Blog: MBTA

Almost a decade after the completion of the Big Dig, the project aimed at solving significant transportation needs has become a legendary case study of mismanagement. What do we have to show for it? The tendrils of the megaproject continue to tie...

[av_button label=’Download’ link=’manually,https://pioneerinstitute.org/download/mbtas-problem-is-not-lack-of-funding/’ link_target=” size=’small’ position=’left’ icon_select=’yes’ icon=’ue82d’ font=’entypo-fontello’ color=’theme-color’ custom_bg=’#444444′ custom_font=’#ffffff’ av_uid=’av-lzx2sk’] Background Since the mid-1990s, Pioneer has participated in the public debate concerning ways to improve the operations and financial footing of the MBTA through reports, events, public testimony and...

March 30th can’t come soon enough for commuter rail riders, though Keolis may dread the date’s arrival. This is when the commuter rail operator promises to finally return to normal service levels, weeks after the blizzards of February. Keolis continues to face...

Pioneer has long been interested in the efficiency of the MBTA relative to other systems around the country.  As noted in a blog response to an organization critical of our work, we are not interested in ideological playtime with numbers. The organization,...

When the MBTA collapsed last month under the weight of snow and frigid temperatures, former General Manager Beverly Scott and countless others were quick to blame the problems on years of underinvestment in the system.  But a comparison to other large transit...

Yesterday the MBTA Board of Directors approved a plan to compensate T riders for dismal service since the storms of late January and February. It will take more than a few perks, however, to erase the months of devastation that the T’s...

[av_button label=’Download’ link=’manually,https://pioneerinstitute.org/download/mbta-is-the-fastest-expanding-transit-system/’ link_target=” size=’small’ position=’left’ icon_select=’yes’ icon=’ue82d’ font=’entypo-fontello’ color=’theme-color’ custom_bg=’#444444′ custom_font=’#ffffff’ av_uid=’av-n6jpni’] Pioneer has previously written that rapid expansion was a major cause of the MBTA’s recent meltdown.  More recently, we wrote that MBTA is the only American commuter rail system...

Scot Lehigh and Shirley Leung in the Globe today both focused attention on the idea of, as Lehigh put it, “tak[ing] the $1 billion in bonding bandwidth it last year dedicated to expanding the Boston Convention Center & Exhibition Center and instead...

Scot Lehigh and Shirley Leung in the Globe today both focused attention on the idea of, as Lehigh put it, “tak[ing] the $1 billion in bonding bandwidth it last year dedicated to expanding the Boston Convention Center & Exhibition Center and instead...

Last March, French transportation company Keolis won a $2.6 billion contract to run the MBTA’s commuter rail. A little under a year late, and what was shaping up to be a promising relationship has quickly gone sour, with the MBTA levying six-figure...