The Substantially Similar Weblog

I was quoted in a recent Needham Times article regarding my complaints with the T:

But Adam Rosi-Kessel, a Roslindale resident who takes the Needham Line to his job in the financial district, said 15- to 20-minute delays have kept him from getting to work before 9 a.m. since May.

Now Rosi-Kessel, a lawyer who biked to work when he lived in Jamaica Plain, is thinking about trading in his Charlie Card again.

“It used to be, living here in Roslindale, the train was always the fastest way to get in,” he said. “Now, it’s slowed down to the point where it’s starting to get competitive with biking again.”

I’m glad they got my biking quote. Here’s the part I don’t understand (emphasis added):

Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority spokeswoman Lydia Rivera said Needham Line delays have been caused by construction work and speed restrictions on tracks that don’t go anywhere near Needham.

In order to maximize train use, the T often transfers trains between tracks, rather than leaving underused trains empty in the MBTA yard. The method helps the T get trains where they’re needed most, but it also means a delay on one track can slow service on a seemingly unrelated track.

“It’s a Catch-22,” Rivera said.

I don’t think the T spokesperson knows what a “Catch-22” is. I refer those interested to the Wikipedia article on the subject, but it is nicely summarized there as “heads I win, tails you lose.” The T’s problem is not a logical paradox, but some combination of inadequate resources and poor organization. Can someone please help them out?

Also on Boston local topics: I’ve received several unattributed mailings lately related to the city council election that do not facially promote any particular candidate. Today’s mailing attacked Stephen Murphy for repeatedly trying (and failing) to win some other office or get some other job than City Councilor. The return address was 31 Milk Street, which is the address of many different businesses.

A few days ago, I received another unattributed mailing bemoaning how long it has been since an at-large city councilor came from the Parkway Area (my neighborhood), but not mentioning any candidate in particular.

My guess is these mailings are all meant to support John Connolly, a West Roxbury resident, attorney, and ostensibly good guy. I was feeling pretty happy about the possibility of Connolly replacing Murphy on the Council (I have to admit some unfair prejudice in that the only house in our neighborhood I’ve ever seen prominently posting a sign in support of Bush also features a Murphy billboard). But these questionable campaign tactics are giving me pause. Does anyone know anything more about this?

In any case, here are my endorsements for next week’s election, notwithstanding the concern outlined above: (1) Felix Arroyo, (2) John Connolly, and (3) Sam Yoon. I have no pick for a fourth candidate. I’ll also throw in a vote for Matt Geary. I really wouldn’t want the socialists running the City, but a broader spectrum of political opinion within the council wouldn’t hurt. Incidentally, it is remarkably hard to find any information summarizing all of the candidates’ positions and records. It’s almost as if the election isn’t even happening. (A commenter properly points me to Brighton Centered as a good resource.)

11/3/07 Update: More discussion here.

[Tags]Boston, City Council, Elections, Felix Arroyo, John Connolly, Sam Yoon, Stephen Murphy, Politics, MBTA, Transportation, Roslindale, Needham, Matt Geary[/Tags]

As I sit here waiting for my 8:23am train, which actually will never come, I just discovered http://www.wheresthet.com/ (“Where’s The T,” if you need it spelled out). This third-party site serves a no-frills, no tables, no graphics, no flash, sensibly organized list of MBTA interruptions. This is one of the best implementations I’ve seen of this sort of thing — absolute simplicity. I immediately added it to my cell phone bookmarks and Google Reader subscriptions.

More information from the creator.

Via tikirobot: CalTrain goes WiFi:

The train reached 79 mph while testers watched streaming video, composed e-mail and completed a large file download at broadband speeds…

The service apparently will be free.

So when will Boston get a similar service for the subway or commuter rail? Given the MBTA’s dismal performance lately and inability to implement new technology (e.g. e.g. e.g.), I’m not going to hold my breath.

My friend Susan just moved to Boston from the Left Coast and is gradually learning the ropes. She wrote these two vignettes about her first couple of days in the city—anyone planning on moving here should check these out. Having lived here for the past six years (and being born here), I’ve forgotten what it looks like to see our city with “new eyes”:

I went to get my car insurance. This took a long time. First, I got lost. Second, no one at the AAA office seemed to be in much of a rush, despite the fact that it was going on 4:30pm and they closed at 5pm. The insurance agent had the typical Boston pace of getting things done (other than driving) in which every act seems to require a kind of measured heaviness. It is as though official acts in Boston bear the weight of history and that history weighs heavily. When Mr. X saw that the car was a gift, he explained to me, in an offhand tone, that we were going to say that the car was a gift from my mother or my sister, not from my aunt, because did I see this gift form? Aunt is not one of the seven family member options. “So we say sistuh — yuh see?” Then he checked with his supervisor.

“Jean, this girl heuh, the car is a gift from her ant, so we should say muthuh or sistuh right?”

The woman spoke in rapidfire Bostonese. “Oh yeuh. Remember how much trouble we had with that udduh one? They won’t take it! It kept getting sent back. Say sistuh.”

He turned back to me at a measured pace. “Okay, we’ll say sistuh. I mean, as long as the age difference isn’t too much, it should be fine.”

Jean yelled from her desk: “Say muthuh! If you say muthuh, they NEVER question it! NEVER!”

He turned back to me. “Well, they don’t ceuh. It doesn’t matter.”

I was confused, as I listened to two insurance professionals loudly discuss how to violate insurance law. I mean, granted, Massachusetts seems to have an inordinate number of rules and regulations, but I assumed that was because people LIKED rules and regulations. This appears not to be the case.

I can’t remember whether this was to save me a substantial amount of money on sales tax (gifts are not supposed to be taxed) or a 25.00 filing fee, but it didn’t seem to matter. What mattered was discussing the rules at great length and then figuring out the best way around them.

I imagined being called up by some insurance commissioner who noticed the discrepancy between the Massachusetts form that said “Sister” and the California form that says “Aunt”. What would I say? That my aunt is like a sister to me? That my insurance agent told me to lie?

---

After talking to the realtor, I called my mom and had a distracted conversation while desperately trying to eat dinner at 7pm while also waiting for the bus. I took the 66 bus all the way to Roxbury Crossing and successfully managed to get off (it helped that the bus said loudly “Roxburry Crossing”. And that someone else had hit the yellow strip to stop the bus). As promised by www.mbta.com, Roxburry Crossing is on the Orange Line (read: subway) to Forest Hills.

I decided I should get a “combo pass” — good for bus, subway, and commuter trains, and that this would help me feel calmer about Boston. Although it was still unclear to me whether work would pay for the pass or just let me pay with pre-tax dollars, I decided it was worth the 71.00 to be able to go anywhere I wanted to without the annoyance of constantly getting lost. So, I asked at the booth. The guy told me they didn’t sell them at Roxbury Crossing, they only sold them at Back Bay.

Then he complimented my necklace and we talked about it for a bit and he then refused to sell me a token, but told me to put .50 in the disabled/retired slot and go through. He asked me if I was going there now to buy a pass, and I said no, but once I reached the platform, I thought, “Why not?” I’d already eaten dinner and it had to get done, so why not do it? He wouldn’t have asked me if the place wasn’t open, right?

This turned out to be very wrong indeed. He probably asked me because he knew, along with everyone else in Boston, that monthly passes are only sold on the first 10 days of the month. After the 10th, no one can buy a monthly pass, at any price. All monthly passes are returned to MBTA and are no longer in circulation. Also, you cannot buy an annual pass, or have a pass automatically sent to you each month. No, no, no — each month you must buy a pass within the first 10 days of the month.

Boston is a major American city, by the way, just in case you were wondering.

The monthly pass rule was explained to me at the Back Bay station commuter rail window after I had been bounced around twice. I just looked at the man in disbelief as I tried to hear him over the very loud loudspeakers echoing through Back Bay at 9pm at night.

Susan: But WHY can’t I buy a pass for September? I’m willing to pay for the whole month!

Man at Booth: We return them all, like I told you. Honey, I’d GIVE you a pass, but I don’t have one.

Susan: But WHY would they DO that? Are they afraid that too many people will ride the subway? Are there a limited number of seats?

Man at Booth:

Susan: Is there ANY KIND of a pass I could buy?

Man at Booth: Well, they have this weekly pass.

Susan: Okay, great! I’ll take one.

Man at Booth: But we don’t sell them here. Here.

Susan: Okay. Thank you very much.

I look at the paper about the weekly pass. It gives the hours they are sold. It informs me that passes for the current week are sold on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. On Thursday and Friday, I can buy passes for the coming week, but no longer for the current week. The weekly pass is only sold at two stations — the two stations furtherest away on the Red Line (ie, nowhere near where I ever need to go).

I throw the piece of paper away, give up, and take the Orange Line back to Forest Hills, where at least I know how to get home, and where Adam and Rachele can very patiently listen to me rant about Boston.

As I sit on the MBTA commuter rail train, hearing the n-th “watch out for terrorists” warning of the day, I’m reminded of the chorus from the title track to Bruce Springsteen’s new album (short ogg sample):

We’ve got God on my side,
We’re just trying to survive,
but if what you do to survive
kills the thing you love—

Fear’s a powerful thing,
it will turn your heart black you can trust.

(full lyrics)

The verse works so well, I think, because it doesn’t answer what happens “if what you do to survive kills the thing you love…” He just leaves it hanging.

I hope this song can reach some people who are otherwise completely captive to irrational fear. This album is going to be discussed later tonight on On Point (a locally produced National Public Radio show).

I also want to clarify a point I made yesterday about intelligently predicting attacks rather than blindly protecting against the identical attack that just happened. It’s not going to do much good, even if we figure out that the last attack was on a subway and the next one is planned for a shopping mall. So long as any security measure acts just to shift a planned attack to a new target, there’s no net benefit to society and a huge waste of resources. We need deterrent and preventive measures that reduce attacks overall, not ones that just protect particular targets.

A good example of this, described by Bruce Schneier, is The Club versus the LoJack system for protecting your car from theft. The Club makes the attacker move on to the next car that doesn’t have one; with LoJack, the attacker can’t tell whether the particular car he is looking at it is protected or not, and his risks increase considerably. Apparently LoJack has reduced car theft in Boston by 50 percent, while presumably The Club has had only a negligible effect if any. The Club might be effective if 100% of cars used it, but that is a lot less efficient than having LoJack selectively and secretly implanted in a sufficient number of cars to make a car thief think twice about his line of work.

I don’t know what the national security equivalent is of LoJack, but I’m sure there is something more effective than covering our subway and commuter rail systems with a heavy police presence. There are a finite number of police, and concentrating them in one place means they aren’t somewhere else. This seems like classic “shifting” rather than “deterring.”