The Vestibule, and Governor Patrick Responds!

To my amazement, Governor Patrick's office replied to my email in less than 24 hours.

This is really pretty astonishing. Governor Romney's office took more than five months to reply with a kiss-off form letter via email. And even when I emailed him last year, Governor Patrick's people took weeks to respond - and they only forwarded my letter to MBTA management. Since my complaint was about MBTA management, this wasn't exactly helpful.

This time, I got a fast, detailed response. I don't normally publish email, but since this was correspondence with a public office I'm going to make an exception; I'm sure that Governor Patrick's office wouldn't mind.

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Unfortunately, since the MBTA is a partially-independent agency, Governor Patrick has no administrative control over its daily business. However, Governor Patrick and Secretary of Transportation, Bernard Cohen, have been in contact regarding these concerns. Secretary Cohen is aware of the performance issues and is working closely with officials to address concerns.

As part of the recent extension of their operating contract, the MBCR is required to provide more frequent performance updates to the MBTA Board of Directors. Currently, MBTA personnel are working closely with the MBCR to implement corrective actions immediately and restore on-time performance to an acceptable level. Each morning, senior MBCR management from each department review the past twenty-four hour period together to identify each delay cause, assign responsibility, and review corrective measures that would have minimized or eliminated the delay. This approach has shown to be effective in preventing future delays. In addition, MBCR has also increased transportation supervisory personnel at South Station and equipment supervisory personnel at the Southside Maintenance Facility. A number of new employees are currently receiving training to assume on-train positions.

We are hopeful you will soon be noticing a general improvement in service reliability and a resulting decline in problems.

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I haven't yet heard from the Globe or Herald, but it's early yet.

Incidentally, just to be clear: the Franklin #715 train is normally all single-level coaches. Vestibules don't have seats; they're the area where you board the train, and passengers are forbidden to ride there. How do I know? Simple:

The First 2008 Hot Car Report

I didn't expect this so early in the season, but today the temperature in Boston climbed to 86°. So welcome to the first Hot Car report of the season!

The Franklin #715 was short again today; five coaches instead of the six that we used to expect. It's been down to five for a few days, though, so maybe that's the new status quo.

I counted 14-15 people riding in the vestibule, not counting the conductor of course. The number is slightly indeterminate because people do tend to stand in the doorway as well. Inside the coach itself...well, it was the worst I've seen in a while. I was able to count at least 24 standees (not counting the people in the vestibule) up to the mid-point of the coach. Beyond that point I couldn't count accurately, but since the far side was visibly as packed as the side I was on, it's a very safe bet to say that there were at least 45 people standing in the coach - and probably more.

Among the standees were some young children riding with their mother, by the way.

No fares were collected, of course. Although I heard that one eager young go-getter of an assistant conductor had tried to collect fares after the train had emptied out a lot; I think it was at the Norwood Center stop the day before. From what I was told, he ended up with a mini-revolution on his hands. Angry passengers wanted to know why anyone who had gotten off before that point had been able to get a free ride.

The coach behind mine was pretty crowded. The people in it were visibly sweltering. We were all chatting - there's nothing like being packed like sardines and getting really awful service to get people to break through the usual barriers to conversation - and it soon came out that the other car had no AC. In fact, some passengers seriously claimed that they thought that the heat was on! That didn't sound impossible to me, since I've experienced the same thing on some hot days on the T.

I was horrified to see a baby in a stroller in the hot car, too.

The hot car was #628. I heard that there was another hot car on the same train, so at Walpole I hopped out and ran down to the next and final car - #1504. Sure enough, it was hot too - extremely hot. It was still crowded enough for people to be jammed in the vestibule, and one of the people riding there was a woman who had to be at least six months pregnant. She told me it was better riding in the vestibule than riding in either of the broiling-hot coaches on either side of her.

Ironically, I had lost my patience (again) and written some complaints before the ride home tonight! I "wrote to the top" first (it was hardly the first time, though). Bob Stoetzel has written to me several times with explanations and apologies, but no action has ever been taken. By the way, isn't it funny that the T's "Write to the Top" page doesn't allow you to write to the actual head of the T, Dan Grabauskas? I couldn't find his email address anywhere on the MBTA site.

Since I've never gotten a satisfactory answer from the MBTA before, I wasn't inclined to let matters lie there. So I wrote to Governor Patrick's office again, specifically pointing out that A) increasing numbers of riders are in real danger, and B) since the MBTA management had repeatedly ignored the issue, referring my email to MBTA management (again) would not be helpful.

Then I called both the Boston Herald and the Boston Globe. Had to leave voicemail at the Herald, but I talked to someone on the tip line at the Globe; not a reporter, I think, but I told him about the danger to the commuting public and gave him my phone numbers.

Maybe tomorrow I'll contact the Boston Phoenix, too. I'd call the Metro, but they never seemed to show much interest. It's a pity that BostonNOW! is gone; they were the only ones who covered this issue much.

Oh, a quick wave to LesserEvil, who was riding in the same vestibule as me. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one blogging about the miserable state of the commuter rail, and about the Franklin line in particular!

The Governor Responds - Sort Of

On July 17th I sent an email to Governor Patrick's office about overcrowing and a medical emergency on the Franklin #715 train. By an odd coincidence, I received a reply today - sort of.

I say "sort of", because the Governor's office simply forwarded my email to Bob Stoetzel, the Chief Transportation Officer for MBTA Railroad Operations, and he replied to me. It probably would be inappropriate to post his response since it was a private email, but the gist of it was that they've been short of cars, and he's told the MBCR to look into the overcrowding issue on the #715.

I hope that something happens. But I'm not confident that it will. I've written to the MBTA about the overcrowing issue two or three times in the last four years, and while they've always said they'd look into it, nothing has ever changed.

The thing that I find odd is that in my email I wrote "To be honest, a lot of us have given up complaining, because it's obvious that management simply doesn't care." Yet they forwarded my email to...MBTA management! Not to imply that Mr. Stoetzel isn't a conscientious public servant, but to ask MBTA management to address a complaint about MBTA management seems odd, somehow. I'd have thought that the Governor's office might have wanted to include some sort of direct response from one of their staffers, just to show that they were paying attention and exercising appropriate oversight.

On the other hand, when I emailed Governor Romney's office, it took them five months to respond with a kiss-off form letter assuring me that everything was fine.

Incidentally, I wouldn't want to give the impression that I'm constantly putting the Governor's office and the MBTA/MBCR under seige. I've written to each Governor exactly once, and I've probably filed less than six or seven "concerns" with the MBTA in my entire life.

That's not just the past four years, by the way. Before the high cost of housing pushed me into Rhode Island and onto the commuter rail, I lived in eastern MA and took the subway or buses to work. I've lived in the area for more than twenty years. I'd rather not complain unless something is seriously wrong, as it was on 7/13.