Robert David Sullivan 2

Logan Airport wins arbitrary award for bewilderment

J.D. Power has ranked Boston's Logan Airport 16th out of 21 "medium" airports in its recently released "2008 North America Airport Satisfaction Study." Its best category, with four out of five possible stars, was "food and retail services." Check-in and security policies? Not so hot: two out of five stars.

But Planetizen's Josh Stephens gives Logan first place in one of his dubious achievement awards:

Most Bewildering: Boston Logan. If a camel is a horse designed by committee, then Boston's Silver Line BRT (with scant emphasis on the "R") is a transit line designed by a committee of camels. In the course of a 20-minute trip to South Station, the Silver Line seems to pass through every stage of man and a few states of matter to boot. In some places, it's a regular bus, chugging along on its own power and stopping at unassuming bus shelters. Sometimes it think it's a subway, humming through a dedicated tunnel underneath downtown and stopping at lavish underground stations. Sometimes it seems to go in circles, as its route doubles back on itself. Sometimes it doesn't do anything, such as when the driver has to step out and manually connect the bus to overhead electrical wires for the underground portion.

Is Stephens being too harsh? Maybe he should have tried a cab (or the Blue Line) to get a proper appreciation for BRT.

MBTA puts the squeeze on suburban legislators, the MFA, and the BSO

The MBTA has released a detailed list of service cuts it's threatening to make if it doesn't get any help in reducing its $160 million deficit -- presumably in the form of revenue from a gas tax increase. People are predictably outraged, but I have to give the T points for political cleverness and even economic fairness.

The biggest single cut would be the elimination of all commuter rail on weekends and after 7 p.m. on weekdays, plus the closing of 16 commuter rail stations. That makes sense, since there isn't going to be a gas tax hike without the support of legislators from towns with commuter rail but no subway service. One can argue that the expansion of mass transit into less densely populated areas isn't worth it in terms of easing congestion or reducing pollution, but it's possible that the T's extensive commuter rail system will be the only thing that stops the Legislature from gutting mass transit in Boston itself. (Advocates of inner-city transit have reason to worry that a new rail line to New Bedford would drain resources from Boston's subway system, but if a new line gets South Coast legislators to support the MBTA as a whole, neighborhoods like Dorchester might come out ahead.)

The shrewdest threat is to shut down the Green Line's E branch completely on weekends. That would greatly inconvenience patrons of Symphony Hall, the Museum of Fine Arts, and the Huntington Theatre, as well as Northeastern University students. The Bay State's philanthropic leaders can't be pleased about the prospect of declining attendence at the institutions they've been funding over the years.

Massachusetts is dead last in seat-belt use

Seat belts were used in a record 83 percent of car trips last year, according to estimates by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But seat-belt use actually declined in Massachusetts by 1.9 points to 66.8 percent, putting us dead last, reports the Boston Globe.

The map below (click to make bigger) shows that we're in odd company. The Northeast in general has high seat-belt use, but Massachusetts and two neighbors (New Hampshire and Rhode Island) are more like Wyoming and Mississippi when it comes to reckless driving and riding. As the Globe story mentions, Massachusetts is not among the 28 states where police can stop drivers or riders for not wearing a seat belt.

Another outlier is Rhode Island, where seat belt use supposedly dropped by 7.1 percent. There was no decrease of more than 4 percent in any other state.

 

Gridlock loosens grip on Boston in 2008

Like the rest of the US, metropolitan Boston experienced a "startling" decrease in traffic congestion last year, but we still have more than our share of traffic bottlenecks, according to new data from Inrix Traffic Services.

The market research company, which compiles data from GPS-equipped vehicles, estimated that traffic congestion during peak travel times dropped by 29 percent in the 100 largest urban areas last year, with only Baton Rouge, Louisiana, registering more crowded roads. Inrix cites "turbulent fuel prices and a struggling economy" for the drop. Congestion in high-unemployment Detroit, for example, dropped by 47 percent.

In Boston, congestion dropped by 27 percent, a bit below the national average, and we're ranked as the 8th most congested area in the US overall. The worst "bottleneck" in the region was at the Southeast Expressway and Gallivan Boulevard in Dorchester. It ranked 190th in the US in 2007 but rose to 116th last year.

Le MBTA n'est pas seulement

Mass Transit Misery Loves Company Dept.: Montreal's version of the MBTA has been given the seemingly impossible command to cut its budget by $40 million without reducing service. The Montreal Gazette notes ridership went up by 4 percent last year, but an effort to keep up with the demand by adding more service has only made things worse, at least financially:

Last November, when the STM unveiled its 2009 budget (as well the 12th fare increase in as many years for commuters), vice-chairperson Marvin Rotrand attributed the hike in fares to an increase in service this year that includes 200,000 more hours of bus service and a two-per-cent increase in service in the métro.

However the 2009 fare hike adds up to $10.3 million in extra revenue for the STM, while the increase in services cost $46.9 million.

Threats to move across the border may have decreased since the last election, but this is a reminder that Quebec residency is not much of an answer to possible MBTA fare hikes.

MBTA's Silver Line: The exception that proves the rule

There's been much rejoicing (of the weary, cautious, hesitant variety) over the planned extension of the Green Line to West Medford. But Streetsblog has an interview with Walter Hook, director of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, in which he says that BRT (bus rapid transit) makes more sense than light rail:

Very good BRT systems have been built for as little as $8 million a mile. With the same capital budget, we could build more than twice as much proper BRT as light rail, probably 5 to 10 times more, with no loss in the quality of service, the capacity, or the speed. Even counting the contribution to total life cycle costs of operating and maintenance costs, BRT is a bargain...

But wait. Hook hastens to add that it's not always a bargain:

Of course, you can mess up a BRT system, and Boston's Silver Line proved that you could waste almost as much money on BRT as you can on a rail system.

Oh, well. If the T is going to waste money either way, it's better to have a cozy trolley than a pokey bus. 

Will a "vehicle miles traveled" tax fly in Massachusetts?

Though Gov. Patrick didn't mention the idea in his prepared remarks at today's press conference, Transportation Secretary Jim Aloisi told Blue Mass Group that the administration plans to try out a VMT ("vehicle miles traveled") tax as an alternative to a gas tax. The rationale is that a tax on distances traveled is more stable, in the long run, than a tax tied to fuel consumption. That is, even if the gas tax automatically rises with inflation, as Patrick proposes, revenue would decline sharply as people switch to more fuel-efficient cars. (The gas tax is arguably another "sin tax" in the sense that more bad behavior -- smoking, drinking, gambling, and driving Hummers to convenience stores -- means more money for the government.)

Ezra Klein agrees, calling the VMT "less galling for taxpayers" than a gas levy (even if it's more frightening to some civil libertarians). But Matt Ygelsias calls the idea "off-base," and a poor substitute for a gas tax or a congestion tax (and everyone knows how popular congestion taxes are):

When it comes to pricing driving-related activities, it makes sense to charge people from things that actually impose costs on others—burning gasoline, and taking up space on crowded roads—not the mere act of driving.

Mass. bucks trend, drives more in December

The Federal Highway Administration estimates that Americans drove 1.6 percent fewer miles in December 2008 than in December of the previous year. That makes 14 consecutive months of driving declines. The biggest drops were in Oregon and Washington, due "in part, to unusually large snowfall."

Curiously, auto traffic went up in Massachusetts last December by 3.0 percent Only Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas registered bigger increases.

Was our counter-trend due to falling gas prices? Was it frustration with the MBTA? (Ridership did go down in December; see the fourth paragraph.) Or were Bay Staters doing all their Christmas shopping in New Hampshire?

Mike Dukakis on how to fix America

Former governor Michael Dukakis has an interview with The Infrastructurist in which he says he understands why Amtrak isn't getting that much money from President Obama's stimulus bill (not enough "shovel-ready" projects on the railroad) but also voices impatience with the MBTA's expansion schedule:

They’re talking about six years to extend the Green line from Lechmere through Somerville to Tufts on existing railway. Chinese and Irish immigrants were laying four miles of railway a day in 1867.

Dukakis also says that the quality of public construction management can spell the difference between a resounding success and a national laughingstock:

When I was governor, we had two big public works projects in Boston. One was the Harbor cleanup and one was the Big Dig. They were two of the biggest projects in history at the time. Both started out with same estimate – around $4 billion. One came in on time and 25 percent under budget. That was the Harbor cleanup. We all know what happened with the other one.

For more on the Big Dig management problems -- will they be repeated in the infrastructure projects about to be funded by the federal government? -- see the CommonWealth magazine feature "Learning from the Big Dig." (Photo of repairs to the Longfellow Bridge by Joshi Radin.)

Patrick's chance to lead on the gas tax

Hub Blog thinks that Gov. Deval Patrick should stop "pouting" and instead position himself to take credit for the "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to eliminate highway tolls, abolish the Turnpike Authority, and raise the gas tax to help fund infrastructure improvements. (Hub Blog also compares Patrick's situation to that of Ulysses S. Grant at the Third Battle of Chattanooga, but I'm not enough of a Civil War buff to know whether this is a stretch.)

H.B. also comments on the idea of privatizing the Pike:

As for privatizing toll roads, I normally support privatization efforts. But this isn't true privatization -- it's a way to sock Metrowest and other motorists with permanent tolls (and inevitable toll increases) in exchange for a one-time cash infusion. It's a transfer of taxation powers, not a transfer of services provided. It would screw tollpayers forever.