From T GM Dan Grabauskas’s latest “From the GM” column on the MBTA’s website:

“Certainly, future fare increases will be necessary. But I have heard loudly and clearly from many that fare increases must be preceded by improvements to the way we do business. That’s where the new automatic fare collection system, improved maintenance of the system, and other customer service enhancements come in.”

Pretty vague there, Dan. First of all, I’m not at all sure how much of an improvement the new automatic fare collection system will be. It may be more of a lateral move. Machines will break down. It happens. Service on machines will be slow and subpar. That’s just how it is. Nor am I sure that the new system will stop rampant fare evasion like I’ve seen T employees complicit in on the green and orange lines (I’m sure it happens on the red line, too, but personally I have not seen it). I would like to know, specifically, how automated service is supposed to improve service.

And “improved maintenance” and “other customer service enhancements” are both rhetorical flourishes, with absolutely no substance. Obviously. I mean, check out Grabauskas’s flippant assertion: “You’ll see us uphold the basic principles of quality customer service. It’s not a complicated practice. By doing an excellent job for today’s customer, we will gain a new customer tomorrow.” Coming from the T, these words have no intelligible meaning whatsoever. He might as well be barking like a dog.

Grabauskas also toots the T’s horn for doing the minimal to comply with the ADA.

They should be ashamed of this, as they should be of their idea of “upholding the basic principles of quality customer service”. Even the phrase is underwhelming. Try “we will strive to exceed customer’s expectations.” I mean, if it’s just rhetoric, why not go all the way?

By the way, if you missed the public meeting last night in Boston (and seeing as there were only about a hundred people there, you probably did), don’t despair, there are plenty more in various communities through the 25th. Try to attend at least one. You can find a list HERE.

Note that you will have another chance to show your opposition to fare increases in Boston on June 6th, from 4:30 P.M. - 6:30 P.M., at the Boston Public Library.

From The Herald.

From PR Newswire:

BOSTON, May 11 /PRNewswire/ — The former Superintendent of Revenue Collection for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (”MBTA”) was sentenced today on tax evasion charges.

United States Attorney Michael J. Sullivan; Douglas A. Bricker, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Boston Division; Theodore L. Doherty III, Special Agent in Charge of the New England Regional Office of the United States Department of Transportation, Office of Inspector General and Joseph Carter, Chief of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (”MBTA”) Police, announced today that MARY LEMPITSKI, age 48, of 58 Carolina Avenue, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, has been sentenced to a term of one year and one day in federal prison for tax evasion.

In addition, LEMPITSKI must pay a fine of $10,000 and serve a term of three years supervised release, during which she must make restitution with the Internal Revenue Service.

At the sentencing hearing before United States District Court Judge William G. Young, the prosecutor outlined some of the evidence: From 2000 through 2003 LEMPITSKI spent at least $314,000, all in cash — above and beyond any cash withdrawals coming from bank accounts or otherwise traceable to any legitimate source. LEMPITSKI spent much of that cash at high-end department stores and boutiques. At times, sales clerks would have to call for security assistance when LEMPITSKI came shopping; there was not enough room in the cash register for the stacks of bills she used to pay for her purchases. As noted in the Indictment, the bulk of the cash went for designer jewelry, clothing, shoes and cosmetics for LEMPITSKI’s personal use. None of this cash was declared on LEMPITSKI’s tax returns.

As noted in the Indictment, LEMPITSKI was the Superintendent of Revenue Collection for the MBTA. In that capacity, LEMPITSKI oversaw the operations of a facility known as the MBTA “Money Room,” which is the central cash repository for revenues collected by the MBTA daily. The Indictment alleges that, during the years 2000 through 2002, the MBTA Money Room routinely contained hundreds of thousands of dollars in uncounted and unregistered cash.

At sentencing, the prosecutor noted that the government believed — but could not prove — that the unaccounted for cash was stolen from the MBTA Money Room.

In sentencing LEMPITSKI, Judge Young noted that, although the government had not proven any theft charge, it appeared that LEMPITSKI’s extra cash must have come from some form of misconduct. Judge Young further commented that he thought LEMPITSKI was stealing from a public authority as a public official.

The case was investigated by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General, Office of Investigations, and the MBTA Police. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul G. Levenson in Sullivan’s Public Corruption and Special Prosecutions Unit.

SOURCE: U.S. Attorney

HERE.

I refuse to applaud the MBTA for finally–FINALLY–coming into compliance with THE LAW, as regards their new PA system. As The Globe reports, “with the system, the T will finally comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, a federal law [passed in 1990] that calls for both audio and visual announcements for passengers who are visually- or hearing-impaired.” They have, as usual, done the minimum, and then tooted their own horns as loud as they can, about what a big-ass favor they’re doing us all.

But the media is aiding and abetting them. Even the article in The Globe buried the fact that this was a requirement for the T in paragraph 18 of 22.

At least The Globe mentions that “other newer major transit systems are well ahead of the T on announcing train arrivals. On the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, for instance, multicolored displays show the number of minutes remaining until trains pull into the station. In Europe, train announcements are a tradition, and at some stations, a digital clock counts down the seconds until a train arrives.”

The qualifier “newer” is key here. Even The Globe is making excuses for the T. But it’s mostly meaningless. We all know there’s scarcely an underground system older in the world. And it’s a mistake to think that older systems are of necessity poorly adapted to modern riders. The Budapest Metro, the oldest subway system in Continental Europe, and the second oldest—after London’s—in the world, and one with which I am way too intimately familiar, was inaugurated in 1896, a year before Boston’s. Yet, for decades they’ve had displays in the stations that tell you how much time has elapsed between trains, and clearly-posted, easy-to-read schedules that they’re fairly good at sticking to. I mean, at a minimum.

Please, please, please, no more excuses for the MBTA, and no more of this cynical pomp and circumstance for their shamefully slow implementation of federal law.

The truth is I’m a cheap bastard in the first place. I quit buying cigarettes and started bumming them when a pack of Viceroys got to about what a trip on the T costs now. I’ll quit the T, too, and start bumming rides, if the fare gets too out of hand. If you’re not good with money, you’ve got to be good at making friends with money. Those are the only two ways to get by in the world today.

Remember, it was not so long ago that we were getting the same service for 85¢. When I first came to Boston, it was 85¢ and it stayed that way for nearly a decade. And it was an impressive system at 85¢ a pop.

But nothing would make it worth a buck-seventy. Nothing would make it worth $750 a year for a monthly subway pass. Nothing. Not flowers and chocolates. Not champagne and sushi. Not daily foot-rubs, tongue baths and blowjobs from a personal harem of plus-size T conductors in thongs and the GM himself. Nothing. N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

I’ve heard a lot of people’s ideas about what would make it worth it to them: improved infrastructure, updated equipment, more trains, faster service. But that’s way too pie in the sky for me, especially since the proposed increase is not earmarked for improvements, but for merely maintaining “basic services”.

The problem with the T is that the higher the fares, the worse the service will get, because riders will be ever more outraged by the ever-lousier yet more expensive service, and T employees will continue to be rude and unreceptive while providing that lousy service for which they are so well-known and in which they apparently take great pride. Because the T currently exists to serve the T, and not those who ride it.

We know, as the Bureau of Transportation Statistics says, that “a major reason for [the T’s annual operating defecit] is the fact that Boston’s transit work force is among the highest paid in the country.” Consider that almost 55% of the operating budget of the T goes to payroll, and a third of that to fringe benefits. We have all heard about the generous pension offered by the T, for which employees are eligible after only 23 years. An antiquated and counterproductive system of seniority still governs the T. In ’05 The MBTA Advisory Board observed that rampant absenteeism is costing the T $4 million a year in overtime. Thus far, the T has done nothing about it. The T continues to reward bad behavior and lackluster job performance.

Add to this the BTS’s findings that in addition to payroll, bloated costs are due to the “MBTA’s outdated equipment and the fact that it generates much of its own power in inefficient, oil-burning power plants,” and it’s clear that the problem is systemic. The cost of fares will continue to rise while improvements will be minimal or redundant (like the informative flashy new electronic signs in Downtown Crossing that say simply, “No Smoking” and “for more information go to mbta.com”–Gee, thanks).

This is why it’s hard for me to justify paying more for fare, because it’s not going to fix what’s broken: the unions, bad contracts for grossly overpriced generally faulty equipment as the rule, and the legislature’s “forward-funding” plan, which just ain’t cutting it, either.

And one last little note. I just think it’s ironic, all that money that went into the fiscal black hole that is the Big Dig. These fare hikes are about priorities–of commuters, of the T, of this city.

Read the Patriot Ledger’s view HERE.

I agree with The Herald that two of the biggest problems facing the MBTA and its riders are “forward funding” and the worker’s unions.

While I’m all for worker’s rights, I’m not for leveraging them to gouge other workers, like me, for example. Especially at a time when workers in general are being so egregiously treated by employers everywhere. What makes it worse is the level of service on the T. While there are many exceptions, I’m sure (there must be, right?), bad behavior seems, sadly, to be the norm. And I guarantee you’d be sickened to know what the median income of an MBTA employee is. And the job comes with old school perks from a bygone era, too.

As for forward funding: it ties the T’s budget to the state sales tax, so that when sales in the state are down, so is the T’s budget. The organization also has an enormous debt to pay off from, like, the Pleistocene era. The legislature bears ultimate responsibility for the way the T’s budget is set, and this way clearly is not working.

What I find comical is how a couple of years ago when the T banned buskers from the platforms there was this great hue and cry from the peanut gallery. No! Save the buskers! Leave the mimes alone! Let them play! Let them frolic in the underground! But when it comes to a fare hike that will impact the average T-rider enormously—I mean, we’re talking a nearly forty percent increase here–think of that over the space of a year—there’s nothing but stunned silence. People feel powerless, apparently, and that fare hikes like this are inevitable and unstoppable.

Take a page from the immigrants’ playbook. There’s strength in numbers. How do workers get rights? They organize and agitate. Remember: it’s not just a T issue. It’s a legislative issue.

Reduction depends on opposition level.

Read about it HERE.

…from The Globe.

…and The Herald.