In 2005, Grabauskas took the job of general manager with a clear vision.  The T would treat riders like customers; the system would be reliable, clean, courteous, and safe.  But mainly clean.  And accessible; inaccessibility “impacts not only on the disabled, but on parents with children in strollers, as well.” Grabauskas professed to be a neatnik; he was particularly concerned about the condition of elevators and escalators.  He apparently believed that if he made the T a comfortable place to be, riders would flock and revenues would soar.  And, of course, he wanted to control costs.

So four years later, how did he do?

Grabauskas never shrunk from the gaze of his “customers,” for example writing a regular Q+A column in the free daily paper Metro, and appearing more than once on WBUR public radio.  He was determined to keep riders safe; he initiated random, highly visible police screening checkpoints.  He committed to spending hundreds of millions of dollars to make the T more accessible, installing announcement screens and elevated platforms on the Green Line.  He resisted union contract demands and agreed to wage increases only after being overruled by a labor arbitrator.  The T renovated the Charles Street station and installed a new train control system on the Red Line that permitted more frequent service.  And there is the electronic fare system.

The list goes on.  Grabauskas was nothing if not engaged in the goings-on at the T.  Perhaps one can disagree with him on policy matters — for example it might be reasonable to question the wisdom of a having a broke organization with heavy capital needs spend hundreds of millions of dollars in an effort to meet the unique requirements of less than 0.1% of T riders — but the man demonstrated integrity and dedication to his “customers.”

But many things never changed.  Yes, the trains still are slow and late.  Yes, the escalators have at times been scandalously unreliable.  Yes there still are door-openers on the  Red, Green, and Orange Lines.  Yes, Kenmore Station still is under construction nearly five years later.  No, Dan Grabauskas does not commute to work on the T.  Yes, the T still is broke.

No Cell Zone

But none of those were the reasons that Governor Patrick and his appointees gave for the reasons they had lost faith in Grabauskas.  The breakdown occurred, they said, because two Green Line drivers in two years apparently had ignored traffic signals for different reasons, and Grabauskas was not in Washington, D. C. when the NTSB released its report on one of the accidents.  And there was a power outage on the Green Line.  That’s it.  Never mind that Grabauskas nearly overmanaged the aftermath of the Government Center Green Line collision by banning cell phones from drivers.  And never mind that he was on an unpaid budget-related furlough at the time the NTSB report was released.  And never mind he is not the T electrician.

No matter; Grabauskas is out, but to Gov. Patrick’s likely chagrin, the former T general manager emerges from the tussle virtually unscathed.  That isn’t true for the Governor and his appointees.  The termination looks like short-term political retribution — at taxpayers’ expense.

Unfortunately, the real loser here looks to be the T.  The authority is leaderless at a critical time where the patchwork of agencies is being reexamined and when the modes of transportation finance are in flux in a way they have not been in memory.  The Governor has made noises time and again that he is a friend to transit.  Now he has an opportunity to go from words to action.

South Station Red Line, Evening Rush Hour

What does a crowded platform mean?  Is it a sign of success or a sign of failure?  When the MBTA compiles its ridership statistics, do they record the situation in the picture to the right as a roaring success?  Do they simply say “there were like a thousand people who boarded that train at South Station during the evening rush hour; hooray?”

There isn’t really any question in my mind how the patrons standing on the platform would have answered the question.  When you get down to it, there really isn’t much difference between sucking tailpipe emissions on Storrow Drive and becoming better-acquainted than you’d like with strangers on the subway.  Probably the main difference is scenery; there’s no advertising on Storrow Drive.

The T doesn’t usually give live feedback, but on the day of the picture the train driver gave passengers who boarded from the very crowded platform an unusually syrupy-sweet send off.  She knew the crowded platform was trouble.  But when the transit scribes meticulously record the events of the day, how will they see it?  I wonder.

Can you spot three things that are wrong with this picture?

Some days, riding on the T is such an adventure. February 12 was just such a day. I took a picture. Can you see what’s wrong with that picture?

First, the train is in the station and the doors are open. When that happens everyone is supposed to board for a quick ride into the city, right? Not this morning. The train is full and the platform is full too.

Second — this one is more subtle — no one is getting on and no one is trying to get off. An experienced rider knows that T patrons will crowd around the doors for endless minutes after a full train arrives, hoping that persistence will be rewarded with a two-foot square spot on the floor of the train. Sometimes it happens, sometimes not, but a big group of people always try. In the picture, no one is trying. Why, you might ask? Because by the time the picture was taken the train had been sitting at the platform with the doors open for at least ten minutes. After a time the conductor announced that there was a “disabled train” ahead.

Third … the train isn’t actually full. Okay, so it’s not clear from the picture but the rail car to the left is sealed and dark. The doors never opened and no one was allowed to ride in it. This also happens from time-to-time without explanation. In good circumstances everyone crowds into adjoining cars. In bad … they pack the platform shoulder-to-shoulder waiting for the next train.

The train in the picture left the station after a wait of perhaps ten minutes more, and the crowd at the station pictured (Porter Square) mostly was able to catch the second train after this one (meaning some caught the next train and the rest caught the second one after).  Riders waiting at stations closer to Boston, i.e., Central, probably had to watch three or four full trans go by before they were able to board.

It’s enough almost to make you want to sit in traffic!

Broadway Trolley Tunnel

Boston has been scrubbed clean over the years of its miscellaneous unused transit infrastructure.  In particular, the elevated railroads nearly all are gone.  Most recently, the sun shined on Causeway Street.  In the summer I stumbled onto one of the pieces of unused transit infrastructure that hasn’t been removed.

Tunnel

This tunnel entrance is located just southeast of the Fort Point Channel, facing the Red Line railyards.  It could be a lot of things.  I have a hunch that it is a trolley access for a disused upper level in Broadway Station.  Apparently several of the Red Line stations were built with trolley mezzenines that since have been abandoned.  If that was the tunnel’s use, then it wouldn’t ever have had a direct link into the Red Line tracks.

Well, I think I’ve found a far more efficient way to communicate with the MBTA. It’s simple. Here’s what you do: stand in front of whatever happens to be the problem, and take a picture. This morning I took two pictures. Well, in fairness I took about ten, but they were only of two things.

An escalator on the Red Line, unit No. 504, was condemned by an inspector a few weeks ago and it has been out of service ever since. It’s been about three weeks. So I stood at the top of the escalator and I took a picture. And elsewhere on the Red Line, beneath South Station, a message board that ought to be announcing trains has instead been spewing mystifying garbled nothings. As if the MBTA is trying to speak to passengers in some unknown alien language. I took a picture.

Gibberish on a message board at the South Station subway

Apparently nothing focuses the MBTA’s collective mind like the prospect of jpeg-based public humiliation, no matter how mild. Twelve hours later, the message board, although not fixed, was not displaying gibberish. And the escalator was running. That has to be the fastest response time ever! So, in the course of trying to snap a picture of what I assumed was the the MBTA’s language– the gibberish– I inadvertently began communicating well enough to be understood! Did I accidentally speak MBTA-ese?