Thread by @garrett_wollman

Well, I should be getting ready to do a trainer ride this evening, but I went to the @MBTA board meeting this morning, so I'm going to spend time I should be exercising writing this recap instead. There were two meetings earlier this month I did not attend for lack of interest.

This is the first meeting with a full board since the appointment of former director @spoftak to be the new MBTA general manager. Gov. Baker secretly appointed Chrystal Kornegay, executive director of MassHousing, to the board on Friday, and she was formally introduced today.

There is as yet no press release announcing her appointment on mbta.com, which seems a serious oversight. I'm not press so I don't know if any sort of statement went out on embargo. Director Kornegay did not ask any questions today so I have time to learn her name.

Director Brian Lang was not present for the public comment period, which immediately followed Kornegay's introduction. I didn't catch when he arrived, but he was present for the formal business of the board.

First up in the public comment period was Stacy Rubin of @CLF, accompanied by six other people, commenting specifically on the board vacancy. CLF had recommended a different person to the Baker admin, specifically to represent the needs of transit-dependent riders.

(Not sure if they had knowledge of the Kornegay appointment before it was announced a few minutes earlier.) Next up was Paul Regan from the MBTA Advisory Board, but speaking this time on behalf of fellow advisory board member Richard Prone.

He asked that the board try to start the new schedule for late-evening Old Colony trains for the spring schedule adjustment rather than waiting until the fall, and asserted that it would bring in enough new ridership to cover the costs.

Speaking for himself, Regan approves the policy of "regular small fare increases" to keep up with inflation, the only commenter to express such a view. Next up was Sarah Levy of Green Roots (the Chelsea advocacy organization). Her organization opposes the fare increase.

Their primary issue, however, is with the Better Bus Project (see downthread), and the lack of specific outreach to the Chelsea community given the proposed changes to the 111 bus that many of her members depend upon to get to work. They can't attend a midday event because work.

Regular commenter Louise Baxter of the T Riders Union spoke about affordable fares, noted that many lower income people do not have flexibility with respect to work schedules or the distance they must travel to work. She also said something I didn't understand re: credit cards.

Another person from Green Roots rose to thank GM Poftak and the management team for getting the Chelsea Bus Task Force stood up, which had its first meeting recently. Thanks also for Charlie Card distribution agreement with the City of Chelsea, making them available at City Hall.

She is concerned about the impact of fare increases and the implementation of the new fare collection system (all off-board payment) on riders who only have access to cash.

Next up, Chris Friend(?) gave the board copies of a study he did on heavy-rail dwell times. There's an unscheduled item on the regular board agenda to have a discussion about dwell times, so probably this isn't the first time he's asked about this.

State senator @nickcollinsma spoke about the fare increase. He thinks it unfair, especially considering the impact on seniors, youth, and low-income working people. He wants the MBTA to prioritize "long-term lease agreements" for development strategy.

Collins expresses concern that the Better Bus Project is not proposing any improvements to the 7 bus, which many of his constituents in South Boston ride and which has reliability issues. Finally, he expresses support for Fairmount Line operation on a rapid-transit model.

A state rep from South Boston also spoke about the 7 bus, and against the fare increase, and mentioned some legislation he was involved in on Beacon Hill that I don't seem to have taken notes on.

Alan Cowen spoke briefly about commuter-rail fares. Marilyn McNabb spoke once again about service problem with paratransit, including poor reliability and reduced passenger amenities.

The next speaker talked about Keolis ticketing issues (apparently it's not possible to exchange a valid ticket and cash for a higher-fare ticket?) and also said that the bike racks on buses are too high. The final public speaker was Mo Justice of the T Riders Union.

Justice spoke about the AFC2/cash fare issue, complained that there has been a lack of communication with his community, and demanded that police not be used for proof-of-payment fare collection.

The main part of the meeting then began with the report of GM @spoftak. He discussed a safety awards luncheon, and congratulated @LaurelinTransit on a joint best paper award from TRB for her work on data collection for studies of bus crowding.

Poftak previewed several of the upcoming agenda items, including the Mattapan Line review, the joint outreach program for Better Bus, AFC2.0, and the fare increase. Deputy GM Jeff Gonneville then gave his report on operational matters, starting with the Sunday 1/20 winter storm.

This was a relatively severe event due to the large amount of ice. The Green Line fell below its target equipment availability, to which they responded by short-turning E trains at Brigham Circle. The Orange Line lost two full consists, and as a result headways were increased.

Gonneville noted the capacity issues on Tuesday that resulted from the service, especially north of North Station. Normal service on both lines was restored by Wednesday. Finally, Keolis is piloting a validator for on-board validation of mobile tickets on two commuter lines.

(I take from this that mobile tickets were previously not validated at all on the commuter rail, so someone who wanted to engage in fare evasion could screenshot the mobile ticket app and show the same ticket every trip.)

Next up was appointing a new vice-chair of the board. Poftak was vice-chair when he sat on the board; the appointment carries no duties aside from chairing meetings when the chair is absent. @MonicaTibbitsN is unanimously appointed.

Next up is a very long and involved discussion on the FY2020 operating budget for the authority, which must be approved by the board by April 15 so it can be voted on by the legislature as part of the overall state budget.

The T is budgeted to run an operating deficit of about $37m per year, which is down from over $200m at the height of the authority's fiscal crisis. The T receives subsidies from multiple sources, inc. local assessments, part of the state sales tax, and additional appropriations.

The main state appropriation is called "Additional Contract Assistance", and while the law permits it to be used for operating expenses, the board aims to redirect at least $70m annually into the capital program. This appropriation is level-funded.

The state sales tax revenue has a guaranteed minimum, below which the state will make up from general revenues. Budgeting is based on this statutory amount and not a projection of actual revenues; additional receipts can be programmed later in the fiscal year as available.

Based on contractual increases in union wages, service contracts from external vendors, and pension contributions, a $74m baseline deficit is projected for FY20. Components of the increased outlays are as follows:

$8m additional in debt service to allow for retirement of some debt (board policy is not to roll over debt)
$14m increased pension and healthcare contributions due to poor CY18 investment performance
$17m in contract escalators other than Keolis
$16m in Keolis escalators

$15m increase in overall wages and salaries (includes $4m in Carmen's Union escalators and $11m assuming filling of all currently open and advertised positions)

There's a board colloquy here, with Shortsleeve asking about cost controls, Aiello emphasizing the need to improve and speed up the hiring process, and Pollack bringing up a number of issues including the budget process schedule and overtime costs.

The speaker then continues with a brief discussion of interally generated revenue sources, including advertising, real estate, and parking. These are not expected to make a significant difference, hence the proposed fare increase to bring the deficit down to $35m.

@LaurelinTransit then gets to speak about the specific proposal for fare increases, which can be viewed at mbta.com/fare-proposal-… , after a quick bottom-line summary interjected by GM Poftak.

Overall, on a weighted average basis, fares will increase 6.3%, but due to substitution effects, this is only projected to result in a 4.5% increase in fare revenue. OPMI projects a 1.3% ridership loss due to the fare increase.

Laurel P-S discusses some technical considerations for the new fares, including rounding the fares and reducing or eliminating some anomalous fare differentials that go away entirely when AFC 2.0 is implemented.

As an example, the $2 cash bus fare would not increase, due to the deleterious effects on dwell time of riders fishing for change, but the $1.70 Charlie Card bus fare increases to $1.80. Changes also to the Hull/Hingham ferry fares, making Logan and Long Wharf fares equal.

MassDOT sec'y Pollack notes that AFC 2.0 opens up many more options for fare structures that aren't practical to program on the current fare collection equipment. Chair Aiello asks for a presentation on this to be scheduled after budget season is over.

Next up as a part of this discussion is a progress report on a study of the commuter rail fare structure demanded by the legislature to be submitted in 2020. There's a significant discrepancy btw zone 1A fares and zone 1 fares, even within the city. Talk of reintroducing zone 1B.

The fare discussion wraps up with the outreach plan, There will be a public hearing on 2/27 at 10 Park Plaza, public comment closes 2/28, and the board will be asked to vote on the revised proposal on 3/11. There's a discussion among the board members about the outreach.

@MonicaTibbitsN asks about outreach specifically regarding the fare inspection issue. Aiello asks how AFC2 changes commuter rail fare collection. Tibbits-Nutt asks if maps of retail locations will be available at AFC2 outreach.

MTN also asks about the revenue yield of the last fare increase. Ans: $42m in the first year. Then she asks where that money went, and there's a bit of a colloquy with another speaker, because the numbers the staff has are not directly responsive to the question.

The staff have been treating all "pay-go" capital spending as fungible, which makes it hard to identify specific projects that the last fare increase revenue was used on. MTN wants "direct customer impact" projects like station improvements, cleaning, wayfinding.

Discussion moves on to the overall outreach and public engagement plan. Basic theory is to consolidate AFC2, fare increase, and Better Bus communications to avoid "outreach fatigue" on the part of the public; riders in low-income communities in particular are affect by all three.

Tibbits-Nutt asks the staff to add outreach in South Boston and Chelsea, responding to earlier public comments by speakers from those communities. Pollack asks about the format of the outreach events. Ans: "science fair" style, with displays, rather than PowerPoint oriented.

Next up is the study on the future of the Mattapan High-Speed Line. Currently there are ten non-ADA-compliant, seventy-year-old PCCs on the property, of which eight are potentially in working order and four are currently usable, which is sufficient for the current 6 min headways.

Phase 1 of the program includes this study and $8m in heavy repairs to extend the life of the PCC fleet another decade. The overhauls have been delayed by lead-paint abatement and other issues.

A series of community meetings were held in April, 2017. The community's priorities were ADA accessibility first, followed by *no buses*. Those inputs were used as a part of the evaluation of equipment options, but the board is not being asked to make a decision today.

Phase 2 includes necessary upgrades to bridges, signal and power systems, and station accessibility that will be required regardless of which equipment option is chosen. Cost for this phase is estimated at $90-115m.

Phase 3 is new equipment. Options considered were:
1) Continue to maintain PCCs ("no build")
2) Buy replica PCCs
3) Repurpose Type 9 LRVs after Type 10 procurement completed
4) Buy unique new LRVs in a small expensive order
5) 60-foot diesel buses
6) 60-foot battery buses

These options range in cost from $75m to $145m, with the most economical option being the type 9 LRVs (same cost as for option 1 but vastly superior in safety and accessibility). The bus options are extremely unpopular except with Steph Pollack, and not cheap.

Board discussion:
Shortsleeve: what about operating costs?
Aiello: actually, what about lifecycle costs?
Pollack: strategic plan says evaluate based on lifecycle costs
MTN: do costs include maintenance facility replacement? (A: yes)
MTN: automation? (A: not studued)

Back to the presentation. The first re-re-re-re-re-overhauled PCC will be returned to the property this August, with all 8 rehabs completed by December 2020. Additional public outreach to be held "early" CY19 but no dates scheduled.

@Steph_Pollack then starts talking about including resiliency in evaluations, and goes on this ridiculous tangent about how you can't operate catenary in the snow. (Which will be news to SBB, OeBB, VR, PZD, JR, NSB, and China Railway, just to name seven.)

Someone in the legislature needs to pin Pollack down on why she seems to believe that her agency is *uniquely* incompetent, among all the cold-weather passenger rail and transit operators in the world, to maintain railway electrification systems. @KarenSpilka?

Discussion now moves on to the CTPS commuter rail passenger counts. The full dataset still hasn't been released, but the presentation included the per-line counts in an annex. Once I get the per-station counts I'll rerun my simulations for the Worcester Line, which increased 45%.

The counts were done on a "normal fall weekday" (not Monday or Friday because of long weekend effect) but not all on the same day; some counts were re-done when data anomalies were discovered. Overall, trips increased 21.2% over 2012, 28.3% South Side and 9.2% North Side.

Ridership increased on all lines, but remains extremely peaky: 83% of inbound trips are taken during the AM peak and 76% of outbound trips are taken during the PM peak. (Trip distribution is right-skewed generally because morning travel hours are more constrained than evening.)

The Fairmount Line is less peaky. 86% of south side passengers terminate at Back Bay or South Station; 86% of North Side riders excluding Fitchburg Line terminate at North Station. (Many Fitchburg pax terminate at Porter for the Red Line transfer to Cambridge employers.)

@LaurelinTransit gets up again to talk about the OPMI's analysis of the data. Overall, unlike the subway and bus network, commuter rail is tracking regional employment growth, which is also seen in peer systems. Pollack asks about the choice of geography for analyzing job growth.

There's a long discussion about counts and comparisons to other data. Shortsleeve asks how passenger counts compare to fare collections. Answer is that this isn't completely modeled yet, because you have to model pass users who don't pay per-trip fares.

The figures closely track the numbers reported in the National Transit Database, which are based on conductor's passenger counts. OPMI annualized the counts, applying some assumptions about reduced Monday/Friday and weekend travel.

(Once the automated passenger counters are fully deployed, it will be possible to have all of this data on a daily basis and a much richer data set for exploration and regression analysis; that's scheduled for the end of the year.)

Next speaker runs through a slide about how the counts will be used: for consist sizing (but only minor changes), schedule changes (but only minor changes), some minor changes to staffing levels, planning for investments in parking/last-mile services, and coach procurement.

Somehow Twitter screwed up the links on the last couple of tweets in the thread,

https://twitter.com/garrett_wollman/status/1090105503177265152

@threadreaderapp please unroll