Who's got the worst transit?

[Gary McGath]

Keith is always bragging that the DC metro is the worst in the USA, but
Boston is giving it strong competition.

The MBTA, or T, has four train lines that are subways in Boston; they're
called the Red, Green, Blue, and Orange Lines. (There's also a Silver
Line, which isn't actually a line but several disjoint express bus
routes.) As of today, only the Blue Line would get you into downtown
Boston, and it's the shortest of the four lines, going from downtown to
a little way up the North Shore.

https://www.universalhub.com/2024/whats-going-dtx-t-seems-under-big-hex

--
Gary McGath http://www.mcgath.com

[James Nicoll]

In article <uo6clk$1hd7g$1...@dont-email.me>,

Surely, no transit is worse than bad transit, so all the cities and
towns without are worse off than either DC or Boston?



--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
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My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

[Gary McGath]

On 1/16/24 12:14 PM, James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <uo6clk$1hd7g$1...@dont-email.me>,
> Gary McGath <ga...@mcgath.com> wrote:
>> Keith is always bragging that the DC metro is the worst in the USA, but
>> Boston is giving it strong competition.
>>
>> The MBTA, or T, has four train lines that are subways in Boston; they're
>> called the Red, Green, Blue, and Orange Lines. (There's also a Silver
>> Line, which isn't actually a line but several disjoint express bus
>> routes.) As of today, only the Blue Line would get you into downtown
>> Boston, and it's the shortest of the four lines, going from downtown to
>> a little way up the North Shore.
>>
>> https://www.universalhub.com/2024/whats-going-dtx-t-seems-under-big-hex
>>
> Surely, no transit is worse than bad transit, so all the cities and
> towns without are worse off than either DC or Boston?

Most towns are too small to support a rail transit system, including the
one I live in. If there's no transit system, people know it and will
plan their commute accordingly; if they rely on its promises and it
fails them, they're screwed.

[Scott Dorsey]

Gary McGath <ga...@mcgath.com> wrote:
>Keith is always bragging that the DC metro is the worst in the USA, but
>Boston is giving it strong competition.

The Boston system is far worse.

DC is having a lot of problems right now because they are trying to clean
up after years of deferred maintenance. This is difficult since the system
is designed with lines going in and out of downtown but no ring routes.
So if you close one section of track, you basically put half the route out
of service completely. It's not like the NY or Paris systems where it is
possible to shut down one track and just send passengers on a different
route to the same place.

So the repairs that DC is doing are affecting people more severely than
they would normally. And a lot of them are repairs that should have been
done years ago but weren't because of the impact of shutting anything down.

DC still has plenty of problems. They still have union issues, they still
haven't got their 1970s vintage automation system working properly again,
and they still have plenty of track issues. But DC is on the upswing,
even if it's not as sharp as one might like. People are out there doing
track maintenance again instead of sitting by the tracks in Metro uniforms
with crackpipes.

But Boston... Boston doesn't seem to be doing actual repairs. And they
have the same issues of having a system designed to get people in and out
of the city with no rings. In Boston stuff is really just falling apart.

Interestingly enough, the Boston light rail system, which ALSO has no rings,
is actually doing pretty well and seems to have really good reliability
statistics.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>Surely, no transit is worse than bad transit, so all the cities and
>towns without are worse off than either DC or Boston?

Good public transit is used by everyone, rich and poor. It reduces the
number of cars on the road.

Bad public transit is used only by the people who have no choice but to
use public transit. People who have the opportunity to drive will do so
in preference to taking public transit. Now you have cars AND busses on
the road.

[Keith F. Lynch]

Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote:
> Gary McGath <ga...@mcgath.com> wrote:
>> Keith is always bragging that the DC metro is the worst in the USA,
>> but Boston is giving it strong competition.

I never said the DC Metro system was the worst in the US. How could I
even know that?

ObFandom: Indeed, I once posted here that I went to Ravencon in
Richmond by taking Greyhound to downtown then walking to the con hotel
at the airport. That walk took five hours. There was a city bus I
could have taken instead of walking, but it would have taken even
longer. Now *that's* a bad transit system.

What I have done is debunked effusive praise of the DC Metro system,
which invariably came from people far from DC, or at least from those
who never used the system.

What might be special about DC Metro is the extraordinarily low ratio
of usable service to money spent. The system is a black hole that
sucks in dollars from all over the US and produces nothing in return
but faint Hawking radiation, i.e. occasionally when everything goes
right it's actually faster to ride than to walk. Whenever that
happens, I'm tempted to report it to the police, given that their PA
system, when it's working, constantly announces that you should report
anything unusual.

I'm speaking of the Metrorail system. The Metrobus system, run by
the same organization, WMATA, is so bad that lots of local governments
have established their own bus systems, including Fairfax Connector,
Arlington Transit, OmniRide, CUE, DASH, OmniLink, George, Ride On, The
Bus, Jitney Bus, DC Circulator, and TransIT. Some of these work well,
but of course don't typically cross county or state lines. (The DC
area comprises DC proper, Montgomery and PG counties in Maryland,
Arlington and Fairfax counties in Virginia, and the independent cities
of Fairfax, Falls Church, and Alexandria in Virginia.)

> DC is having a lot of problems right now because they are trying to
> clean up after years of deferred maintenance.

What year are you posting from? They first used that excuse more
than 20 years ago. They then started intensive maintenance that made
large sections of the rail system completely unusable for months at a
time, but which never seemed to make anything better. This intensive
maintenance *never* *ended*. It's still going on. Every year or two
they pull a Groundhog Day and use the exact same excuse, i.e. that
they are about to "start" intensive maintenance since maintenance had
been totally neglected since the system was first built.

There are track fires that have suffocated passengers to death. The
new 6000 series of train cars had a problem with cars uncoupling while
trains were in motion. The even newer 7000 series of train cars has a
problem with wheels coming loose and sliding along the axles, causing
derailments. They never even *tried* to figure out why that was
happening. (Some things were never meant for man to know.) Instead,
they do frequent, intensive, and expensive inspections of all 7000
series rail cars to see whether the wheels have come loose again.

The first part of the Silver Line opened in 2014, *decades* late.
Just six years later they shut it down for the whole summer for
intensive maintenance and rebuilding. The second part of the Silver
Line opened in 2022. It turned out to have rotten concrete. Instead
of tearing out and fixing it at the expense of those responsible, they
decided to just coat it to keep water out, figuring that that would
probably work well enough. Of course the coating wears off with time,
so frequent intensive inspections will be necessary in perpetuity.

It's not a transportation system, it's a jobs & grift program. And
a fetish object for politicians to pose in front of while boasting of
how green they are for giving billions of dollars of other people's
money to the system. It can sometimes be used as a slow and
inefficient form of transportation, but that's like defending Bitcoin
based on at-home Bitcoin mining being a good way to heat one's house,
or like saying that kinky boots designed specifically for porn videos
are useful for hiking in.

There's a myth that ridership dropped during the pandemic. Well,
it did, but the implication that it was highest just before that is
wrong. It peaked in 2008, even though most of the money spent on
the system has been spent since then, and even though the system
has more stations and track miles than ever before.

One of the worst things about the system is all the lies. Lies often
seemingly designed to inconvenience passengers and taxpayers as much
as possible. For instance Metro has promised to stay open late during
major sports events, only to close at the usual time, stranding tens
of thousands of sports fans. Gotcha!

"Stesseling" means for an official to tell lies so outrageous that
nobody is expected to believe them, but they had better pretend to
believe them if they know what's good for them. It's apparently done
mostly as a show of power. It's named for Metro's former spokesman,
Dan Stessel, who was notorious for this.

I remember one line that was shut down for more than a month just for
installation of cell phone service in the tunnel. They used that
excuse twice, a couple years apart, for the same line.

And now Metro is once again saying that they need subsidy increases
far in excess of inflation, or they will be forced to close half the
stations, run trains only during peak commuting hours, and run only
one or two trains per hour on each line.

> DC still has plenty of problems. They still have union issues,

Indeed. Driving a Metro train is so simple that any child tall enough
to see through the windshield can do it. (I have a copy of their
manual.) But their drivers, janitors, etc., make six-figure salaries.
Even the ones who work only in Virginia, even though Virginia is a
"right to work" state (i.e. no closed (union members only) shops).

I'm not anti-union, but unions shouldn't be allowed to hold America
hostage. Truman, a Democrat, broke the steel union. Reagan, a
Republican, broke the air traffic controllers union. I think it's
time to break the transit union. Fire everyone and replace them
with the chronically unemployed. They couldn't do any worse.

> they still haven't got their 1970s vintage automation system working
> properly again, and they still have plenty of track issues.

Indeed. After a fatal collision due to that system malfunctioning,
they "temporarily" shut it down and went to manual control (which
has resulted in lots of minor injuries when the train suddenly jerks
back into motion immediately after stopping at a station, just as
passengers are starting to stand up, as the driver discovers the train
isn't in quite the right place.

That malfunction was 15 years ago, and it's still shut down. It took
less time to put a man on the moon.

And some escalators have taken even longer than that to repair. They
then have a major photo op around the repaired escalators, as if it
was one of mankind's greatest achievements. Often, shortly after
the last reporters pack up their cameras and notebooks and leave,
it breaks down again, as defunct as the grandfather clock in the
old poem.

I have no college degree. I was falsely convicted of a felony.
But what finally forced me into early retirement was the increasing
unreliability of Metro. Similarly with tens of thousand of other
people in the greater DC area.

Even Metro employees aren't expected to ride it. The new Metro
headquarters building, in downtown DC near all six Metrorail lines,
has four levels of parking. How else can they be expected to get
to work?
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

[WolfFan]

On Jan 16, 2024, Gary McGath wrote
(in article <uo6clk$1hd7g$1...@dont-email.me>):

> Keith is always bragging that the DC metro is the worst in the USA, but
> Boston is giving it strong competition.

Neither Boston nor DC are even in the top (bottom?) five. Here in Deepest
South Florida we have TriRail. TriRail is called that because it services
(oh, yeah...) the tri-county area: Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach.
TriRail runs one, and only one, line right down the coast. Dade has another
rail service which links to TriRail and goes west and then south. A little.

We also have Brightline. Brightline starts in Miami, at the TriRail station
which links with Dade’s boondoggle, and heads up the coast on the same line
that TriRail uses. It then turns west for Orlando. The real purpose is to
link Orlando with Miami. Note that the cruise ship piers are close to the
Miami TriRail station. Dusney owns some cuise ships which operate out of the
cruise ship piers. Disney owns a lot of stuff in Orlando; you may have
vaugely heard of their operation. Brightline stops at several TriRail
stations on the way from Miami to Orlando. By sheerest co-incidence one of
the stops is conveniently close to the Seminole Indian’s Scalp The Paleface
Operation... that is to the Seminole Hard Rock Casino. Amazing how that
works.

Amtrak runs down the same lines as TriRail and Brightline, except Amtrak
doesn’t turn west for Orlando, it just heads north to irrelevance. Amtrak
stops at many of the stations that TriRail and Brightline use. The track is
single, not, repeat, NOT, double tracked.

The West Palm Beach Station, used by TriRail, Brightline, and Amtrak, is deep
in the worst part of town. It’s a bad idea to park your car there, you
probably won’t find it when you come back. And that’s despite the close
and loving attention that the station gets from the West Palm Beach Police
(West Palm Police HQ is about two miles east of the station) and the Palm
Beach County Sheriff’s Office (PBSO HQ is about five miles west) and at
least three different Federal LEOs (the Federal Building is half a mile from
West Palm Police HQ; the Border cops and ICE are have an annex at Palm Beach
International Airport, just north of PBSO HQ). All I have to say is that
someone once stole a marked Riveria Beach Police car from the West Palm train
station parking lot.

Let’s just say that despite the tricounty's population (Dade is about 2.7
million, Broward 1.9 million, Palm Beac 1.7 million) ridership is not high.
Each county has a bus service. The buses are not numerous, and some stop near
the train stations. As there is no track network, just a single TriRail line,
if you use pub;ilic transport you will be using the bus or
taxi/iber/lyft/whatever.

The track runs close to I-95 for a good bit of its run through Palm Beach
County. It is possible, when not at rush hour, to drive faster than a TriRail
train runs; guess how I know. (TriRail is much faster during rush hour, of
course)

It’s more efficient to use your car. It really is. Especially if you’re
going somewhere more than a few miles from the coast.

[Gary McGath]

On 1/16/24 8:15 PM, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> I'm speaking of the Metrorail system. The Metrobus system, run by
> the same organization, WMATA, is so bad that lots of local governments
> have established their own bus systems, including Fairfax Connector,
> Arlington Transit, OmniRide, CUE, DASH, OmniLink, George, Ride On, The
> Bus, Jitney Bus, DC Circulator, and TransIT. Some of these work well,
> but of course don't typically cross county or state lines.

Oddly, the bus service in the town where I live does cross state lines.
It's based in the neighboring city of Haverhill, Mass., and riding is
free. However, the nearest bus stop is over a mile away, so I haven't
found a reason to use it yet. It could be useful if my car is ever in an
extended stay for repairs, since walking one mile to the bus stop is
better than four miles to downtown Haverhill.

[Kevrob]

I frequently visit friends who live in Northern Rhode Island. I have noticed
RIPTA buses that go as far as Attleboro, MA (or S Attleboro, or North.)
I haven't taken it.

There's an MBTA train out of the Providence Amtrak station. I have
made the trip by transit to within 3 miles of my friends' house.
The last stop is across the street from his mother's, and as he
sometimes "works from home" from her kitchen table I could cross
the avenue and visit with them, then on to his house. I can take a
city bus to our local Amtrak station, with only 1 transfer.

--
Kevin R

[Jeff Jonas]

> ... Here in Deepest South Florida we have TriRail.

I used TriRail to & from
FLL (Ft Lauderdale airport) and Boca Raton (Yamato Road)
for only $5. Then a $15 Uber to my parents' place.
Vs. $100+ for an airport car service.
The trains were on time and just fine.
Yes, I had to use a connecting bus to the airport (free)
but things really did connect.

> We also have Brightline.

Sadly, those grade level crossings are in the news often
for the gruesome collisions with Darwin Award winners
who drive around the gates.

--

[D]

In sweden I saw in the news that the mid- and long-range trains where on
time only 82% of the time last year.

[Scott Dorsey]

In article <e87dac41-2924-0fb5...@example.net>,

That's better than Amtrak. And I bet that the ones that were late were only
late by minutes rather than days.

Sweden, though, is starting to get some competition to the SJ, though.
I wound up riding MTRX from Stockholm out to Gothenburg last year and
then FlixTrain back and I was vaguely amused by the SJ staff's attitude
toward the new outfits muscling in on their territory. I do think that
competition is the key to getting better service.

[Tim Merrigan]

Isn't it something like that for Amtrak?
--

Qualified immunity = virtual impunity.

Tim Merrigan

--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
www.avg.com

[D]

True. I'm not a train aficionado so how does it work with all these
companies? After all, they all use the same track so how do they benefit
the consumer?

When it comes to how delayed I don't have any statistics. This winter
though had some -40 C days in northern sweden that killed all traffic due
to safety concerns. You don't want to have a broken car or train anywhere
when it's -40 C.

As for me, the best train service I ever had in sweden, was when I by
mistake ended up in the same train wagon as the ministers in the
government a decade ago. Everything was free, everyone was polite,
lightning quick service. I had no idea until I saw almost all government
ministers sitting around me.

I have no idea how I made it in there and why no one said anything, but
such is life!

[Scott Dorsey]

D <nos...@example.net> wrote:
>True. I'm not a train aficionado so how does it work with all these
>companies? After all, they all use the same track so how do they benefit
>the consumer?

If one is to believe Adam Smith, people will in the end pick the service
which best suits them, whether that is the cheapest ticket, the train
with the best alcoholic beverages, or the train that is most often on
time. In the end this results in the service that most pleases the most
people, as other competitors begin to provide whatever it is that people
want in order to match them.

Unfortunately what I want is not always what other people want, so I do
not always find competition as effective as I might like.

>When it comes to how delayed I don't have any statistics. This winter
>though had some -40 C days in northern sweden that killed all traffic due
>to safety concerns. You don't want to have a broken car or train anywhere
>when it's -40 C.

The only train I want to be on when it is -40 C is the train out of there,
possibly the one going to the Riviera.

>As for me, the best train service I ever had in sweden, was when I by
>mistake ended up in the same train wagon as the ministers in the
>government a decade ago. Everything was free, everyone was polite,
>lightning quick service. I had no idea until I saw almost all government
>ministers sitting around me.
>
>I have no idea how I made it in there and why no one said anything, but
>such is life!

I am impressed that your ministers would take the train in the first place.
This is a sign of a government that eats its own dog food and I wish more
did that.

[Gary McGath]

On 2/21/24 4:55 PM, D wrote:
>
> As for me, the best train service I ever had in sweden, was when I by
> mistake ended up in the same train wagon as the ministers in the
> government a decade ago. Everything was free, everyone was polite,
> lightning quick service. I had no idea until I saw almost all government
> ministers sitting around me.
>
> I have no idea how I made it in there and why no one said anything, but
> such is life!

I can guess. The conductors didn't dare question anyone's presence in
the car, since they might be challenging a VIP who'd forgotten their
ticket and could cause lots of trouble if annoyed. The ministers assumed
you must be someone's secret guest and didn't ask questions for the same
reason. Ironically, that made it easy for anyone to sneak aboard.

Just a guess, though.

[D]

On Thu, 21 Feb 2024, Scott Dorsey wrote:

> D <nos...@example.net> wrote:
>> True. I'm not a train aficionado so how does it work with all these
>> companies? After all, they all use the same track so how do they benefit
>> the consumer?
>
> If one is to believe Adam Smith, people will in the end pick the service
> which best suits them, whether that is the cheapest ticket, the train
> with the best alcoholic beverages, or the train that is most often on
> time. In the end this results in the service that most pleases the most
> people, as other competitors begin to provide whatever it is that people
> want in order to match them.
>

Sounds to me like, as you say, they can only compete on "extras" or price.
Since they are all using the same track, I would expect punctuality to be
about the same for most of them unless on company bought crappy trains
from the start.

> Unfortunately what I want is not always what other people want, so I do
> not always find competition as effective as I might like.

This happens to me with TV-shows and small coffee shops run and owned by
individuals. I enjoy when the coffee shop owner sees me entering and asks
me "the usual". Sadly that shop closed. =(

>> When it comes to how delayed I don't have any statistics. This winter
>> though had some -40 C days in northern sweden that killed all traffic due
>> to safety concerns. You don't want to have a broken car or train anywhere
>> when it's -40 C.
>
> The only train I want to be on when it is -40 C is the train out of there,
> possibly the one going to the Riviera.

Agreed!

>> As for me, the best train service I ever had in sweden, was when I by
>> mistake ended up in the same train wagon as the ministers in the
>> government a decade ago. Everything was free, everyone was polite,
>> lightning quick service. I had no idea until I saw almost all government
>> ministers sitting around me.
>>
>> I have no idea how I made it in there and why no one said anything, but
>> such is life!
>
> I am impressed that your ministers would take the train in the first place.
> This is a sign of a government that eats its own dog food and I wish more
> did that.
> --scott

Well, I wouldn't be so quick to draw any conclusions from one trip. There
have been plenty of joy-riding in the government jet as well, but
_generally_ I've seen politicians from time to time ride on regular trains
and regular planes. Come to think of it, I sat behind a member of the
parliament once and she was talking with an old woman about democracy and
it was interesting to hear some insider stories. A colleague of mine once
sat next to the ex-minister of state (a socialist) and took great delight
in telling him how much he disagreed with him and how bad he thought he
did his job. The result was two grumpy men sitting in ice cold silence the
rest of the trip.

[D]

You are probably right. Fun experience though! =)