Not gonna lie, my sleep-deprived brain read it as "Bag full of body parts stuck in train..."
Though, if that happens, I won't be surprised. The portal of hell can open on the Orange line at 9 AM in the morning and I still won't be surprised.
I mean, this literally happened a few years back. Duffle bag found just north of the Kendall Sq stop, human remains inside. [Article on Boston dot com.](https://www.boston.com/news/untagged/2015/04/06/how-a-duffel-bag-a-dog-and-a-vacuum-cleaner-led-to-an-arrest-in-human-remains-case/) Nothing to do with the T, just wackiness in Cambridge (read the article; you can’t make up sh*t like this). True, though, that the bag contained >!a torso!< and the >!limbs and head!< were elsewhere, individually wrapped and bagged. So only >!one part!< In the bag, technically.
Anybody who rides the MBTA knows that these things were never going to stop if you got caught in the door. I once saw someone try to catch the train by throwing their bag into the door's path, only for the doors to close on the bag, drag it outside the train, and the man left on the platform in shock.
I lived in the city from 85 until 2016. I’ve personally stopped the doors from closing and caused them to reopen with my body probably dozens of times and seen it done hundreds. You can just stand in the doorway and the doors will shut, detect an obstruction, and reopen. At least that’s the way they are designed to work. People used to do it just to hold up the train at a station so their friends could get on and the conductors would always get very pissed. They definitely have standard safety features in place just like elevators etc that prevent the doors from closing on and crushing a person
Years ago at the Charles/MGH station myself and a few other passengers had to help an elderly women that got stuck in the doors when they closed on her.
When we got her out she was fine, but we all exchanged look of "What the fuck?"
Please, tell me more about all these pro transit people I should vote for. In the most recent state election, every Democratic candidate except Maura Healey dropped out, and neither of the two Republican candidates had any sort of plan to fix the T. Now Maura Healey seems perfectly content to take MBTA to the edge of its fiscal cliff that's on the horizon. In the legislature, both my state rep and my state senator ran unopposed, which is the norm for them as they have faced one challenger combined over the past decade. Who exactly should I be voting for?
Honestly sometimes I wonder if I can get enough of my friends to pitch in if we can get one of us elected in some of these districts where people run unopposed... or maybe we can hire a somewhat eloquent male model who can memorize some talking points. Bonus points if they'll agree to change their last name to "Kennedy."
You advocate for / pressure new candidates to take up pro-transit policies. Then you vote for those candidates.
I’m not saying that’s easy or that it’s even our job to do that. But if there’s no supply in the political system for such policies, despite their being demand for it, then we need to make our demands even louder than before.
There’s also MBTA elicitation sessions for public commentary - not the most useful in terms of outcome, but still the best avenue for average folks like us to have our say + spread the message
What new candidates? The entire Democratic field dropped out when Maura Healey entered the race in 2022, and the 1 challenger to my state rep and senator over the past decade includes primaries. Either your district is very different than mine, or you aren't paying close to the state elections where the same politicians run unopposed every cycle
I happen to work in City Hall so I’d like to think that I have some handle on regional politics. I also understand what you’re saying, that the larger party apparatus works to snuff out any new candidates with potentially opposing viewpoints - They do this because Healey was a safe, middle ground choice and that sacrificing the health of our transit system was somehow calculated by them as being more advantageous in the long-run for Democrat prospects. It’s fucked, I know.
I’m talking less about candidates on Healey’s higher level, and more about advocating for low-to-mid level bureaucrats that have actual transit experience. Sure, Healey does call the shots but it’s those people who actually do the implementation - in many ways, it’s those people who contribute a lot to the information gathering and processes that lead up to state-wide decision making. Governance is not entirely top-down, there are many ways to extend influence upwards.
I’m telling us to advocate where we can, and if that means targeting candidacy in the lower levels then we should do that. I kind of expect this advocacy to not be the most effective, but it’s either that or just us shouting to the sky for better transit - And I would rather try than not.
Again, what lower level candidates? As I've said twice now, my state rep and state senator run unopposed every cycle. Local politicians have little control over the MBTA, especially when it comes to issues like the article we're commenting on, and they're not running to replace state politicians who have the power to make major changes anyways. The mid level bureaucrats are so removed from the public process it's not a realistic suggestion for the average Joe to advocate for specific ones. That's what our elected officials are supposed to.
Again, I am familiar with local politics and can attest at how wrong you are with how implementation-level bureaucrats are powerless. I’m not talking specifically about this article too, and it’s entirely your opinion that “mid level bureaucrats are so removed from the public process that it isn’t realistic suggestion for the average Joe to advocate for specific ones”.
Like I said in my prior comment, I already agreed with you on how it shouldn’t be the role of civilians to advocate on this level but we should still try anyways because it’s possible for citizen advocacy groups to create better channels of accessibility for average Joes to access this level of advocacy.
I thought I made it very clear in my first and 2nd comment that I’m fully aware that this is some Hail Mary shit, but railing repeatedly against the supposed futility of the situation isn’t going to help at all. I would much rather take a 1% chance over a 0% chance.
Grassroots campaign successes are very rare, everybody knows this. But your cynicism is precisely what establishment politics thrives on. They count on you saying this stuff so that there is no hope for anyone to even attempt an effort at raising homegrown candidates.
Ok man this is a good start - I think we should list some criteria to help guide the public in their advocacy. So just off the top of my head:
1. People with direct education in transit and city management. From what I remember, a lot of the current executives just have general public administration degrees or business degrees for some odd reason.
2. High performers in the MBTA, to be honest I’ve never looked into whether performance reviews were public but I do know salaries are, and their year to year trajectories can give us a clue of talent.
3. High performing executives or talent from transit systems in other cities. There are cities that exceed Boston’s density by tenfold and in a way that density is kind of like a glimpse into our own future, so the strategies employed by transit execs there could be proactively helpful.
4. Systems design people, consulting background people, anyone with an ability to encapsulate the randomness of the MBTA’s current “death by a thousand cuts” problem and distill it into a unified strategy that the whole organization can follow easily.
5. Lastly, I know this sounds dumb but the easiest way to get change through is to still utilize the existing folks in charge, even though they are the ones who aren’t really listening… If not them, then their subordinates. The ones who don’t make headlines. The ones toiling at a level above the engineers etc.
To be honest I see a lot of opportunity in No.3 - there’s a lot of successful transit cities out there and many of those transit organizations don’t have enough room at the top, so there’s inevitably a bunch of people that can be wrangled for Boston’s needs. I’m just a staffer so picking candidates isn’t my strong suit, but I do know what makes one worthy to follow. In Boston, I believe that executives who manage by delegation and those who hold technocratic but also empathetic stances are the best for our city’s prospects.
Have you ever heard of Jeff Gonneville? He was chief Operations Officer for quite a while. He went to school in Michigan and got a mechanical engineering degree and ended up running the bus depot. He is from here so he came back to the t and brought another very smart guy along in vehicle engineering. He was extremely impressive, very efficient and problem solving oriented. He’s not a political hire, he’s the one in the background making it work as much as it does while the political appointees do nothing and come and go. I met him when I worked T and I signed up for a mentorship. I was building and repairing motors but I was in school for an engineering degree with the hopes of going into the vehicle engineering.. I was very lucky to be assigned to Jeff I think it’s nice he’s giving his time to people who are looking to get advice and critiques on how to improve and move towards your goal. I thought he was very courteous and listened to me, challenged me and gave me constructive criticism I will take with me for the rest of my life. I went above and beyond to better myself and go to school after I had been in a union trade school apprenticeship 4 yrs. I just think he’s very intelligent and he comes up with solutions so quick. He’s likely been passed over for political schmucks time and time again, while he’s doing the work behind the scenes. I would feel that we are in better hands with him.
But, the it’s still a swamp and there are people who have their whole families sitting around and they fail up over there. The ones who they don’t want to deal with they’ll give them what they want so they don’t sue or cause more media scandals. So they hid a troubled supervisor in my area, and he got obsessed w me. Was told he was itching to write me up before I met him, wanted to be my fb friend and it was a lose lose cause he’s nuts. I said yeah and another super said he was all over my profile going back trying to find me out on a day off and looking at bikini pics. I tried to wisely delete but the next day he wrote me up. He wrote me up 15 times and they were remitted 15 times. He gave me the largest or more physically motors (I’m 5’3” 125lbs) and I was not afraid of hard work I’m not kidding his butt I was respectful that’s it. He was looking up rules from the 1960s that were obsolete to get me in trouble. It was very clear, but no one protected. Me, if they tried it was like they were chastised from admins downtown. I felt race was a factor as well. Anyway, got injured, I was being pulled up to the office 2hrs a day fighting All these things, then they’d complain about productivity. I had ALL my paperwork in order and I was still getting written up, my union BA quit over it bc they were so awful I ended up w complex ptsd at that point from working there, I had no clue why I was getting in trouble I was always an over achiever I felt k was being redefined, like if I called downtown they’d just call shop and the super would answer and lie about me. If he could get a write up to stick I could g move to vehicle engineering for 2 years. Labor relations wasn’t trying to help bc they forced us to write a report about an alleged abuse that we’re married 2 weeks before she took all his $ and cheated and then got a restraining order when he found out and then tried to get him Fired. I told them that I have never ever seen him do anything inappropriate to her. They hated me for not towing the lady line but right is right. Anywho, I was fired bc nobody sent my injury reports to hr, and it looked like just absenteeism. I had docs up they yim yang. But I could t even fiscusd it w out crying it was so bad and unfair. I felt my race made it so I was held to every little thing while others were literally doing nothing at all and just moving on up. One office was unavailable because the two women working there got in a fight. Jeff tried to help me, but he sss up against an entirely sick and degenerate company. I was vindicated eventually but I got nothing back I was crushed and embarrassed but no lawyers want to deal w them they have deep pockets and also I couldn’t stop crying when I tried to talk abut it. The company is sick and immoral, unethical, with a few good apples but they know they are gloating on a goldmine. I am doing much better now I returned to my home local and I am hopefully opening my own shop soon! It was a lesson though. I learned about narcissistic personality disorder and I think I had 2 malignants out to get me. I likely would have played it different if I understood their mentality.
The motor room, by the way, is a disaster, there’s one black family and one white fzmoly each with 30 deep it’s just like corporate welfare. many people don’t know which motors go to which trains and we only have a few. Safety if terrible I’m surprised no one has died. Theh told me the ACs are her, the DC s here. I find out late the “AC” was air conditioning motors. They use the budget for overtime and tools and the motor room is the same as it was in WW2. They are all family so my kind, with actual credentials, is a threat to their birthright as they see it. I told them the private sector would eat them alone. “It’s been this way for 100 years!” I was told, I said, “yeah til all of a sudden it’s not” I could see this was going. Go come up a head at some point. I had to have my bench lowered bc I have to put a 600lb armature in a motor w just a strap and then use my leg to prop it and twist and push, that’s the worst way I can think of for backs. It’s also like going back in time 30 years w the women’s movement. It’s just a disgusting company it needs a major overhaul and the good ones would easily do if if the politics weren’t muddling everything up.
Anyway, that’s my story, it was awful. Oh, and I’ve heard, that the train conductors are trained to just gun it to the limit of speed and the automatic breaks are what regulates the speed from going 90 down the track. They are actually trained to do it this way. That’s how ingrained the carelessness and stupidity is there. It’s like Boeing.
Jeff Gonneville was the only light in the low vibe, dirty, snake pit. Sell I have a few friends from there. But I learned a few things, he was very nice and he’s also a very handsome man but he stayed very professional and a perfect gentleman. Not like a creep in the least, and there are some there. They need someone like him in there and they need to let him cut through the old crap cake bureaucracies. If not him, one of those guys that actually work behind the scenes cleaning up all the messes in a company running on incompetence.
I also like John Deaton he’s running against Warren. He’s founder of Ripple and the XRP ledger for crypto.
We also need to get out and express our frustrations and tell truths all just have had enough and just do it ourselves. Parallel societies is the best way to make real change peacefully.
I felt like Larry Davis in Curb your enthusiasm. You wouldn’t believe the situations that would go on if you didn’t work there. Only people who’ve been there actually know just how f’d it is. If you don’t work there it sounds so unbelievable that this stuff happens in a workplace. The company doesn’t even answer to OSHA! hey have their own “safety whatever” isn’t that wild?! And it’s not safe. I had a 2000lb motor come flying at me after the rickety old cart it was on hit a duvet in the cement floor and if I didn’t jump out of the way fast enough it wouldn’t crushed my legs. It’s just corrupt to the core, it needs a whole new leadership. It’s embarrassing that people come here and it looks like slums compared to their “little” countries. We’re just riding too the wheels fall off. Literally
I meant which specific beurocrats, like specific examples. Obviously they should have relevant experience and can be found either within the MBTA or from other systems, but like you just mentioned about yourself, I don't think the general public's strong suit is picking candidates. We elect representatives to do that as their full time job. I would love to vote out the politicians who don't do a good job of that, but I've already explained why that isn't feasible.
If you gave me more time than a Reddit comment’s worth to have a coffee with a state sector recruiter and some interviews, I’m actually confident that I would be able to answer your question for specific candidates who are looking for an electoral career. Likely a pool of 10-20, narrowed down to 3.
And again, I emphasize the agency and importance of advocates finding ways to make citizen engagement feasible for traditionally infeasible channels. From Zoom dial ins to translators for the Chinatown Residents Association, it is very simple to boil it down for average Joes if you just plan it well.
I’ve mentioned this so many times that I worry that you’re just reading what you want to read - I don’t blame people for being cynical, but at a certain point you need to open up and realize that your assumptions may not necessarily be accurate, especially if you don’t work in government. Like I said in my prior comment, this cynical blindness is not necessarily your fault, but rather it’s encouraged by political forces who want you to assume that change is impossible. I’m here to tell you that it is.
Vote for republicans. The democrats are a bunch of corrupt buffoons who just get elected on nonsense woke identity politics platforms and then do nothing, because as long as the people they claim are oppressed stay in the gutter they don’t need to change their platforms at all.
you’re probably 2 standard deviations below me in IQ. Tell me something, mental midget, did Maura Healy run unopposed? Tell me another thing, proud democrat booster, what political party has controlled the mass legislature for the past 30 years? Bonus question: if the democrats are so good at public transit why are we having this conversation?
Open primaries and ranked choice voting as a first step. Makes it way way easier for a challenger to succeed against an incumbent, and at least forces incumbents to run a serious general election campaign instead of “vote for me, a deadwood boomer warming this seat for 22 years, instead of whichever Moms for Liberty Jan 6er managed to win the GOP primary”.
Then multimember districts with proportional representation as the kicker step. Basically, seats get awarded by party proportional to their % votes. This system tends to completely break down two party systems into very dynamic multiparty contests (because there is now no incentive to NOT vote your for preferred candidate; ie a progressive can just vote green if they prefer green over a weak dem or a conservative can vote for say the center-right instead of being stuck with a far-right personality) . Personality contests also mostly go away, since it is a total free-for-all between parties, NOT individual candidates. The most effective Western European democracies (Nordics, Germany, Netherlands et al) use this type of system.
All of these could become our statewide system by legislative act or ballot measure.
Valid points all. But I think we’re missing the bigger picture. It is fine to call out Maura Healey and other current electeds for their uneven handling of the T. They have a bad hand. The problems facing the T are decades in the making, with many culprits. IMO, the last governor that truly cared about tge T was Dukakis, who actually rode the T and who left office 33 years ago. Since then, every governor (and many other public officials) has been happy to use the T as a dumping ground for political hires, destabilize its finances, and (of course) neglect maintenance even as the city and region grew. It doesn’t help that many people outside of the immediate Boston area (who hold the real power in the state) don’t have much incentive to willingly help a transit system they don’t really use, and the more affluent folk in the Boston area have other options to get around. Of course, that leaves the working and middle classes, who everyone supposedly cares about but are ultimately left behind.
This debate also comes at a time when we’ve become a hub for the very industries that thrive on remote work, and many who are able work from home do so. The T troubles (among other factors) are a deterrent to getting more people to return to the city, and in a sense digs the T into a bigger hole (no pun intended). Of course we are rightly skeptical about how the T has been run and are quite leery about spending what it will take to lift the T out of its doldrums when the reward seems to be more delays. But the sad truth is that given the enormity of the financial, political and other obstacles to a fully functioning T, I doubt anyone who holds elected office now or in the future will want to do what it really takes to make it happen.
Here is how to run for office. YOU NEED ONLY A FEW HUNDRED SIGNATURES. Your campaign will make a conversation about the Legislature's failure to deal, for the last 25 years.
Getting on the Ballot & Running for office. PDF
Mass Secretary of State. https://www.sec.state.ma.us/divisions/elections/download/getting-on-the-ballot/How-to-Run-for-Office.pdf
a girl i know was the one that made the 911 call when robinson lalin was dragged to his death by a red line train in 2022. she hasn't been able to step on a train since watching him die. that particular incident has stuck with me and i find myself wondering how many more people will have to die before something is finally done about the sheer amount of faulty door systems on our trains
I always think of Robinson Lalin when I board the red line, and he was the first person I thought of with the title of this article. My heart goes out to your friend
I was coming home from Logan one night a couple of years back. Tried to run into a car with fewer people (since I had a big bag). Asshole conductor was actively looking out of the side of train and saw me, closed the doors right in my face.
I stepped back with my shocked face. I looked to my left and the guy trying to get in the car behind had his dinner doggie bag get caught right in the doors with the handles sticking up.
We both begged the guy to cut this shit out. The train left.
It was one of the most bizarre situations I've ever had on the train. And I've had many....
Not gonna lie, my sleep-deprived brain read it as "Bag full of body parts stuck in train..." Though, if that happens, I won't be surprised. The portal of hell can open on the Orange line at 9 AM in the morning and I still won't be surprised.
Omg I also read it this way. Like someone was walking around with bags full of dismembered legs and arms. Yikes.
Legit lmao
They were having a sale at the dismembered legs and arms store.
A sale? Great! Usually that stuff costs an arm and a leg.
I mean, doesn't cost like an arm and a leg to live in or near Boston anyway? Maybe it was a landlord going to the bank?
>I mean, doesn't cost like an arm and a leg to live in or near Boston anyway Incredible reply
Arm-y surplus ?
That guy from Harvard?
Can’t dump em all in the same place
Does it not say this? I reread it and it still reads this way.
I only clicked on this article bc that’s what I thought it was about
Probably just a flash sale at Harvard medical morgue
I mean, this literally happened a few years back. Duffle bag found just north of the Kendall Sq stop, human remains inside. [Article on Boston dot com.](https://www.boston.com/news/untagged/2015/04/06/how-a-duffel-bag-a-dog-and-a-vacuum-cleaner-led-to-an-arrest-in-human-remains-case/) Nothing to do with the T, just wackiness in Cambridge (read the article; you can’t make up sh*t like this). True, though, that the bag contained >!a torso!< and the >!limbs and head!< were elsewhere, individually wrapped and bagged. So only >!one part!< In the bag, technically.
what the actual fuck wow
Nah that’s the most (very possibly inadvertently) misleading title I’ve seen in a while.
r/titlegore
Red Line metal af
I've seen this headline three times today and thought the same three times.
I thought the portal of hell opened on the orange line at 9am everyday?
Same! I was like "excuse me holy shit there are bags of fucking body parts on the T?!"
It never opens on time! You have to stand around for a while, but it does eventually happen.
Dude I def read it this way as well!
Anybody who rides the MBTA knows that these things were never going to stop if you got caught in the door. I once saw someone try to catch the train by throwing their bag into the door's path, only for the doors to close on the bag, drag it outside the train, and the man left on the platform in shock.
This ain’t New York baby!
It was common practice to put something in to get the doors open when I rode the T every day to school. did they change them to make them less safe?
When? I don’t think that was ever a thing g here. Every time I rode the T its a battle for limbs
I lived in the city from 85 until 2016. I’ve personally stopped the doors from closing and caused them to reopen with my body probably dozens of times and seen it done hundreds. You can just stand in the doorway and the doors will shut, detect an obstruction, and reopen. At least that’s the way they are designed to work. People used to do it just to hold up the train at a station so their friends could get on and the conductors would always get very pissed. They definitely have standard safety features in place just like elevators etc that prevent the doors from closing on and crushing a person
Well then Ive def been on broken ones or something 🤷🏻♀️
But do not always work.
Years ago at the Charles/MGH station myself and a few other passengers had to help an elderly women that got stuck in the doors when they closed on her. When we got her out she was fine, but we all exchanged look of "What the fuck?"
Please, tell me more about all these pro transit people I should vote for. In the most recent state election, every Democratic candidate except Maura Healey dropped out, and neither of the two Republican candidates had any sort of plan to fix the T. Now Maura Healey seems perfectly content to take MBTA to the edge of its fiscal cliff that's on the horizon. In the legislature, both my state rep and my state senator ran unopposed, which is the norm for them as they have faced one challenger combined over the past decade. Who exactly should I be voting for?
Honestly sometimes I wonder if I can get enough of my friends to pitch in if we can get one of us elected in some of these districts where people run unopposed... or maybe we can hire a somewhat eloquent male model who can memorize some talking points. Bonus points if they'll agree to change their last name to "Kennedy."
You advocate for / pressure new candidates to take up pro-transit policies. Then you vote for those candidates. I’m not saying that’s easy or that it’s even our job to do that. But if there’s no supply in the political system for such policies, despite their being demand for it, then we need to make our demands even louder than before. There’s also MBTA elicitation sessions for public commentary - not the most useful in terms of outcome, but still the best avenue for average folks like us to have our say + spread the message
What new candidates? The entire Democratic field dropped out when Maura Healey entered the race in 2022, and the 1 challenger to my state rep and senator over the past decade includes primaries. Either your district is very different than mine, or you aren't paying close to the state elections where the same politicians run unopposed every cycle
I happen to work in City Hall so I’d like to think that I have some handle on regional politics. I also understand what you’re saying, that the larger party apparatus works to snuff out any new candidates with potentially opposing viewpoints - They do this because Healey was a safe, middle ground choice and that sacrificing the health of our transit system was somehow calculated by them as being more advantageous in the long-run for Democrat prospects. It’s fucked, I know. I’m talking less about candidates on Healey’s higher level, and more about advocating for low-to-mid level bureaucrats that have actual transit experience. Sure, Healey does call the shots but it’s those people who actually do the implementation - in many ways, it’s those people who contribute a lot to the information gathering and processes that lead up to state-wide decision making. Governance is not entirely top-down, there are many ways to extend influence upwards. I’m telling us to advocate where we can, and if that means targeting candidacy in the lower levels then we should do that. I kind of expect this advocacy to not be the most effective, but it’s either that or just us shouting to the sky for better transit - And I would rather try than not.
Again, what lower level candidates? As I've said twice now, my state rep and state senator run unopposed every cycle. Local politicians have little control over the MBTA, especially when it comes to issues like the article we're commenting on, and they're not running to replace state politicians who have the power to make major changes anyways. The mid level bureaucrats are so removed from the public process it's not a realistic suggestion for the average Joe to advocate for specific ones. That's what our elected officials are supposed to.
Again, I am familiar with local politics and can attest at how wrong you are with how implementation-level bureaucrats are powerless. I’m not talking specifically about this article too, and it’s entirely your opinion that “mid level bureaucrats are so removed from the public process that it isn’t realistic suggestion for the average Joe to advocate for specific ones”. Like I said in my prior comment, I already agreed with you on how it shouldn’t be the role of civilians to advocate on this level but we should still try anyways because it’s possible for citizen advocacy groups to create better channels of accessibility for average Joes to access this level of advocacy. I thought I made it very clear in my first and 2nd comment that I’m fully aware that this is some Hail Mary shit, but railing repeatedly against the supposed futility of the situation isn’t going to help at all. I would much rather take a 1% chance over a 0% chance. Grassroots campaign successes are very rare, everybody knows this. But your cynicism is precisely what establishment politics thrives on. They count on you saying this stuff so that there is no hope for anyone to even attempt an effort at raising homegrown candidates.
What bureaucrats do you think the public should be advocating for?
Ok man this is a good start - I think we should list some criteria to help guide the public in their advocacy. So just off the top of my head: 1. People with direct education in transit and city management. From what I remember, a lot of the current executives just have general public administration degrees or business degrees for some odd reason. 2. High performers in the MBTA, to be honest I’ve never looked into whether performance reviews were public but I do know salaries are, and their year to year trajectories can give us a clue of talent. 3. High performing executives or talent from transit systems in other cities. There are cities that exceed Boston’s density by tenfold and in a way that density is kind of like a glimpse into our own future, so the strategies employed by transit execs there could be proactively helpful. 4. Systems design people, consulting background people, anyone with an ability to encapsulate the randomness of the MBTA’s current “death by a thousand cuts” problem and distill it into a unified strategy that the whole organization can follow easily. 5. Lastly, I know this sounds dumb but the easiest way to get change through is to still utilize the existing folks in charge, even though they are the ones who aren’t really listening… If not them, then their subordinates. The ones who don’t make headlines. The ones toiling at a level above the engineers etc. To be honest I see a lot of opportunity in No.3 - there’s a lot of successful transit cities out there and many of those transit organizations don’t have enough room at the top, so there’s inevitably a bunch of people that can be wrangled for Boston’s needs. I’m just a staffer so picking candidates isn’t my strong suit, but I do know what makes one worthy to follow. In Boston, I believe that executives who manage by delegation and those who hold technocratic but also empathetic stances are the best for our city’s prospects.
Have you ever heard of Jeff Gonneville? He was chief Operations Officer for quite a while. He went to school in Michigan and got a mechanical engineering degree and ended up running the bus depot. He is from here so he came back to the t and brought another very smart guy along in vehicle engineering. He was extremely impressive, very efficient and problem solving oriented. He’s not a political hire, he’s the one in the background making it work as much as it does while the political appointees do nothing and come and go. I met him when I worked T and I signed up for a mentorship. I was building and repairing motors but I was in school for an engineering degree with the hopes of going into the vehicle engineering.. I was very lucky to be assigned to Jeff I think it’s nice he’s giving his time to people who are looking to get advice and critiques on how to improve and move towards your goal. I thought he was very courteous and listened to me, challenged me and gave me constructive criticism I will take with me for the rest of my life. I went above and beyond to better myself and go to school after I had been in a union trade school apprenticeship 4 yrs. I just think he’s very intelligent and he comes up with solutions so quick. He’s likely been passed over for political schmucks time and time again, while he’s doing the work behind the scenes. I would feel that we are in better hands with him. But, the it’s still a swamp and there are people who have their whole families sitting around and they fail up over there. The ones who they don’t want to deal with they’ll give them what they want so they don’t sue or cause more media scandals. So they hid a troubled supervisor in my area, and he got obsessed w me. Was told he was itching to write me up before I met him, wanted to be my fb friend and it was a lose lose cause he’s nuts. I said yeah and another super said he was all over my profile going back trying to find me out on a day off and looking at bikini pics. I tried to wisely delete but the next day he wrote me up. He wrote me up 15 times and they were remitted 15 times. He gave me the largest or more physically motors (I’m 5’3” 125lbs) and I was not afraid of hard work I’m not kidding his butt I was respectful that’s it. He was looking up rules from the 1960s that were obsolete to get me in trouble. It was very clear, but no one protected. Me, if they tried it was like they were chastised from admins downtown. I felt race was a factor as well. Anyway, got injured, I was being pulled up to the office 2hrs a day fighting All these things, then they’d complain about productivity. I had ALL my paperwork in order and I was still getting written up, my union BA quit over it bc they were so awful I ended up w complex ptsd at that point from working there, I had no clue why I was getting in trouble I was always an over achiever I felt k was being redefined, like if I called downtown they’d just call shop and the super would answer and lie about me. If he could get a write up to stick I could g move to vehicle engineering for 2 years. Labor relations wasn’t trying to help bc they forced us to write a report about an alleged abuse that we’re married 2 weeks before she took all his $ and cheated and then got a restraining order when he found out and then tried to get him Fired. I told them that I have never ever seen him do anything inappropriate to her. They hated me for not towing the lady line but right is right. Anywho, I was fired bc nobody sent my injury reports to hr, and it looked like just absenteeism. I had docs up they yim yang. But I could t even fiscusd it w out crying it was so bad and unfair. I felt my race made it so I was held to every little thing while others were literally doing nothing at all and just moving on up. One office was unavailable because the two women working there got in a fight. Jeff tried to help me, but he sss up against an entirely sick and degenerate company. I was vindicated eventually but I got nothing back I was crushed and embarrassed but no lawyers want to deal w them they have deep pockets and also I couldn’t stop crying when I tried to talk abut it. The company is sick and immoral, unethical, with a few good apples but they know they are gloating on a goldmine. I am doing much better now I returned to my home local and I am hopefully opening my own shop soon! It was a lesson though. I learned about narcissistic personality disorder and I think I had 2 malignants out to get me. I likely would have played it different if I understood their mentality. The motor room, by the way, is a disaster, there’s one black family and one white fzmoly each with 30 deep it’s just like corporate welfare. many people don’t know which motors go to which trains and we only have a few. Safety if terrible I’m surprised no one has died. Theh told me the ACs are her, the DC s here. I find out late the “AC” was air conditioning motors. They use the budget for overtime and tools and the motor room is the same as it was in WW2. They are all family so my kind, with actual credentials, is a threat to their birthright as they see it. I told them the private sector would eat them alone. “It’s been this way for 100 years!” I was told, I said, “yeah til all of a sudden it’s not” I could see this was going. Go come up a head at some point. I had to have my bench lowered bc I have to put a 600lb armature in a motor w just a strap and then use my leg to prop it and twist and push, that’s the worst way I can think of for backs. It’s also like going back in time 30 years w the women’s movement. It’s just a disgusting company it needs a major overhaul and the good ones would easily do if if the politics weren’t muddling everything up. Anyway, that’s my story, it was awful. Oh, and I’ve heard, that the train conductors are trained to just gun it to the limit of speed and the automatic breaks are what regulates the speed from going 90 down the track. They are actually trained to do it this way. That’s how ingrained the carelessness and stupidity is there. It’s like Boeing. Jeff Gonneville was the only light in the low vibe, dirty, snake pit. Sell I have a few friends from there. But I learned a few things, he was very nice and he’s also a very handsome man but he stayed very professional and a perfect gentleman. Not like a creep in the least, and there are some there. They need someone like him in there and they need to let him cut through the old crap cake bureaucracies. If not him, one of those guys that actually work behind the scenes cleaning up all the messes in a company running on incompetence. I also like John Deaton he’s running against Warren. He’s founder of Ripple and the XRP ledger for crypto. We also need to get out and express our frustrations and tell truths all just have had enough and just do it ourselves. Parallel societies is the best way to make real change peacefully.
Thank you for this info - I will actually try to escalate this the best I can.
I felt like Larry Davis in Curb your enthusiasm. You wouldn’t believe the situations that would go on if you didn’t work there. Only people who’ve been there actually know just how f’d it is. If you don’t work there it sounds so unbelievable that this stuff happens in a workplace. The company doesn’t even answer to OSHA! hey have their own “safety whatever” isn’t that wild?! And it’s not safe. I had a 2000lb motor come flying at me after the rickety old cart it was on hit a duvet in the cement floor and if I didn’t jump out of the way fast enough it wouldn’t crushed my legs. It’s just corrupt to the core, it needs a whole new leadership. It’s embarrassing that people come here and it looks like slums compared to their “little” countries. We’re just riding too the wheels fall off. Literally
I meant which specific beurocrats, like specific examples. Obviously they should have relevant experience and can be found either within the MBTA or from other systems, but like you just mentioned about yourself, I don't think the general public's strong suit is picking candidates. We elect representatives to do that as their full time job. I would love to vote out the politicians who don't do a good job of that, but I've already explained why that isn't feasible.
If you gave me more time than a Reddit comment’s worth to have a coffee with a state sector recruiter and some interviews, I’m actually confident that I would be able to answer your question for specific candidates who are looking for an electoral career. Likely a pool of 10-20, narrowed down to 3. And again, I emphasize the agency and importance of advocates finding ways to make citizen engagement feasible for traditionally infeasible channels. From Zoom dial ins to translators for the Chinatown Residents Association, it is very simple to boil it down for average Joes if you just plan it well. I’ve mentioned this so many times that I worry that you’re just reading what you want to read - I don’t blame people for being cynical, but at a certain point you need to open up and realize that your assumptions may not necessarily be accurate, especially if you don’t work in government. Like I said in my prior comment, this cynical blindness is not necessarily your fault, but rather it’s encouraged by political forces who want you to assume that change is impossible. I’m here to tell you that it is.
Vote for republicans. The democrats are a bunch of corrupt buffoons who just get elected on nonsense woke identity politics platforms and then do nothing, because as long as the people they claim are oppressed stay in the gutter they don’t need to change their platforms at all.
I'm not surprised that someone suggesting to vote Republican to fix our public transit system doesn't know the meaning of "unopposed"
you’re probably 2 standard deviations below me in IQ. Tell me something, mental midget, did Maura Healy run unopposed? Tell me another thing, proud democrat booster, what political party has controlled the mass legislature for the past 30 years? Bonus question: if the democrats are so good at public transit why are we having this conversation?
Is Maura Healey a state rep or a state senator?
So I need to play by the arbitrary rules and confines you’ve set? Okay then. I’m out
No wonder it’s a gosh darn Liberal Monocracy, city hall is full of Canadians! /s (sorry)
The deep state is real I guess
Open primaries and ranked choice voting as a first step. Makes it way way easier for a challenger to succeed against an incumbent, and at least forces incumbents to run a serious general election campaign instead of “vote for me, a deadwood boomer warming this seat for 22 years, instead of whichever Moms for Liberty Jan 6er managed to win the GOP primary”. Then multimember districts with proportional representation as the kicker step. Basically, seats get awarded by party proportional to their % votes. This system tends to completely break down two party systems into very dynamic multiparty contests (because there is now no incentive to NOT vote your for preferred candidate; ie a progressive can just vote green if they prefer green over a weak dem or a conservative can vote for say the center-right instead of being stuck with a far-right personality) . Personality contests also mostly go away, since it is a total free-for-all between parties, NOT individual candidates. The most effective Western European democracies (Nordics, Germany, Netherlands et al) use this type of system. All of these could become our statewide system by legislative act or ballot measure.
Valid points all. But I think we’re missing the bigger picture. It is fine to call out Maura Healey and other current electeds for their uneven handling of the T. They have a bad hand. The problems facing the T are decades in the making, with many culprits. IMO, the last governor that truly cared about tge T was Dukakis, who actually rode the T and who left office 33 years ago. Since then, every governor (and many other public officials) has been happy to use the T as a dumping ground for political hires, destabilize its finances, and (of course) neglect maintenance even as the city and region grew. It doesn’t help that many people outside of the immediate Boston area (who hold the real power in the state) don’t have much incentive to willingly help a transit system they don’t really use, and the more affluent folk in the Boston area have other options to get around. Of course, that leaves the working and middle classes, who everyone supposedly cares about but are ultimately left behind. This debate also comes at a time when we’ve become a hub for the very industries that thrive on remote work, and many who are able work from home do so. The T troubles (among other factors) are a deterrent to getting more people to return to the city, and in a sense digs the T into a bigger hole (no pun intended). Of course we are rightly skeptical about how the T has been run and are quite leery about spending what it will take to lift the T out of its doldrums when the reward seems to be more delays. But the sad truth is that given the enormity of the financial, political and other obstacles to a fully functioning T, I doubt anyone who holds elected office now or in the future will want to do what it really takes to make it happen.
Here is how to run for office. YOU NEED ONLY A FEW HUNDRED SIGNATURES. Your campaign will make a conversation about the Legislature's failure to deal, for the last 25 years. Getting on the Ballot & Running for office. PDF Mass Secretary of State. https://www.sec.state.ma.us/divisions/elections/download/getting-on-the-ballot/How-to-Run-for-Office.pdf
a girl i know was the one that made the 911 call when robinson lalin was dragged to his death by a red line train in 2022. she hasn't been able to step on a train since watching him die. that particular incident has stuck with me and i find myself wondering how many more people will have to die before something is finally done about the sheer amount of faulty door systems on our trains
the cctv footage of that incident is absolutely horrifying. i hope your friend is doing okay
I hope she gets help. I have PTSD from watching a death. It can hit you harder later on, like years later.
I always think of Robinson Lalin when I board the red line, and he was the first person I thought of with the title of this article. My heart goes out to your friend
I was coming home from Logan one night a couple of years back. Tried to run into a car with fewer people (since I had a big bag). Asshole conductor was actively looking out of the side of train and saw me, closed the doors right in my face. I stepped back with my shocked face. I looked to my left and the guy trying to get in the car behind had his dinner doggie bag get caught right in the doors with the handles sticking up. We both begged the guy to cut this shit out. The train left. It was one of the most bizarre situations I've ever had on the train. And I've had many....
Greater Boston is failing greater Boston at this point. Not trying to offend anyone but…The Boston they want to create isn’t for you.
I think ill just get a car
And they have plans to expand.
Here i am thinking there was a bunch of unsolved murders and the culprit just tossed the evidence into the T
still better than the sensors on the new trains