It is a Good Day for Blue Line Riders

Train Rider had to drive to work today, so we do not have any updates about this morning's commute on the Worcester-Framingham line.

Today was a great morning for riders of the MBTA's Blue Line subway line. The T replaced the Blue Line's 4-car trains with 6-car trains. Read all about it in this article from today's The Boston Herald. Over the next few months, all the Blue Line's trains will be running with 6-cars with 84 cars operating during rush hour by early 2008.

In other news, The Boston Globe reported that Governor Deval Patrick and his administration will unveil a bailout plan for the Mass Pike and MBTA. Eight cost-saving measures are outlined in the proposal, which requires outside approval. The $13 million cost-sharing program includes changing who actually inspects the bridges and who pays to maintain roads and T stations.

The biggest proposal would shift responsibility to inspect almost all the state's bridges to MassHighway, saving the MBTA $3.5 million in its annual budget and the Turnpike Authority $2.5 million. MassHighway would also cover about $1.2 million in costs for hiring flaggers at bridge construction projects over MBTA tracks.

The plan also calls on Massport to cover the $3.7 million in annual maintenance for the tunnel that connects Interstate 93 and the Tobin Bridge in Charlestown. Massport would also pick up more costs for portions of the Silver Line and Blue Line that bring travelers to Logan, relieving the MBTA of about $1.6 million in expenses.

Empty Friday Morning Train

My inbound commute on the P508 train was fine. Which is good, because I heard there were some cancellations on some other lines this morning. The train wasn't very crowded today, people must have taken the day off for a long weekend. We were at South Station at 8:25 a.m., we would have been earlier, but we sat on the tracks waiting for a track to open for 3-5 minutes. I hate that!

The Boston Metro reports this morning that a number of transit projects have received approval from the EPA. These projects include the MBTA's Green Line extension to Somerville and Medford and the Fairmount commuter rail improvement project. The latter initiative will add four new stops between Readville and South Station. Also in the works is a connector between the Blue and Red lines, the only two MBTA subway lines that do not connect. Finally, the T will be adding 1,000 parking spaces at various stations.

NHBR.com published an analysis today of the commuter rail that ran from Southern New Hampshire to Boston in 1980.

Finally, Progressive Railroading made mention of the T's all-time-high ridership numbers.

Dump the Pump Today

Another day in Boston, another rolling victory parade. Will these parades ever get old? I doubt it. I hope people decided to use public transportation to head into Boston for today's Celtics' parade. I heard that the city is going to start closing downtown streets around 9:30 a.m. this morning.

Beyond the Celtics' parade to celebrate their 17th NBA Championship, today is Third Annual Dump the Pump Day. Dump the Pump is designed to raise awareness about the benefits of using public transportation - both from a personal economic standpoint and an environmental standpoint. With gas over $4.00 a gallon here in Massachusetts and in other parts of the country, I think there could be a captive audience listening to ways to "dump the pump."

Even the MBTA is getting in on the action. Did you notice the fancy graphic they created to "dump the pump"?

The MBTA is using "Dump the Pump" to kickoff a promotional campaign designed to encourage more residents to ride the rails (or use the buses and commuter boats). According to Progessive Railroading.com, the MBTA's campaign components include interactive elements along with radio ads and commuter-rail train wraps. Oh, seeing a commuter rail train wrapped with a message could be cool. I wonder if the wraps make it even harder to look out a window?

I heard on Channel 5 this morning that the MBTA will begin modernizing Blue Line stations starting this Saturday, June 21st.

• Phase I will run from June 21st through July 3rd. The Wonderland station will be closed.
  
• Phase II will be from July 5th to August 1st. The Wood Island station will be closed.
  
• Phase III will be from August 2nd to August 15th, closing Revere Beach station.
• Phase IV will be from August 16th to August 29th, shutting down the Beachmont station.

The MBTA will be using buses to transport riders between stations. In some cases, riders may have to take a Blue Line train to a different station. It seems a bit confusing, but I'm sure people will figure it out.

Amtrak has rescheduled the Connecticut Bridge Replacement project. The project will now start on June 24th and end on June 27th. You can read about it in this article posted yesterday afternoon to Boston.com.

Finally, here is an interesting editorial that was published last Friday (June 13th) in The Milford Daily News. The editorial is about different mass transit options for the Metro West area.

Rainy Day Commute on National Donut Day

Today is National Donut Day. Who knew that we had a national day to celebrate donuts? Actually, the day doesn't celebrate donuts - it was originally set up by the Salvation Army to honor the "Lassies" from World War I. But if you check out the information on MSN.com, it is all about the donuts.

For this morning's rainy day commute, I took the P509 out of Grafton. We arrived to South Station at 8:20 a.m.

According to an article that ran on the front page of today's The Boston Globe, the new Blue Line cars have slippery seats. The seats were selected because they are harder to vandalize. While a lot of the people interviewed for the article didn't like the new seats, some people actually prefer them to the old Blue Line car's seats. The new seats are wider.

Stay dry today and stay cool over the weekend. It sounds like it could be our first "summer" scorcha!

Mass. Congressional Committee Stands Up to CSX and a Letter to the Editor

According to an article from today's The Boston Globe, all twelve members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation have sent a "strongly worded letter" to CSX "threatening legislation if the rail-freight giant continues to insist that it should not be held liable for the human cost of train accidents, even when it is at fault."

Despite repeated criticisms of its no-fault arrangements with Amtrak and passenger rail services in other parts of the country, CSX has demanded the same deal as a nonnegotiable part of a proposed sale of its tracks running between Worcester and Framingham.

Massachusetts officials, who are eager to buy the tracks and expand passenger rail service linking Worcester and Boston, have termed the provision outrageous and have labeled it a deal-breaker. Now federal lawmakers have stepped in and are threatening hearings and legislative remedies.

Under the proposed no-fault arrangement, if one of the MBTA's commuter-rail trains crashed and CSX were determined to be at fault, the company would be liable for train and track damage, but not for passenger injuries or deaths. Critics say the provision would protect CSX even if one of its employees was found to have been drinking or using drugs on the job.

"That is a stupid deal to get into," said US Representative James McGovern. "It's nuts."

The letter, sent by Senator John Kerry and signed by the entire delegation noted:

"Expansion of commuter rail service is enormously important to us and our constituents, and we believe that an agreement can be reached without the need for federal interference. However, in the event that no progress is made in the short term, we are prepared to consider congressional action, including potential legislative solutions mandating what is acceptable in freight-commuter rail contracts."

Why is this important? Well, for riders of the Worcester-Framingham commuter rail line, if this issue can resolve it could mean more service between Worcester and Boston.

State officials, led by Lieutenant Governor Timothy Murray, are pushing to double the number of commuter trains serving Worcester, Grafton, Westborough, Southborough, and Ashland. The Worcester-to-Framingham corridor, however, is one of the few stretches of track used by the MBTA's contractor, the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Co., that is not controlled by the state.

In other news, also from The Globe, a Lynn resident sent in a "Letter to the Editor" about the April 6th Globe article on the proposed Blue Line expansion.

My Monday Commute Was Fine

Wow - it is nice to see the sun again. What miserable weather we had this past weekend, huh? I mean - I guess April Showers bring May Flowers, but it would be nice if the temperatures could exceed 35 degrees.

My inbound commute was fine this morning. Although not every Worcester-Framingham line commuter could say that. I heard the P500 that leaves Framingham at 5:40 a.m. had some performance issues.

I took the P508 from Grafton. We were at Back Bay Station at 8:17 a.m. and at South Station for 8:23 a.m. So yet another commute that was right on time.

I still haven't noticed any published On Time Performance Results for March 2008. I did read an interesting article in yesterday's Starts & Stops column in the West version of The Sunday Globe but I can't seem to find it online. I did find this article from yesterday's Globe about the proposed extension of the Blue Line to Lynn. I guess this is something that has been debated since 1947!!! In 2008 dollars, an extension would cost $600 million and probably only provide marginal benefits to the greater Lynn-metro area. Lynn is served with transportation to Boston via both commuter rail (the Newburyport-Rockport line) and bus lines.

I don't live on the North Shore, so I can't speak as a citizen who could be impacted by the Blue Line extension. However, it seems like a lot of money to spend within a transit system that is running out of money. Plus, a lot of Massachusetts cities need an economic boost. This could be interesting.

1 1/2 Good Commutes Then a Bad Commute on the "New" Commuter Rail Schedule for the Worcester-Framingham Line

Ha! Not even two days go by on the new schedule and there are already issues on the commuter rail.

Last evening I arrived at South Station at 6:10 p.m. for the 6:15 p.m. P529 Worcester-Framingham train, only to be met by a swarm of people. Due to "equipment failures" the majority of the trains weren't even in the bays.

We departed late and I arrived to the Grafton station around 7:30 p.m. Overall, the train was about 10-15 minutes behind schedule. This isn't enough for a fare reimbursement, but this will affect the line's "on-time performance" rating for February 2008.

The commute was on time this morning. The train was definitely less crowded than yesterday. I bet people are taking off today and tomorrow for the end of the school vacation week. I don't think the heat was working all too well ... my car was lukewarm. Blah.

In other news, the big MBTA story yesterday and today was in regards to the new cars that were launched on the MBTA Blue Line. The Boston Globe wrote an article about the new cars yesterday and an editorial about the cars today. The editorial lead off with this sentence:

The T needs a financial renovation to match the quality of the cars.

"We're broke," said General Manager Daniel A. Grabauskas earlier this month, explaining that the T faced a $75 million deficit for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. So how could it afford 94 cars costing $172 million? The federal government defrayed 80 percent of the cost, and the rest came from the T's capital budget. But federal aid won't pay the cost of maintaining the cars and stations, nor work down the $8 billion debt that consumes 27 percent of the T budget every year.

The Legislature thought it had solved the problem of T financing in 1999, when it allotted the authority 20 percent of sales tax revenue. That revenue source hasn't grown as expected. By maintaining the heavy burden of T debt and keeping in place expensive labor contracts, the Legislature guaranteed it would need to revisit the problem. At the least, the Legislature should consider moving some T debt to other state accounts, and reexamining the relationship between the authority and its employee unions.

The Patrick administration is also looking for new approaches to transportation funding, for highways as well as the T. While new cars are fun to ride and easy for public officials to celebrate, as they did at the Aquarium station yesterday, there is little glory in providing money to keep up day-to-day service.

Then the editorial board provided a bit of history of the MBTA Blue line. The editorial closed with the following:

Seventeen months after the Orient Heights gala, on Saturday, Dec. 6, 1980, the entire MBTA system shut down because of a lack of money. An energized Legislature got it back in operation in time for the Monday commute. The political leadership of Massachusetts shouldn't wait for a crisis to put the MBTA on a sustainable financial footing

I agree - the political leadership AND the business leadership in Massachusetts needs to ensure that the MBTA is on a "substantial financial footing." There is too much at stake to not ensure that the Commonwealth has an adequate public transportation system that serves citizens. Cities and towns are reliant on this transportation. Not to mention that our crowded highways can't endure more congestion.