the extreme expense of commuting there, even relative to all of the other horrible commutes that NYC has.
This is incorrect. The SIR is part of the MTA. If you pay on the SIR (at one of the two stations with turnstiles), you pay $2.75, same as in the other boroughs. And, importantly, it includes a transfer. When you enter the MTA system near Whitehall, you enter for no additional fare.
That’s what my formerly Brooklyn now Staten Island for the past decade relations have been telling me. Local opposition. And these are family members who never rode the subway when living in Brooklyn, so it’s not like they give a care one way or the other.
Sure but, as I wrote, residents can pay as little as $3 and residents who use the bridge a few times a month pay $6. That’s a long way from $16, which collects big money from tourists/visitors and, moreso from those joiks from Joisey who also have to pay $12.50 (with EZ Pass) for Holland, Lincoln, the GW, and of course get double dinged if they also need to come over Goethals or Bayonne as well as the Verrazano.
Right but the numbers don’t bear out this claim. It’s $3 to go over the bridge. It’s between $0 and $2.25 to ride public transit from anywhere on Staten Island to anywhere in the five boroughs (on subway; I don’t know the bus transfer rules). It might well take more time but I don’t see that it costs substantially more money; parking the car costs more than the tolls.
$6 over the bridge; $3 with carpool but that’s a pretty high bar.
I honestly think that’s a fairer system of fare collection. And I was told by my brother that Amsterdam is pretty close to that model, though others could correct me.
But to get that kind of taxation we need the T to be better and to go to more places across the state. This is why it’s a difficult funding dilemma. If we pass the progressive income tax and use it to fix the education formula and pump the remainder into shoring up, improving, and expanding the T, then I think we may able to switch to that kind of model. Increasing fares, cutting service, and deferring maintenance as we have done is a death spiral.
In 2015, the MBTA derived $597.65 million from fares and $810.64 million from the sales tax. It also receives an annual appropriation from the General Fund that was $160 million in 2015. That means the MBTA is heavily subsidized by people who live outside the MBTA ridership area and by people who are within the MBTA area but do not use it.
If the legislature eliminates fares, the second largest revenue source, then MBTA riders get a huge reduction in their expenses and everyone else in the state either sees their services cut by approximately $600 million annually, or the legislature and Governor raise taxes by that amount (hah!! not gonna happen), meaning that the subsidy by non-users will increase enormously.
Does anyone here think that the people of western or southeastern MA who do not receive MBTA service should pay more for the convenience and free transportation of MBTA riders?
All modes of transportation are heavily subsidized. I note that about $1.7B of Big Dig debt landed on the MBTA’s balance sheet. I struggle to understand why it is ok to to burden MBTA users with Big Dig debt while objecting to using the General Fund to reduce or eliminate fares.
It seems to me that a similar argument could be made that we should impose an odometer tax so that those who use the public highways of western and southeastern MA should pay more of their costs. The cost per passenger-mile of those ex-urban highways, streets, and roads is far higher than the same metric of the Boston metro area. Residents of the Boston metro area have been paying for those roads we don’t use for decades.
One way to address the concerns of people who live outside the MBTA ridership area is to expand the MBTA ridership area. The urgent need for public rail expansion in western MA has been widely discussed here. Many of the people who live within the MBTA and do not use it make that choice because service is abysmal, ends before they get off work, or doesn’t run in the winter for weeks at a time. I note that the recent cancellations on the Fairmount line appear to target communities of color, a point not lost on Mike Capuano.
It seems to me that a regional approach to transportation planning is needed, an approach that encompasses the entire state. The crisis in public transportation funding is one of the primary reasons why a significant tax increase on the wealthy and very wealthy is an urgent priority.
So yes, I think that the taxes on the wealthy and very wealthy should be raised by MUCH more than $600M per year. I think a regional plan to address our transportation infrastructure is desperately needed. I think that reducing or eliminating fares is one of many options that should be on the table.
My immediate reaction to those who live outside the MBTA ridership area and object to funding the MBTA is that we should eliminate the highway subsidies that those communities currently receive and invest the resulting funds in the MBTA.
Perhaps we might do a better job of explaining to those who whine just how good a deal they’ve been getting for the past few decades — it is long past time to re-examine those subsidies.
” One way to address the concerns of people who live outside the MBTA ridership area is to expand the MBTA ridership area.” tom
Please don’t help us by expanding a service most of us don’t want and has an “abysmal” record. The world inside rt 128 is so different from the world outside rt 495. I would welcome a study to see who benefits most from the money spent on infrastructure and transportation. New Zakim bridge (never been on it). Big Dig – I just went through it last month, agreed to give a ride to Logan. Didn’t seem to help with traffic congestion much, like they said it would. I told people I would pick them up in Providence if they wanted.
Remember those roads you subsidize out here are used to bring you your food and drink, all roads lead to Rome/Beacon Hill. I can live off the grid for a while, can’t imagine too many inside 128 would be able to last long. Let’s split (like Virginia/West Virginia) and I think we’ll do fine out here in West Massachusetts.
… and the MBTA you (help) subsidize is used to enable people to afford your food and drink. And it’s generally fresh and delicious also. As Paul Krugman puts it: “Your spending is my income. My spending is your income.”
A better MBTA means a wealthier Boston. A wealthier Boston means Western Mass sell more food and drink. Selling more of food and drink will inflict more wear and tear the roads, requiring repairs.
Circle of life.
You revealed everything about yourself with this gem at the end of your post
Wow. wow. wow. Sounds like “let’s screw the people who live outside the metro area to pay for our MBTA.” Are you channeling the “Hunger Games?”
You did not write “let’s reduce road subsidies across the state.” You specifically singled out cutting road funding for communities not in the MBTA ridership area. You did not suggest cutting state aid to road projects inside the MBTA area, only those communities outside of it. Somerville is one the communities that most benefit from state aid to highways, including the McGrath Boulevard/Rte 28 project. But your words make it clear that you do not think those state dollars should be cut, only those outside the MBTA district. Nice. Very nice.
You wrote
It seems that your idea of a “regional approach” consists of stripping communities across the state of their highway aid if they are not in the MBTA district and investing it in the MBTA; cutting $600 million dollars from other programs in the general appropriation process (you know, awful stuff like health care and education for the poor, and environmental protection), and giving the fairly small subset a literal free ride.
Let’s be clear about some basic facts. Ten years ago I wrote the legislative language for two friends in the House that proposed a study of pay-per-mile. You were not part of it in any way, shape or form.
Raise taxes on the wealthy? Sure, but that is only possible after the grad tax ballot question is enacted. Give most of the revenue to the MBTA that serves a small minority of Mass residents??? You gotta be kidding. Really. Are you kidding?
Absolutely. Why not? Should the vegetarian resent subsidies for cattle ranchers?
Before I had children, my taxes paid for public education. Under your ‘service’ model’ I should have been most upset to have done so. I have one more senior in High School now and when he’s done, should I fulminate against paying for a service I no longer use?
To date I have not been the the victim of a fire or a serious crime so I suppose, under your model, I should absolutely resent having to pay for a service I have not used.
And then there are the roads and bridge in western or southeastern MA which I will never use.
Though, to be honest, I do resent the 100 mil or so that goes to the Lottery. That is, as they say, a tax on people who can’t do math… and that’s why I resent it, not because of subsidy.
And, of course, the biggie: unemployment insurance. Why should my work pay for unemployed people to get a check? ‘Cause I’m a nice guy, that’s why. And, more importantly, this is a CommonWealth.
The point is there are many things about taxation that could be deemed ‘unfair’, but really are just the way government works.
Of course, if you strip away the fare system, the gates, the cruft and the bloat the system will cost a lot less. If you make it about transportation and appropriate crowd control the system will be better. The Charlie Card system pays itself first, and automation is expensive. But the point is a no charge system won’t require a drop-in equivalent 600 million revenue gain or service reduction.
You wrote:
I have a half century working in governments around the world. Would you care to tell all of the BMG world why “I don’t realize how governments work”? Please. I am sure you can offer at least one example of how you came to understand government better than I do.
By the way, your comment
Of course they should as well as I, an omnivore, object. When you bring in your orthogonal issues you reveal the relevance of your comments.
Geography matters. People who have no normal capacity to use a mass transit service based on geography should not have to pay A LOT to subsidize people in Somerville while it seeks the tax dollars of low income people on the Cape, the South Coast or Central/Western Mass. And we do not have to tolerate tech professionals from Somerville who want a free ride to work.
I don’t know where you live, but Somerville housing prices (rent or buy) are a LOT higher than anywhere west of 495.
Should people from outside the metro area pay to subsidize the transportation of people who want to live in Somerville? This is a genuine question.
The MBTA is a state function because it serves dozens of communities. Boston is the economic hub of the state, if not all of New England. Two million people work in the city every day.
Western Mass clearly benefits, nearly as much as Somerville does, from the Boston economy. Most state facilities there would likely be underfunded if they ran only on revenue from the area.
One (common) wealth.
I hear all of your comments but reject completely the notion that western/central/southeastern MA benefits as much as Somerville does from state transportation spending. That is complete BS. Reasonable people can disagree on how much people outside urban areas need to subsidize city-dwellers but your comment pushes the limit.
I do not understand why the poorer areas of the state need to subsidize the wealthiest part of the state and not receive service.
I don’t know what to tell you though. Boston is a pain in the ass.
And what it comes down to is — people are a pain in the ass, and expensive. Western Mass has fewer people, so there’s that.
Perchance you might start by encouraging your own family to steadfastly refuse to participate in fare evasion conspiracies.
The Germans and Austrians take a fundamentally different approach to fare collection on buses, streetcars, and commuter rail. Vienna is much larger than Boston and runs antiquated equipment reminiscent of our Green Line. Vienna does NOT have Boston’s fare collection problem.
The approach followed there is more like the way we do speed limit enforcement. Each vehicle has several machines that stamp paper tickets in exchange for cash. Those tickets are obtained, free of charge, in stations as well as tobacconists, drug stores, and similar retail outlets. No effort is made to restrict passengers entering or exiting the vehicle. The operator has nothing whatsoever to do with fare collection.
At random times, an inspector boards a vehicle and asks each passenger to show their stamped ticket. Passengers who do not hold a stamped ticket (either because they never got one or because they didn’t pay for their current ride) are issued a MUCH larger fine. Those fines may be paid immediately to the inspector. If they go unpaid, they “mature” (like speeding tickets) very rapidly.
The transit agencies adjust the inspection frequency and size of the fines to reflect ridership, crowding, and finances.
My German and Austrian friends tell me that it is possible to occasionally ride without paying. They also tell me that anyone who attempts to make a habit of it very quickly learns that evasion is much more expensive than just paying the fare.
Meanwhile, as others have observed here, fare evasion is very low on the list of issues faced by our MBTA. It is disingenuous to offer cherry-picked fare evasion numbers as a significant influence on public transportation policy.
The state needs to dramatically increase funding for public transportation. Period.
I intended this comment as a response to scott12mass, not stomv.
” acknowledge all third party sources.” petr
same problem on papers in school- it was the Globe
“35 million per year is a large number, unless you compare it to the Commuter Rail operations budgeted at nearly $400,000,000. Then it’s not so large.” globe, petr
but the post was about less than a million – so why worry about that.
honesty – wife’s first ride on the T in (ten?) years – followed the crowd – no excuse
35 million is 9% of 400 mil. Nine percent is not trivial.
Sorry Rep. Eldridge. What it’s time for is the Commonwealth to step up to the plate and fund the T.
Redirecting those fines to fund improved operations was exactly the right move.
The joke is, “The beatings will continue until moral improves.” The less funny part is when that is used to justify inaction.
If you want to unite against the Governor, please do so in relation to his downsizing of T services and expectations. All this does is side with him on that.
… it’s not clear that this is, in fact, what was happening. The lack of transparency, which is what I got from the Hon Sen Eldridges’ letter, is, to say the least, troubling.
If you wanted to cook up the Captain Renault scenario where Charlie Baker publicly fulminates against Keolis in 2015 but privately scratches their back… it would look a whole lot like this. And the language quoted in just about every printed story is interesting: Baker is keen to credit the MBTA for the decision, but Brian Shortsleeve ‘wasn’t involved’ in the negotiations and Keolis re-directs inquiries to the Baker Administration. There’s a bit of a hands-off hot-potato going ’round where everybody tries to say the decision was great, but they didn’t make it…
Then there is this gem, from the Globe:
That’s a sentence with a hernia…
I think that, between his tiny little shriveled-up, Reagan-shaped heart and his overly Weld’d brain, Charlie Baker is unable to admit to himself that, perhaps, outsourcing isn’t the answer he was told it was. Keolis’ fines are evidence of this failure of outsourcing, and if he allows them to take back some of the fines, some of the evidence is eradicated. That’s the modern conservative mind at work, right there…
As Eldridge says in his post:
I remember reading about this when it happened. Eldridge links to the Globe story about it.
Are you saying this didn’t happen?
I’m saying that, in the context of a wholly separate instance of decidedly less straightforward behind-the-scenes negotiations for forgiveness, it is not clear to say that a 2015 instance of benefice on the part of the Baker Administration has the same motive as the most recent, more underhanded, instance. Especially since, in 2015, the Baker administration straightforwardly declared their intent whereas here, in the now, they have only arrived at a motive after having it revealed as a fait accompli and after having been questioned on it.
I think the point of the Hon Sen Eldridges’ reference to the 2015 forgiveness-in-order-to-staff, in the context of the 2016 forgiveness-behind-the-scenes, is to underline the use of kid gloves by the Governor Baker in his treatment of Keolis and to suggest that a rather more mercenary motive underlies both instances and not to suggest a comparison behind the public, that is to say purported, motives of the two instances.
i don’t disagree that the 2015 instance of forgiveness-in-order-to-staff may have been the right thing to do, which was your reply. It’s not clear that in 2016 any forgiveness shared the same motive. However, your reply is a conflation of the motives of the two instances.
So, no, it remains unclear.
both held up as examples of pro-corporate welfarism.
I don’t see what’s not clear about them though.
You replied to this diary with a declarative sentence stating, unequivocally, “Redirecting those fines to fund improved operations was exactly the right move.”
The Hon Sen Eldridge was referencing the 2015 redirection, with rationale, in the context of asking what’s up with the 2016 forgiveness, done without (public) rationale.
So, yeah, both happened. What is not clear is why. You reference “ those fines” as if they are all of a piece. It’s not clear that they are.
but the reality of February 2015 had more to do with the misguided decision to shut all trains and subway cars down completely and let the snow completely pile up and then try and clear tracks. I’m not saying that you run a full schedule during the storm, but you have to keep some trains going to keep the tracks clear. Best analogy is shoveling your driveway. I’d rather go out several times and shovel 2″ rather than try and tackle 24″ at once. Are we fining the MBTA for completely taking out the Red Line for a month? I don’t care who was running the commuter rail system; once the decision was made by the MBTA to shut everything down and wait for the snow to end, there was no hope. Perhaps we need to only hire in the future T executives from Canada or cold weather states who know how to handle snow.
This is a contracting issue. If you’re logic is right (maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, dunno!), then shame on Keolis for signing the contract. If the contract stipulates a measurable performance or a fine and they didn’t perform, they are to be fined. Period.
It’s not like they’d refund $900k to the state because in some other clause the MBTA/DOT signed off on an ill-advised section of the contract.
If it’s a bad portion of the contract, Keolis will have the opportunity to renegotiate it now or later. But for past performance, hold them to their promises.
more falls under an extreme situation clause myself. What exactly was Keolis to do, given the command from on high to stop running trains and let the tracks get piled over. Is the T paying penalties for gross incompetence in maintaining the Red Line right of way?
Kind of reminds me (and I’m not exactly a fan of big banks) of going after BoA for Countrywide’s past sins when BoA was “encouraged” to acquire Countrywide back in 2008 before everything went to hell. Problem with that approach is next time around, who the heck is going to buy out any failing institution to keep things solvent, given that in future years you are going to be held accountable for actions that occurred prior to your acquisition?
And here’s the thing: Feb 2015 wasn’t the first extreme situation that anyone with a performance contract ever encountered.
You either contract an “out” for situations like Feb 2015 or you don’t. If you do, good for you, you don’t pay the fine. If you don’t, well, tough noogies. Negotiate for it next time, but honor your end of the contract this time.
This is the elegance of a contract. What’s fair and not fair is simple — it’s in the contract. As long as it’s in the contract (and it’s not in violation of a law or a superior contract), you do what it says. Period.
The contract did have an out for “severe weather.
Was Fen 2015 “severe weather”? I don’t know. But what we do know is that, were you to try to impose the fine, this is how the questioning would go in court:
Keosis: We don’t owe a fine because the delays were caused by severe weather.
MBTA: That wasn’t severe weather, and you should have been prepared for snowfall in New England.
Keosis: What did the MBTA do with the Red Line during February 2015?
MBTA: Well, we shut the system down and suspended service for several weeks.
Keosis: Why did you do that?
MBTA: Because of the severe weather
If the contract has that out, fine. If Gov. Baker’s legal folks looked at the language, discussed with Keolis, and the fine reduction is essentially a civil settlement because neither side wants to pay attorneys for a risky civil suit, I can live with that.
Governor Baker should just say that though. Just make it clear. Because otherwise, a self-stylized pro-business governor who lets the private company off the hook while squeezing the public agency through a back room decision making process looks like, well, like he’s up to no good.
I’ll agree with that.
I would add that as they were negotiating this contract, the MBTA ceded something to get the clause. That’s how negotiations work. Keolis got breaks in other areas based on the promise they would run the trains at all times. If let Keolis slide, we’re paying them double — once for giving up their fines now, once for what was given up in negotiations.
The regular T is worse.
As an Elizabeth/Bernie/FDR Democrat, I’m all for holding corporate feet to the fire.
However, it was Keolis’ first winter operating the T, and a source who definitely knows tells me they inherited load of pretty-messed-up stuff from the previous operator. So some leniency might be reasonable.
On the other hand: since then, have they made progress on unmessing those messes?