Silent Stops and Secret Stations

No major issues lately, but there are still a few things to write about.

There was a bit of a stir on the inbound Franklin #710 train this morning (08/06/2008). After the Readville stop, the conductor announced over the intercom that the next stop would be Back Bay. Since the train was supposed to stop at Ruggles, this caused a bit of a stir.

The train sometimes skips Ruggles due to track problems, so the announcement seemed unusual but not impossible. They're supposed to announce that they're skipping Ruggles, of course, but they don't always do that.

In the end, they stopped at Ruggles after all; the announcement must have just been a slip of the tongue by the conductor. So no free tickets today.

I did cash in five free tickets recently, and was annoyed at the attitude of the guy behind the counter (at Back Bay). He insisted that all three letters had to be pre-signed before I got to the window, and I had to be at the window with my driver's license, tickets, and letters all in hand. Time was short, but after waiting through the line the first time I had to go out, sign and arrange everything, and go through the line a second time. It wasn't a terribly long line, so I'd guess that the clerk was just being officious for the hell of it.

Speaking of silent stops, conductors have been particularly silent at Ruggles lately. They often don't bother to announce the destination of the train, and sometimes they don't even step out on the platform! Since the trains have been more and more erratic, time-wise (they can vary from the schedule by five minutes or more) this is particularly worrisome. Often passengers have to go into a train and ask the passengers inside where the train is going.

A few quick notes:

Smelly Car - A coach on the Franklin line had an unusual problem: it stank. It wasn't a bathroom car, but it smelled like sewage for the entire trip. This caused a "hot car" effect; passengers avoided that car and piled into the other ones. Unfortunately I didn't note the train number (it was a later-evening outbound run), but I think the coach might have been #604.

Hefty hefty hefty! - MBTA head Dan Grabauskas announced via cellphone from his luxury state-supplied SUV¹ that T riders would be facing "hefty" fare increases in 2010 unless the Legislature took action. I'd predicted that he'd jump the increase forward to 2009, so I guess I was wrong about that. But I have to wonder what he means by "hefty". Recent increases have been in the 25-27% range; what could a hefty increase look like? I'm guessing 40% or more, but please feel free to put your own guess as a comment. The winner will receive a free luxury SUV, fueled and paid for by the taxpayers of Massachusetts².

Wall Street Journal story - A couple of months ago I was interviewed several times about the commuter rail system by Alex Roth of the Wall Street Journal. Here's a link to a copy of the story: Riders Swamp Public Transit. I imagine we'll hear a lot more about the strain of increasing ridership on public transportation over the years to come.

Late! - I was chatting with an experienced passenger, and she pointed out something that I hadn't really noticed: the trains have been late a lot, for a long time now. Not necessarily by a lot, and not by that golden 30 minutes that means a free ticket, but the trains are regularly five to fifteen minutes late by the time they reach the end of the line. I don't think we've actually arrived exactly on time in months. But just because I'm me, I'm going to start tracking arrival times on the Franklin #715. It will be interesting to have some solid data to post.

Oh, a quick shout-out to the women I talked to on the train this morning. Hi!

---

1 - Okay, I don't know that he made the announcement from the SUV, but I couldn't resist mentioning that little perk of his.
2 - Offer will not be honored. No free SUV for you!

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!

More of the same...

The escalator at Ruggles remains uncleaned. Bird crap is piling higher, and has been smeared all over the left inner side by unaware passengers. Yuck.

On the morning of Friday the 25th two Franklin trains were cancelled: #706 (6:35AM) and #708 (7:00AM). The next train was obscenely overcrowded, of course, and got into Ruggles 36 minutes late.

Fares are not being collected more than half of the time. The MBTA blew $55 million dollars trying to trade debts, according to the newspapers. They've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars - if not more - providing wifi access to certain coaches, but there still aren't enough seats. It's nice to see that they have their priorities in order!

Seriously, what will it take to get the system fixed? How much more will people take? Why isn't any public figure doing something about this?

Guano, Delays, and $$$

Guano: The escalator at Ruggles remains uncleaned, and the guano is piling up higher every day. It has been fourteen days since I posted the photo, if anyone is counting.

Delays, and $$$: The Franklin line has been running late quite often - in fact, it's more often late than on time, and that has been confirmed in the news. It's usually the worst-performing line in the entire system!

This morning, though, was special. The #708 is scheduled to arrive at the Franklin/Dean College station at 7:07 AM. It didn't arrive until 7:53 AM instead, effectively pushing it back to the next scheduled train slot. The passenger information marquees performed comically throughout; When the train was already 30 minutes late, the signs said it would be 20 minutes late, and when the delay reached 40 minutes the signs updated to tell us all that the delay might be as much as 30 minutes. Tremble at the technological savvy of the mighty MBTA!

Maybe they should go back to steam locomotives.

With two trains worth of people to cram into a single train, the overcrowding was all that you'd expect. The conductors announced that there had been mechanical problems at the "storage area". If a mechanical problem can cause that sort of havoc, I wonder what will happen if the threatened Amtrak strike takes out South Station starting on January 30th? The mind boggles.

Perhaps a class action lawsuit would be in order. God knows it's annoying enough to pay $223 per month*, $2,676 per year for the privilege of not having a seat on a crowded, swaying train. But if the ridership is subjected to the sheer chaos that seems likely if the strike goes forward...well, I've already heard rumors of legal action. And that's based on the current lousy service.

The #708 arrived at Ruggles at 8:55 AM instead of the scheduled 7:50 AM. I've already filed for my free ticket. It's a good thing that the T has plenty of money to throw away on complimentary fares! In fact, they must be rolling in dough. In the past nine trips I've taken on the Franklin #715 train, I've only seen fares collected four times.

There are stubs which show that a conductor went through the coach after it departed South Station, but well over a hundred people get on at Ruggles. If over 50% of them aren't being ticketed, and that rate obtains over the entire commuter rail system, I'd guess that the MBCR/MBTA is throwing away tens of thousands of dollars every day.

They're not losing anything on me, of course. I'm one of the poor bastards who buys a monthly pass. But people with tickets and punch-passes are getting a lot of free rides. I know one daily passenger who rode for an entire month on a single 12-Ride ticket!

Call me a pessimist, but the commuter rail system simply can't survive much longer under the current management. It's going to fall apart within ten years, I'd guess - just when people will need it most. It desperately needs to be properly funded and managed, but the odds are that none of that will happen until the system crashes to a standstill. Maybe the Amtrak strike will be the nudge that the legislature and management need...but I doubt it!

--------------
* - And what do you bet that fares will shoot upward sooner than we expect? They're not supposed to go up again until 2010, but T General Manager Dan Grabauskas recently wrote in BostonNOW! that fares wouldn't go up in 2008; call me cynical, but I suspect that this is a hint that we'll get a 25% or higher fare increase in 2009.

Losing Sunday Guest Privileges

Haven't seen any problems on the commuter rail since the fatality; without hot days, AC problems are much harder to notice. I've heard that after next year we may be seeing much hotter summers, so assuming I'm around (and I have no plans to go anywhere) the topic may get more interesting then.

Just about the only thing of even mild interest that I've noticed is the truly astonishing amount of bird crap all over the newly-repaired and re-opened staircase at Ruggles - even the railings are totally coated! But that's not exactly groundbreaking news.

Of course I'm keeping an eye out for any other problems with trains or the commuter rail infrastructure. And I'm still hoping to find some other authors for this blog.

I did see one thing recently that pissed me off, though. The T has taken away the free Sunday guest privilege for monthly passholders. They claim it's to make the fare system more "rational", or something like that, but from my end all I see is that I'm paying the same price while losing some of the value. And that stinks.

I don't know how many people used the free guests on Sunday option, but I certainly did once in a while. And it's not as if it complicated matters. I understand that subway riders had to be let through the Charlie Gates manually by a T employee, but commuter rail passengers are all handled manually anyway. So this just seems like a greedy grab for more money. At $223 per month for a Zone 6 pass, did the T really need to screw riders that little bit more?