MBTA in a state of disrepair. (live, cost of, vs)

[bostongymjunkie]

Originally Posted by WestieWhitie

It mostly has to do with corruption, bloated pensions and outright theft - we could have replaced every single train many times over if we didn’t have MBTA employees approving their own timecards with $200K worth of overtime every year and retiring with full pension at 45.

I was referring to the comment above speculating as to why the Green Line seems to have been target of greater investment.

[MMS02760]

Update on the closed South Attleboro Station:

Design plans nearing completion for overhaul of South Attleboro train station, official says
https://www.thesunchronicle.com/news...2c7b0b662.html

[mdovell]

The thing about Transit is that it's not necessarily a local government or State running the thing it's technically quasi-government. The way how Transit works is that you got a largely unionized Workforce with a management contract that is contracted out and then you got your general Administration which tends to be much smaller. On top of that you got a procurement process on a state and federal level which takes quite a long time and then you have a lack of flexibility in terms of raising fares.

The way how transit is funded his first from federal aid from the Fta and then from your state. And then your local assessments by your local communities that have stops.
Then of course you have your Rider fares and a small amount of money from concessions contracts and advertising.

The other factor in this to be honest is way back in 2000 season of the state sales taxes was provided directly to the MBTA. If you live outside of Boston you're still technically paying part of your taxes to the MBTA even if you have no service. If a reapportioned responds to a local Transit Authority they would have more bang for the Box although the MBTA would get less funding.

An old friend of mine's father retired from the mbta in the mid-1990s at the age of 55. The unions were largely over promised everything.

I would also say with a heavy heart that crrc ma is screwed up. As many of you know I tend to be a booster for Springfield and I tried to with this bud and conversations I've had with former employees is that this organization is really screwed up in their management. The compensation is not the issue they pay very well but they've got management issues that are causing people to leave. There are jobs there that literally go back and forth with periods of months of no one in them. If you're an employer and you can't even get somebody to last a year I think something's wrong. I have serious reservations about the delivery of red and orange line subway cars going forward. The sourcing is totally screwed up with multiple parts coming from around the world and they just don't have the ability to manufacture everything domestically. This means the aging of the fleet is going to continue on for years.

I see this getting worse, much worse before it gets any better. We're going to see companies openly say that the only reason why we still have people working from home is due to the failures of the Mbta. We can't have things reopen and then realize that people can't talk or text while driving which is going to stop a way time and attention from work. If they took public transit that would help quite a bit but at the way our things are going now it's not going to happen. I'm not even looking at the 3 or so accidents in the past couple weeks. You can't run railcard decades and decades beyond their useful life. More derailments, more fires, accidents, you name it

[massnative71]

Metal panel falling from Savin Hill MBTA Station narrowly misses passenger

https://www.bostonherald.com/2021/10...ses-passenger/

"An MBTA passenger was surprised but no one was injured when a metal panel fell from the bottom of concrete steps above his head inside the Savin Hill T station.
The panel crashed to the ground, narrowly missing at least one passenger late Sunday night, MBTA officials confirmed. Red Line service was not impacted and the cause is under investigation.
It’s the second staircase around a T stop to fail in the past month."

[msRB311]

I wonder how many lawsuits the MBTA has had to deal with.

[WestieWhitie]

Eh, MBTA just needs to ensure the falling/collapsing chunks are big enough to take out the whole family - no survivors, no lawsuit!

Originally Posted by msRB311

I wonder how many lawsuits the MBTA has had to deal with.

[mdovell]

Remember long ago when the same thing happened to The Big Dig? Supposedly that person was in the illegal alien and that's why I didn't get to be a bigger lawsuit

[CaseyB]

Originally Posted by mdovell

Remember long ago when the same thing happened to The Big Dig? Supposedly that person was in the illegal alien and that's why I didn't get to be a bigger lawsuit

That was in the tunnel.

[thebruiser500]

Originally Posted by OutdoorLover

The pandemic has really crushed MBTA revenues, so while I haven't been reading about them lately, I can imagine that this has severely impacted the money they have available for operating expenses, including maintenance.

I used to love riding the train. But they require masks now right? I don’t like riding trains for serfs. I like trains that carry free citizens

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by thebruiser500

I used to love riding the train. But they require masks now right? I don’t like riding trains for serfs. I like trains that carry free citizens

MBTA always had "oppressive" rules, like I mean you could not smoke on the train. But, this thread is about the maintenance of the system or lack thereof. Dress code is totally irrelevant.