Pretty good transit service

RailBus63 wrote:

jonnhrr wrote:When I compare the T today to when I first started riding it in the early '60's, when it was the old MTA there is no comparison. Run down stations, ancient equipment such as the "Dr Zhivago" 0600's on the Red Line and the old Blue line cars, with wooden seats, bare light bulbs and no air conditioning. They were great for railfans but not for the riding public.

Over the years things gradually improved as the region came to its senses and realized transit had an important role to play.

Having ridden the systems in Philadelphia (where I lived for 20 years) and London I have to say they all share a similar problem which is chronic under-funding, resulting in deferred maintenance and resulting reliability problems.

While it is true that today's cars are much more comfortable, MBTA service has deteriorated in other ways. One of the biggest issues I see is the runaway use of technology such as cab signals. Back in the days of wayside signals, knowledgeable operations and dispatching personnel had a lot more leeway in running trains closer together, and I recall trains getting the OK to pass a red signal to pull a train into an empty station when appropriate. Today's signal system seems unusually restrictive by comparison, resulting in slow running and unexplained stops between stations. It never seemed to work right when I commuted every day on the Red Line back in the 1980's and it seems even worse today. The trains themselves have also become far too complex. All of these technologies break down far too often compared to the 'Dr. Zhivago' and PCC technologies they replaced.

Jim

Of course, at the same time, the culture of the day was a lot more tolerant of 'acceptable risk." While older systems could tolerate something akin to the Green Line's signal system, today our culture says we cannot allow any risk to enter into the equation -- hence the high tech solution to provide guaranteed enforcement of signal indications. You'd never get the Green Line built today with a system that relies exclusively for human operators to follow and obey a signal light -- no one trusts people anymore! (Note: Unless you are building bus rapid transit...then anything goes!)

In the broader sense, though, there needs to be an acceptance on the part of the T that their maintenance is just not going to be good enough to handle some aspects of the technology they are procuring, though. I'll admit that there's no way around installing fairly complex cab signal and train control systems nowadays, but some other choices seem perplexing. Take the LCD signs on the 01800s. Red Line cars only need three signs under normal conditions, and maybe four or five others for occasional use -- why not stick with automatic rollsigns. I can't remember the last time I saw a train of 01800s with all signs working and legible. The KISS method does need to be taken a bit more seriously.

Of course I'd feel better about the MBTA if the administration got more serious about the extension to Medford, and honored their commitment to restore Arborway.

I can say this, when I lived in Boston, I lived near the Mission Hill stop, and I have no idea what may have been of interest to see beyone Heath Street because it was inconvenient for me to travel down South Huntington. If I was going out to get something, it was easier to go inbound to get it were I could ride the trolley all the way, even if I had to go to Brookline via the 'C' line!

The amount of custom that South Huntington lost from me is negligable, but I'm sure I'm not the only college student who couldn't be bothered to go anywere the train system couldn't take them.

And I should say that during the time that I lived in Boston, the T only let me down once, when the red line broke down on my way to a job interview.