MBTA

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Draft Commuter Rail Schedules and Opportunities for Public Input

The MBTA has rolled out a public engagement process to solicit feedback on proposed changes to the commuter rail schedules. The public comment period will run from January 7th through February 12th. This post contains links to proposed changes to the Fitchburg line and to other lines. The finalized schedules will be announced in April and will go into effect on Monday, May 23rd.

After a year of work and $32 MM dollars, MBTA failed again

A piece of broken rail forced shuttle service along the Ashmont branch of the Red Line during rush hour Tuesday morning, an issue the MBTA believes resulted from a quick drop in temperature this week. “The exact cause remains under investigation, but it is believed to be related to the extreme drop in temperatures (from …

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Leadership — the scarce resource in the transportation system

Leadership is scarce in the transportation system in Massachusetts. By that, I emphatically do not mean that the current leadership is weak. Rather, I mean that every management team has a finite capacity to plan and to solve problems and that the range of challenges facing MassDOT’s management team is very broad.

MBTA cancels contracts for Green Line extension

Dear Will, Following our discussion on the Waverley square ABA renovation, here is another news demonstrate the incompetence of DOT and MBAT http://www.boston.com/news/2015/12/10/mbta-cancels-contracts-for-green-line-extension/WGWg5TobNPN3dQYxD9QXHN/story.html?p1=menu_business_latest Thanks god Beverly Scott was fired during last winter fiasco. And a lot more is needed to correct the ship. Voluntary retirement will not work for MBTA. We need to keep firing …

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The obligation to upgrade the Waverley Station

How is it that a $400,000 maintenance investment by the MBTA in the Waverley station could trigger an obligation to spend tens of millions to make the station fully accessible, or in the alternative, to close the station? This post provides background on the Architectural Access Board, and how it has followed the law (and its own rules) in making this determination.