Article about few outside persons that made recommendations to MBTA that were initaially derided ( who would have thought ?) but finall implemented. Saved money and sped up late night service. The most important item is that MBTA is seriously considering electrification ? late might bus service, speeding up connections from late night green line, connecting red and blue lines.
Group observed that all train lines had many platforms that only had partial high level platforms that was causing the persons leaving trains at low locations increasing dwell at those stations.
The electrification might mean there is yet a location for the HHP-8s and AEM-7ACs to find a temporary home ? A lot to read !
A cursory read of the Regional Rail report suggests that MBTA is proposing to turn its commuter rail operation into something they may not be able to afford. It appears that electrification is being considered primarily to support an MU-car operation, allowing very short (1-2 cars) consists for midday runs. DMU operation might be a better consideration since it avoids the electrification expense. B&M suburban trains were all RDC’s all the time prior to the MBTA so it has been done.
One question comes up: Does the report raise the issue of renegotiating existing labor contracts over crew requirements, especially for short midday trains?
Electrification of the Purple NEC service is really a no-brainder, since the cat is there already for Amtrak. Massachusettes would have to pay for additional substation capacity. The improvement in operations would easily be worth the equipment and substation costs. The next step would be the branches off the NEC.
The real piece missig is the North Station - South Station tunnel, whose operatoin would require electrification.
Boston could lean a lesson from Phily, where they connected the Reading and PRR terminals with a tunnel, and simplified operations to the point of eliminating Reading Terminal and making trains run-thru.
MBTA Blue Hill Avenue Station Opens to Fairmount Line Customers on February 25
The MBTA has announced that the brand new Blue Hill Avenue Station will open to Fairmount Line customers at the start of service on Monday, February 25, 2019.
MBTA
Mayor Martin J. Walsh submitted a $3.48 billion budget plan to the City Council Wednesday, a spending increase of five percent over the last year, including additional funding to address the city’s housing crisis and education.
The spending proposal, for the fiscal year that begins July 1, includes $1.139 billion for city schools, the most ever, including $15 million to set up universal pre-kindergarten services for Boston’s 4-year-olds, which the mayor has said will happen in five years.
The city’s plan would provide free MBTA passes to all students in Grades 7-12 and direct $2.5 million to high-need students.
Current students shouldn’t have to pay to go to or from school. (Of course this raises the issues of how students avoid being mugged for their valuable passes, how ‘noncurrent’ students keep or lose their exempt status, how the credentials are electronically managed, etc. – we’ll see if the Bostonians have considered these sorts of things.)
I might add that I’d reward students who perform well (perhaps tied to GPA, although I’d prefer a better form of appraisal that can be ‘formalized’ to electronic pass control) with free transit on a more widespread basis – perhaps even to longer trips. Rewards that can be perceived as meaning something.
Same with universal pre-K, which has the fringe benefit that it’s essentially free daycare for working parents. The question I’d raise is whether the universal program can instill some kind of working love of academic discipline in the children that will carry over to “regular” public school … that should almost be Job 1 for the folks doing the teaching, as they might be able over time to head off many of the current tendencies for ‘diverse culture’ to disparage formal education.
A lot of that has more to do with overly permissive parents, ‘helicopter’ parents, ‘snowplow’ parents and fears of parental litigation by teachers and school systems. This is very true in monoculture schools, such as in well-off suburbs, though the miscreants’ behaviors differ.
We’ll see how this works out but prior efforts have not been sucessful in the long run. Early childhood education for those in getto or other disadvantaged backgrounds helps for the earliest grades but by 3rd or 4th grade only a small percentage are not back to the level of those from similar background who didn’t take the early childhood education.
Penn State’s Agr. Extension offices got mutimillion dollar grants to run 4H in Philadelphia during the late 1990’s and into this century to see if that would help keep the local kids out of trouble and do better in the public school. It helped until they reached the age of 10 or 11. Then they dropped out in mass due to peer pressure put on them (“4H is whitey” type pressure and/or “4H is not cool” pressure), plus the gangs didn’t want it so once the 4H kids reached that age they were targeted. So the progam was then abandoned as not cost effective.
Same with universal pre-K, which has the fringe benefit that it’s essentially free daycare for working parents. The question I’d raise is whether the universal program can instill some kind of working love of academic discipline in the children that will carry over to “regular” public school … that should almost be Job 1 for the folks doing the teaching, as they might be able over time to head off many of the current tendencies for ‘diverse culture’ to disparage formal education.
