Transit Vs. Highways

 How To Salvage a Transit Project.  I wish this set of explanations didn't make sense, because I dislike the implications.

But people think differently about these systems. If you're driving, you don't think, "Traffic was terrible today, that's the state transportation department's fault." But with transit, you think, "Service was awful today, that is the transit agency's fault."

Highway departments could learn from transit agencies about operations, but they're primarily focused on building. The federal government enlisted state highway agencies in the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s to build the interstate system. People think of the interstate system as federal because it's federally funded, but it's actually built and owned by the states. They were born to build, whereas transit agencies were born to provide service.

The person being interviewed started as an environmental activist suing the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, (gradually) decided she was being naive about how transit worked and thought she would be more useful building things instead.

Another example: The Green Line Extension to the T [northwest into Boston suburbs] made the Green Line nearly 5 miles longer. If you try to operate a much longer transit line with the same number of trains, it's going to take way longer for a train to get from the beginning to the end, and you’re going to wait at the platform longer for the next train. So you have to buy trains — I didn’t know that at first. I was just thinking of the extension as its tracks, signals, platforms, right?

So they had to buy 24 new trains, which cost almost $200 million. Now you own 24 new trains. Where are you going take care of those trains? There's all these FTA requirements: they have to be inspected, they have to get upgrades. The MBTA don’t have enough space at their existing maintenance facility at this point: They have a certain size fleet. So now you have to build a new maintenance project.