Dear Martin Walsh,
So you’re a car guy? I am a car guy, too. I love cars. My first car was a 1976 Ford LTD I bought for $500 dollars in 1984. The back seat was bigger than my sofa is now and I paid more money for the sofa. The LTD had a 351 Cleveland V8 and it could MOVE like Tam O’Shanters mare, Meg. My dream is to restore, with my own two hands, a 1974 Mercedes SL450 convertible to mint condition and drive it daily. I love cars, for the fact that they are cars. When I want to get around Boston, however, I take the T.
Also, just like you, I was born in 1967. Not in Massachusetts, but since my mother was born here, we moved back when I was nine. What I know about foul language and heartbreak I learned in the bleachers at Fenway Park. What I know about grit I learned from watching Terry O’Reilly and Johnny Bucyk at the old Garden. What I know about food I learned in the North End at the original Joe Tecce’s. What I know about prejudice I learned walking through Dorchester with my hair in a ponytail. What I learned about Boston’s geography, I gathered by taking the T.
Living on the South Shore, on the Irish Riviera (Scituate) before I owned my own car, I used to hitchhike to Hingham (kids, don’t hitchhike… I’m lucky to be alive) to hop a bus to Braintree and take the red line into town. Even after I got my own car, I then drove to Braintree and still took the T in. I got stranded in town plenty of times, but all of those times were my own fault: I once saw Eric Clapton play a gig on Landsdowne street (Long before it was the House of Blues… long before, in fact, ‘blues’ was commoditized…) and, because I was loathe to miss a moment of his show, I missed the last train out of town. No complaints. Same thing happened when I saw B.B. King play at Berklee. It was worth it. I was young. It wasn’t so much fun when, as an older man with a family waiting for me, in the winter of 2014-15 I got stranded because the T broke and I couldn’t get home from my job. Then, two days later, it broke again and I couldn’t get from my home to my job. I’ve often had my wife and my boss angry with me, but seldom at the same time, and never due to somebody else’s failings.
All of this, Mayor Walsh, is to lay claim to being, at least, as knowledgeable about Boston as you are, ‘car guy’ and all, and maybe more so, since it appears I may have ridden the T far more than you have. And to, therefore, tell you that the MBTA is in a drastic state of disrepair. I first rode the T in 1980 and, while it’s never been perfect, it’s also never been as bad as it was in the winter of 2014-15… and improvements upon that low point have simply not been made and here we are and it’s 2017.
The T is an integral part of my life and my life is intricately bound up to the city I love best in all the world: Boston, the same city that elected you, Martin Walsh, Mayor. I need the T to work more than I need a working car… because as much as I love cars, both finding and paying for parking and traffic are far more stressful than I feel ANYONE should have to handle. And as the condition of public transit deteriorates, the traffic worsens and parking becomes a nightmare. You need me to live outside town and come to work in town and spend my money. And I love doing so… but I need the T to work to do that. Every dollar I have to spend on parking, and every minute I have to spend in traffic waiting to spend that parking money, makes me that much less inclined to spend any other money. But if I can buy a T pass once a month and use it any time… and get anywhere I want, I’m thereafter rather more profligate.
When you make casually wrong, and wrong-headed, statements about the state of the T — it really is crumbling — as you did recently, you not only diminish your credibility, but what is worse, you dishearten the millions of people who look to the Mayor and the Governor for solutions to their problems, not more problems. That I feel it necessary to explain to you how necessary is the T to the very beating heart of Boston, is equally disheartening.
Fix the T, or get out of the way and let somebody else fix it. Not fixing it, is not an option for the city and not even acknowledging how broken it is doesn’t seem to be doing much for your career.
Oops, that was an accidental up-rate. I feel the need to remind you that the T is not a city agency. The city has not budgetary nor operational control of the T. Marty’s comments were off base but not as much as yours. If you have a gripe with the T, take your complaints to the State House, Baker and the legislature.
While it is strictly true that the T is not a city agency, but so what? Neither am I. If you want me to stay to my suburb and never again enter the city to spend my money, let the T continue to deteriorate. It’s as simple as that. Maybe the Mayor of the City ( The City in which all commuter rail lines terminate and over and through which most busses and all subways navigate) might like to know about that possibility?
And what does that tell you? That Mayor Walsh get’s a pass even as he gets to stand between the actual T and the Governor? If he’s powerless over the T, he should, first, STFU, on the issues and, second, refrain from campaigning on extending service. Or, if he wants to campaign on extending service he better start kicking ass until the service is extended.
The Mayor of Boston has the ability and the resources to make the Governor either very uncomfortable or very happy.
Really? The Mayor of Boston doesn’t want to know about my experience using the T to get in and out of the City of which he is the Mayor? If a bridge was falling down, shutting off access over the Charles River, he’d want to know about that, no? If he started telling me the bridge wasn’t collapsing, even as it was collapsing, what should I do?
I think you just don’t think the T is all that important or even necessary, which makes my point even more trenchant and important…. that is to say, about as ‘on base’ as can be.
Oh petr, there you go again. You told Walsh “Fix the T, or get out of the way and let somebody else fix it.” Walsh is not in the way and is not the problem. It is the Governor, the legislature and their predecessors who created the mess.
I remember two years ago during the snow that shut the metro area down. First you blamed Walsh for not keeping the T running. When I pointed out that Walsh has no operational control of the T, you responded by blaming him for the mess on our state highways. When I further rejoined that Boston’s Mayor has no control over state highways, you sputtered out of control.
Voters need to put pressure on the Governor and the legislature, not Walsh. Yes, your stories about visiting in Boston were cute but they mean nothing. Lots of us have similar stories but with many more years of life experience. They mean nothing IRL. The T is a mess and not getting well fast enough. Blaming Walsh is not the answer nor is privatization.
Go ahead and keep complaining about Walsh. No doubt he, like many politicians, has someone keep an eye on BMG. No doubt they all know who are the people who complain but do nothing in real politics, the paper tigers who have turned this site into a place that is worth an occasional glance but definitely not a must read.
“real politics’… now that’s funny. As though ‘real politics’ is divorced from that thing most of us call “living our lives” and has only to do with esoterica and arcana. Yeah. Fuck you. And the horse you rode in on.
It’s not like when government gets in the way of us ‘living our lives’ we’ll look to you political operatives to make it better… sorry to be the bearer of bad news…. but that’s not gonna happen.
Your argument boils down to the existential dichotomy that the Mayor of Boston has little, or nothing, to do with what actually happens in the City of Boston. Is that what you mean by ‘real politics”? Because, if it is, I think you should give the medications more time to kick in. I don’t particularly care to ‘pressure the Governor.” I’d rather pressure the Mayor and let him pressure the Governor. I think my chances of success are far better in that instance.
Like I said, Walsh should dump the GE deal and then use the money we save to make needed improvements If GE still wants to stay here, they can come up with a deal that is fairer to the public.
There is plenty of fat in the GE deal. Don’t believe me? Look at what just happened with the Winthrop Street garage giveaway. Walsh and the clowns at the B.R.A. told everybody that the new building had to be about 70 stories tall,– shading the Boston Common– or that their delicate negotiations would fall apart.
Then over at the airport, it was announced that the proposed tower was unsafe for airline safety. It took the developers about 15 minutes to lop 8 stories off their proposal,
Do you think that there isn’t even more fat in the GE deal? Walsh and Baker could take that money and decide between themselves which of them should fix the MBTA and then apply the money toward that.
I’m glad, Petr, that you’ve reconsidered your “don’t treat the nice corporations like shit” attitude and now want Walsh to “kick ass’.
And yeah, I know it’s not officially the BRA any more, but I don’t have time to keep up with every alias for every racket in town. It’s tough enough trying to remember how Petr got from Scituate to Braintree.
I am truly curious. What is the connection between GE and the T?
I hate the GE deal and fear the potential Amazon scam coming. But I more hate what the lege and DeLeo, and their predecessors have done to the T, but I see no connection to GE.
Let’s be clear. The MBTA is a state entity. Only the state can fix its massive underfunded capital needs. Only the the state can fix the operational problems. Should Walsh have done more to get GE to fund transit improvements in the Seaport? Absolutely. But petr the snowflake suburbanite who started this thread has no answers about improving the T, as has been true for years.
BMG says it is “reality based politics.” Let’s try to keep it that way and not have readers uprate the turd thrown by petr at Walsh.
Money is fungible. The GE deal involves state as well as city money. My point is that politics is the art of the possible, and politicians practice it by pretending that some things aren’t possible and other things are.
That was why I mentioned the fiasco at the Winthrop Square garage. Check that deal out. City money in the form of city property will be used to maintain state property, ie the Rose Kennedy greenthing. Or more to the point– to overpay some well connected hack who will make as much money “managing” the Rose Kennedy park as will the unlucky official who has to manage the entire state DCR. system.
When it comes to helping out their buddies, Baker and Walsh don’t care about the distinction between city and state money.. That’s why the GE deal is as bad as it is.
Let Walsh and Baker tell us why taking money from the GE deal is impossible. Don’t take their word that it can’t be done.
I am completely at sea as to the relationship you think lies between ‘kicking ass’ and whatever treatments whatever corporations get. I think you should probably sober up before posting any further on this….
The particular ‘ass’ I’m hoping Marty Walsh kicks is that belonging first to the Governor and then to the City Council… in the hopes that they’ll get off their collective asses and fix that specific and particular engine (the T) that makes the rest of Boston go…
This gets my vote for one of the best posts of 2017. Well done. Bravo. Love it!