Charlie's Mailbag - February 16th ( a very full mailbag )

A warm welcome to the new readers who are visiting after reading about us in Metro today.

from the mailbag at charlieonthembta@gmail.com

Oddjob reports at 7:15 Friday morning

Hi, Charlie,
I and my fellow travellers are sitting at the rt. 128 CR station. The train in front of us broke down at the station, and inbound trains are backing up behind it. We've been stopped for about 10 min. So far, and they say we will have to push the other train into Boston.

Be curious on how that saga ended, please let us know.

We haven't heard much from Orange Line commuters but Isabel gives us a report

Good morning,

let me start by saying that the Orange Line one of the best lines I used to think has been lately a nightmare...everyday allways the same delays with signal problems and some other poor excuses, well this morning it took the cake.

If you expect to raise fares and have the same type of equipment as the well run systems like NYC and other countries, maybe you should try to do a little more research on how things run and the best equipment to have, the Charlie card machines have been the worst experience and the service and assistance is next to null, and when you do ask a T person to assist you they give you the third degree and treat you like you are cheating the system, if the machines don't operate correctly but meanwhile show on the monitors as accepting my TPass but not opening the door for me then I should not be looked upon as not being believed or trying to cheat/manipulate the system, most of those turnstyles/new doors don't work half the time and it takes forever to get into the station and catch your train when it is never on time and running like crap.

This morning it took us all orange line patrons trying to get to work on time or try to make connections over a half hour to get from Community College to North Station, and that is after the guy froze us at the station by keeping the doors opened and just sitting at the station, then when we finally got to North Station they told us all to get off the train they were having power problems, have no idea what that had to do with the train we were in and then not a word of whether they was going to be any service as usual communication is null and limited....when finally they said there would be another train directly behind and as we crossed back from the green line to the orange line they were announcing that they were busing from North Station to Back Bay.....not that the announcement was very clear and loud enough for everyone to hear, I asked an inspector a question and he just walked by me like I said nothing and just totally ignored me....needless to say no one made their connections today and thanks to the T again we are left out on the cold and the dark, we are all getting very tired of the lack of service and the terrible treatment.

We expect better service and treatment not just fares to go up all the time.

I expect an answer from someone and don't copy from JetBlue try to follow the ones that have close to perfect service........

We should all be compensated for our troubles on a daily basis.

If I don't hear from you I will send a copy to this email to the proper hands and the news media.

Hope you have a better day than the people of the first train on the orange line.

Not much I can add to that Isabel but you can be sure somebody at the T will see what you posted.

Erin writes about a pass snafu from 2 months ago that still hasn't been resolved

I believe it was around November 30st that the MBTA converted to
automated fare/Charlie Ticket kiosks at all stations. The last and
first days of any month are, of course, the busiest days for
purchasing passes for the upcoming month. For many people, debit or
credit cards have become the established method of payment for pass
purchases.

Beginning sometime Thursday, November 30th 2006, riders were unable to
make purchases using debit or credit cards at these new kiosks
because, as I understand it, the kiosks were temporarily unable to
connect to banks, etc. At first, I thought this issue was specific to
the Oak Grove station, where many riders were allowed to pass through
without paying on Friday, December 1st.

At the end of the day on Friday, I attempted again to purchase my
December pass at the State Street station, but the connections were
still down. Lacking the cash for a pass, I was required to purchase a
$1.50 ticket for my ride home. I was handed a complaint form by an
MBTA worker standing by, which I promptly filled out and mailed to
MBTA customer service. Why should anyone pay $1.50 (or more) in
addition to fees for a subway pass during the same month?

I believe it was not until December 2nd that connections were
reestablished, and I was able to purchase my December pass. In
mid-February, I have yet to receive a response from MBTA customer
service.

My company pays for my monthly MBTA pass, and so this email is not
about $1.50. I am writing about the thousands of dollars the MBTA must
have "earned" during this three-day span from riders forced to pay for
individual fares in addition to their monthly pass fees.

I have been wanting to pursue this issue for quite some time, but keep
forgetting about it. I have to think that this "forgetting" is exactly
what the MBTA planned on.

Sigh.... I really hope the new customer service department the T announced this week will help prevent stories like this. What astounds me is that the T really thinks they are doing a good job with customer service NOW...I simply have to point to the comment the T made about my blog on Friday morning

When asked to comment on the blog, T spokesman Joe Pesaturo responded:

“While blogs come and go, people will always be able to present comments

and concerns directly to the T’s Customer Support Services.”

I think the T REALLY believes that. Last week I saw the movie "The Queen" which tells the story of how out of touch Buckingham Palace was after the death of Princess Diana. The Queen honestly thought her subjects were pleased at the way she was handling things and Tony Blair had to go to great lengths to tell her that wasn't the case. Sadly the T is as clueless as "The Queen". Again MAYBE things will improve with the new customer service department. It is something we will watch closely.

Roni writes about Bowdoin Station

Weekdays - Monday thru Friday - 5:00 p.m. Bowdoin Station
I've been taking the Blue line from Wonderland to Bowdoin for years.
The 5:00 o'clock "T" conductors at Bowdoin - don't have the courtesy to let passengers on and will approach Bowdoin - stop open the doors- and within less than 10 seconds slam the doors right in our faces - and lo and behold people are running down the ramp hoping to make it -
And it never fails, they wait for no one and why the doors are slammed so quickly is beyond my comprehension - It's rude- and almost deliberatlely mean -
They do it at no other station but, Bowdoin - - the train pauses and waits everywhere else and in between but, will always speed away and quicker that you can say :Jack Flash" the doors are closing right in your face- at Bowdoin only - try it - go there - see for yourself - it's demeaning!
Also, they will toot the horn and when we hear that we know they will not be stopping for us at Bowdoin - Thank you very much - how insignificant are we? -
but,- that's another issue ~

Bowdoin is the forgotten subway station downtown. During the budget cuts of the early 1980's they made it into a part time station and it remains that way today. It really seems that they just want to turn around the trains there as quickly as possible and then load at Government Center. With the new Charlie equipment there is no good reason not to have the station open more hours than it is now.

Finally Lou comments on many things he read on the blog this morning

I just found your blog today and, as many have said, I like it a lot. A few confirmations, comments, etc on things currently on the main page:

The headlights on heavy rail cars: Some drivers turn them off when coming in to the station, but I have actually seen some turn them on while coming in. These observations come mostly from Sullivan square (inbound), ruggles (outbound), and back bay (both).

The arborway line: I wasn’t even alive when the service stopped to arborway, but I would love to see it open. It isn’t even of any use to me really, but I just like the idea of it. One question about this portion of the E line though:

What would delays be like on this line if service were to be restored? Both Wednesday and Thursday I saw ridiculous morning delays on inbound service at Mission Park, bad enough that when I was standing there waiting for an inbound train, I saw an outbound pass 15 minutes after I arrived, and came to realize that that car would be the one I would be boarding… after it made its way around the heath st. loop (which, during heavy traffic and bad weather can take extraordinarily large amounts of time). The policy seems to be either short turn the second outbound train (if its close to the first of the delay) at Brigham circle, or to split the first train and short turn on of the cars. If service were to be restored to arborway, would there be any way to short turn a train or car between heath and arborway? In bad weather, it seems the traffic on the street can cause significant problems on this portion of the E, and I only see it being worse for those who live further outbound from heath if trains went to arborway.

Also, having read up on the T and its history extensively since moving to Boston for school about a year and a half ago, I have become interested in different Green Line cars: do you, or does anyone else, know when the best time and place to spot a type 6 car is? I had read that they still run at high traffic times on the D branch, but wasn’t sure if this info is outdated (or even if they have stopped running type 6 cars altogether, although I think I saw one at park last month when I was sitting on an E)

Regarding fare gates that accept only “smart cards” (Charlie cards), I have seen this happen at Ruggles, Sullivan Square, and I think downtown crossing as well. Sometimes all but one of the gates is for the cards only, and they change from day to day (probably hour to hour even). I haven’t ever seen a case where gates are only accepting one or the other but aren’t labeled as such, when the have no indication usually both seem to work. I also am curious as to what causes this.
-Lou

Welcome aboard Lou and thank you for your observations and I am sure someone will comment on them.

T is having some problems Wednesday afternoon

Mac Daniel is reporting delays on the Blue and Green Line (Boston College line)

I have tried to get updates at www.mbta.com and the site is not loading as of 3:45 PM

and the Fung Wah has another accident at the Allston tolls

I would like to know if others are having problems with accessing the T website

UPDATED: The new Blue Line trains exist....REALLY

photo from railroad.net

The first 2 of the long delayed new Blue Line cars have been delivered and are at the T's Wellington service center in Medford to begin testing.

The cars which are manufactured by Siemens were ordered by the T in 2001 with a promised delivery date of January 2004 but the contract has suffered numerous delays.

94 cars have been ordered and Blue Line riders can look forward to 6 car trains in the hopefully not to distant future.

T officials and riders are keeping their fingers crossed that will not see a repeat of the Breda trolley fiasco that has plagued the Green Line. The first Breda cars were delivered for testing on January 31, 1998 and the T is only accepting the final cars in that order now.

Back in June a T insider posted on railroad.net the reason for the delays and says neither the T or Siemens was at fault in this case

Ok let’s give this a shot!!!!

The Blue Line Siemens #5 cars are only about 20 months delayed and this delay has been caused by circumstances beyond Siemens and the MBTA control.

The primary reason for the delay is the fact that Buckeye Steel the company which was originally going to supply the trucks went bankrupt. The reason Buckeye Steel was chosen was because their the same company which made the Hawker Siddeley #4 car truck and it was service proven. Siemens was forced to scramble and locate another truck supplier which took the better part of a year.

There have been 4 or 5 other sub-suppliers which have had to withdraw for similar reasons and each time forcing siemens to find other suppliers.

So I suggest you cut Siemens and the MBTA some slack by being a little more patient before you start passing judgment on a vehicle which has not even been delivered yet.

I would rather the Siemens #5 car be delivered late and configured correctly then have to deal with fixing problems which could have been resolved prior to delivery.

The proto-type is quite an impressive vehicle from what I’ve seen and If Siemens delivers the same quality in the rest of the fleet I can assure you and the MBTA will not be disappointed with the finished product.

Keeping fingers crossed.

A look at the T's ridership numbers

The T is a huge operation and when you look at the ridership numbers you begin to grasp the enormous task it faces each morning getting people in, out and around Boston. The MBTA is the nation’s fifth-largest mass transit system measured in terms of ridership. It serves a daily ridership of 1.2 million passengers and covers a district made up of 175 communities in eastern Massachusetts. The Boston Metropolitan Planning Organization has made available the raw numbers (though some are a few years old) and I will try to present them in a concise way.

The numbers on the left are from 2003 and it shows at a glance that 65% of the ridership of the bus-subway system relies on the 4 major subway lines. Ridership has actually increased from these numbers as was cited by the Globe's Keith O'Brien when he rode the Orange Line for an entire day one year ago to get the pulse of the people who ride the T. The Boston ridership profile is the complete opposite of Chicago where two-thirds of the ridership take buses instead of the L system.

To move this tremendous number of people the T operates 159 bus routes (8,600 bus stops), 3 subway lines, 2 trolley lines that splits into 5 branches), 1 bus rapid transit line (Silver Line), 4 trackless trolley lines, and 11 commuter rail lines. To operate these lines it uses (numbers approximate) 408 subway vehicles, 181 trolleys vehicles, 973 buses, 40 trackless trolleys, 80 commuter rail locomotives, 362 commuter rail coaches, and 421 RIDE (paratransit) vehicles. The T needs to maintain 785 miles of track, 19 miles of tunnel, 275 stations, 560 bridges, 100 elevators and 132 escalators. The T also claims to have 56,213 commuter parking spaces in the system though there are many on the South Shore who would question that number.

So where are all these passengers coming from?

Click here for a map of typical weekday station entrances.

Some of the numbers are surprising to me as for example I was surprised to see that Davis Square (10,891) handles more passengers than Alewife (9,567). I doubt this was anticipated by the Northwest Extension planners back in the 1970's who were forced by political pressure from Somerville to bend the route to include Somerville. The transformation that has occurred in the Davis area since the subway's opening in 1984 is stunning. The former Mayor of Somerville, Eugene Brune recalls that even the Chamber of Commerce didn’t want a subway stop in Davis Square. The planners of the Red Line wanted to build the line into Arlington Center but residents of the town did not want the subway and it finally terminated at Alewife.

How the Red Line Extension was designed and built

The high number of boardings at Forest Hills (12,584) show that the Orange Line should have been extended further south to perhaps Rte 128 Station in Westwood. The opportunity existed 30 years ago when the Southwest Expressway was scrapped after the right of way had been cleared but like Arlington the residents of Hyde Park and West Roxbury wanted no part of subway service fearing it would bring changes to the area so the relocated Orange Line continued to terminate at Forest Hills.

On the Blue Line the high number of boardings at Wonderland (6,071) indicate that the line should be extended to at least Lynn and perhaps Salem as well, but that has been talked about for fifty years since the line was extended to Revere. Maverick is by far the heaviest used station with 10,015 boardings because of the number of bus passengers who transfer there after coming from East Boston and Chelsea.

The Green Line numbers also are a surprise to me. Harvard and Commonwealth on the B Line is the heaviest used stop (the numbers listed are from 1995) outside the subway followed by Coolidge Corner and Brookline Village. As any B Line rider would suspect it is the heaviest used of the trolley lines, followed by D, E and C.

Bus ridership as of September 2005

The above link breaks down every bus route in the system and it dramatically shows how dependent Roxbury, Dorchester and Jamaica Plain are with their buses. The #39 Forest Hills-Copley bus is the systems busiest with the #1,#23,#28, and #66 all have over 10,000 passengers a day. Other workhorse routes are the #57 and #111. The T has been working hard to modernize the bus fleet with more on the way. There was the unfortunate misstep of ordering buses from NeoplanUSA and it remains to be seen how much of a problem getting parts for the Neoplans will become as the company closed down while filling a T order. The Neoplan buses include the 60 foot buses used on the Silver Line-Washington Street, the #32 and #39, Silver Line-Waterfront-Airport, trackless trolleys serving Cambridge-Watertown-Belmont and heavy use in the Quincy division.

The breakdown for the Commuter Rail stations shows some problems on several lines with ridership. The Framingham/Worcester line dropped from 9,990 inbound passengers a day in 2003 to 8,248 a year ago. This is no doubt because of the major delays on that line as the T fights with the CSX Railroad over train slots. Major drops can be seen on the Newburyport/Rockport line and Franklin lines but the network also saw increases on the Lowell and Fitchburg lines. The Providence line is the most heavily traveled and that will only increase with all trains now going to Rhode Island and expansion to the Providence Airport slated to open in 2 years.

So now you at least have a better idea at the challenges the T faces every workday morning to shuttle hundreds of thousands of passengers all over Boston. It is not an easy task and while some commuting days can be a nightmare, the T by and large does a decent job.

Hopefully this forum will help make it better.

T will be FREE after 8 PM New Year's Eve

Today, the MBTA announced its service schedule for First Night through the holiday weekend. The MBTA is providing extra transit services throughout the First Night Festivities and will be offering free service after 8:00 p.m. The MBTA is well prepared to transport First Night participants in and out of Boston safely and efficiently and urges travelers to take the T to avoid traffic and parking hassles.

Service will increase during the afternoon leading to rush-hour service levels from approximately 7:00pm through the conclusion of the event.

Evening trains will provide rush-hour levels of service and will run until approximately 2:00am.

Service For New Year's Eve and New Year's Day

The T's love affair with SIEMENS AG

For reasons only the Board of Directors of the MBTA can tell us the T has been using Siemens AG of Germany as a major vendor on the Silver Line, Blue Line and the GPS system on the entire bus fleet. To say the least Siemens record on T projects has been spotty.

The new Blue Line cars were supposed to be in service 2 years ago but the project has been delayed over and over again. A month ago the Globe wrote of the latest problems with the cars that include leaking doors and smoking air-conditioning systems. The T board approved purchase of the new cars in November 2001, with delivery of the first ones scheduled for January 2004. Siemens was hoping the Blue Line contract would give them a foothold in the United States subway market so one can assume they lowballed the bid to the T to get the contract. Once again the T is learning that you get what you pay for. For whatever reason you never see experienced subway manufacturers like ALSTOM in the Boston market. Coming on top of the BREDA fiasco on the Green Line you just have to scratch your head at how this continues to happen to the T. The Siemens website proudly tells us about the new Blue Line trains and their specs but doesn't mention when they plan to deliver them.

For the Silver Line Siemens touts these improvements (PDF) On paper it seems wonderful and I'm sure their salesman did a fine job selling them to the T but the problem is they have never worked as designed. The T's public response last April was "most of the technology developed for reliable and efficient service on the Silver Line is operational today -- sort of." But when it comes to letting riders know when the next bus is due, ''the MBTA has not been satisfied with the accuracy of the 'real-time arrival' messages," he said.
The contractor is working on fixing flaws in the software, said MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo. If they can be fixed, the ''next bus arrival" information will soon be displayed.

The contractor is the Siemens division in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

But not only did Siemens get the contract for the Silver Line they also got the contract for the GPS system for the entire bus fleet. The system is called TRANSITMASTER and as you can see from the company website it is supposed to do everything but drive the bus. Next time you are on a T bus you can see the Transitmaster display to the drivers left. It tells him at a glance how early or late he is and if he is early he is supposed to adjust. It also runs the automatic announcements (Loud & Clear - ADA Announcements ) It would be nice if the computer could be taught to pronounce Lechmere correctly.

I have spoken to several drivers who said the original test vendor for GPS did a much better job but was shutout by Siemens when the entire system went out to bid. That vendor was a company known as Clever Devices who did have the test contract with the MBTA a few years ago. They currently have contracts with Chicago, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Dallas, Long Island, Pittsburgh, Santa Monica, San Francisco, Sacramento and elsewhere. In Chicago the computer announcements sound human with a pleasant male voice. The SF Muni now ever offers real time status on their website for select transit routes. Will Siemens get it to work in Boston? We can only hope but the Silver Line is 4 years old and it hasn't been fixed.

Sadly as long as the MBTA keeps awarding contracts to the low bidder we the riders are going to suffer. In any event the T should make sure they never allow Siemens to bid ever again. They promise well but they simply do not deliver. Three strikes and out.