Commuting is (not) fun!

Ah yes... now that it's winter, the MBTA is showing its stupidity again.

This morning, we had no heat on our car-- and the system was blowing the cold air into the car for the entire hour's ride in. At first, I tried to excuse it as "Oh, it's the first run for this train of the day... it's probably just cold from sitting overnight in the yard." But nope, it was still as cold as when we boarded. I needed to thaw for a few minutes in South Station before trekking over to work.

I could put a complaint in on the MBTA website, but based on the response I got this summer, all I'll get is a generic meaningless "we got your email, now bugger off!" response about a month after the fact. Then they'll add my email to an MBTA mailing list where they send occasional spam messages about how MBTA service is improving (riiiiight) and what they've done to improve things (riiiight).

So if I put in a complaint today about the unheated car-- I'd probably get a response in.. February or so.

I would blow it off for the most part, except that as of January, my monthly commuter rail pass is going from $198 a month to $250 a month. For that much of a raise, I'd like to have cars working properly.

But above all of these fare increases, the MBTA still whines that it's broke. Broke after years of neglect with stations rusting through, platforms pitted and in need of complete structural rebuilding, escalators constantly out of service with permanent "temporarily out of order" signs, and trains that never get cleaned. When I was in college, we were greeted on Monday mornings with recently cleaned trains that had the over-powering scent of lysol within. It was deadly strong, but at least we knew that they'd made some effort to at least mop the floors in the cars.

While some station improvements have been going, the MBTA has wasted its money putting an entirely new fare system in place for the system-- with electronic reader cards (known as Charlie Cards... because the current generation is so familiar with the Kingston Trio's song) to eliminate tokens. It's similar in appearance to the BART system in the San Francisco area of the late 1980's and early 1990's (no idea if it's still the same out there). You get a single ticket, on which you place your desired amount of stored fare money. Each ride, the fare is deducted.

Only problem with Boston's system is that the old one wasn't broken- other than the fact that the token dispensing machines were always broken down. This new system appears to have only been introduced to eliminate booth workers. The sliding glass panes at the fare collection stations are slower than turnstyles. They're a frustration to exit, and I'm just waiting for about a year down the road when they start breaking and the MBTA doesn't fix them.

I realize that for a while, the MBTA was the cheapest train system in the nation- it was 85 cents to ride it the entire time I was in college. I realize that fares have to increase. But if the fares are increasing, justify it with at least comparable service. With each increase, the quality of service goes down. Another increase, and it's quite possibly no longer cost effective for Erich and I to commute by train. Right now, we have two zone eight passes (so... $500 per month, just for tickets), plus $60 for parking (assuming $3 per day for 20 days a month). Parking in Boston is about $15 per day at the cheap lot now located close to both of our offices. It's $24-26 at most other lots. Sure, it's wear and tear on our car... but if the train continues to be a frustration- is it worth it?

I thought mass transit was supposed to encourage people to not drive to work.

(sigh)