Last week’s contentious panel discussion on how to fix the MBTA highlighted the difficulties that will be faced by those who would propose a remedy. The findings of a panel appointed by Gov. Charlie Baker to examine the T’s operations revealed some basic third rail issues.
Unrelenting bad weather last winter exposed the infrastructural weakness of the T’s system, most notably commuter rail. But a further look into the T’s operation revealed problems at a more basic managerial level, most notably lax collection of fares. Secretary of Transportation Stephanie Pollack noted that and the contract with its operator, Keolis, does not incentivize employees to collect fares. However, Keolis can be fined $500 for each time an MBTA inspector discovers a conductor hasn’t done so. The catch, of course, is that the lapse has to be detected. So, uncollected commuter rail fares are like the proverbial tree that falls in the forest with no one present to hear it.
Riders sounded off on this topic in online comments, pointing out the difference between fare evasion and a failure to collect fares. Many reacted as if they’d been unjustly accused, in an addition of insult to injury after the trials of this past winter.
Then, there’s absenteeism. The improbable number of 57 days of absence per worker per year, cited in the governor’s panel report, caught everyone’s attention. Commuter rail riders have become used to – if not inured to – PA announcements that trains are short a conductor, and therefore debarking passengers must exit through doors at either the front or the rear of the train. For months, a tape-recorded PA message asking passengers to exit only at doors where there was a crew member present, played at each stop. The message quickly became aural wallpaper for riders.
A shortage of conductors adds extra time to stops as passengers walk the length of the train to exit, and it also creates extra work for the conductors who are on board.
Ridership counts are also hazy, and the T is pushing for more reliable data. Last week a 30-day project to measure ridership using a motion sensor on a particular platform was launched.
While one platform out of more than a dozen does not a good data-set make, implementing it station-wide was likely cost-prohibitive, but the T had to start somewhere. Ideally, the data might be more efficiently applied to constructing train sets that are demand-appropriate, e.g. more double-deckers than flat cars on rush-hour trains; fewer double-deckers during the midday lull.
The panel discussion last week also revealed dissension on the feasibility of giving state government an expanded role of control over the T by appointing a fiscal oversight panel.
Such a measure would very likely become the third rail for unions. The larger the role Gov. Baker seeks to take to address the T’s problems, the more criticism he will encounter. During the weather crisis, he was able to take command by assessing and defining the service shortfalls. But fixing the longstanding problems that the weather only served to expose, will involve concessions on critical turf issues by entrenched interests. If the hallmark of a good compromise is that no party is completely happy with the outcome, we’re already seeing a dress rehearsal for discontent.
