Posts Tagged ‘MBTA’

The MBTA fails, yet again, to provide a minimal level of acceptable service

Monday, July 6th, 2009

T_sucksTo: CabotSuperintendent@mbta.com
Cc: <Steven.Baddour@state.ma.us>,
<Rep.JosephWagner@hou.state.ma.us>,
<Steven.Tolman@state.ma.us>,
<Rep.KevinHonan@hou.state.ma.us>,
<mayor@cityofboston.gov>,
<Mark.Ciommo@cityofboston.gov>,
<Michael.F.Flaherty@cityofboston.gov>,
<Stephen.Murphy@cityofboston.gov>,
<John.R.Connolly@cityofboston.gov>,
<sam.yoon@cityofboston.gov>,
“‘Governor Patrick’s Office (imailagent)’” <gov.webmail@state.ma.us>,
“‘Halbert, David’” <David.Halbert@cityofboston.gov>

John Houghton
Superintendent, Cabot Bus Garage
MBTA

Dear Mr. Houghton,

They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  If so, then I must be insane to rely on the T.

It’s not so much that many of the 5xx express buses were horrendously delayed for hours this morning.  I understand that was caused by a problem  outside the T’s control, in particular, a stuck railroad crossing gate out in Waltham.

The service failure which puts the T yet again into the “of incompetents, by incompetents, for incompetents” level of service is that yet again, there were serious delays in service, and yet again, YOU DID NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO NOTIFY YOUR CUSTOMERS ABOUT THE DELAYS.

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MBTA Botches Route 57 AGAIN

Monday, April 27th, 2009

April 27, 2009

Daniel Grabauskas
General Manager
MBTA
10 Park Plaza
Boston, MA 02116

Dear Mr. Grabauskas,

Once again, I find myself writing to the T to complain about service which falls far short of “bad,” doesn’t come anywhere near “unacceptable,” and perhaps even falls just a little bit south of “What in heaven’s name is wrong with you people?” (more…)

MBTA Customer Service Time Warp

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009

Reprinting without comment (except some emphasis) an email message I received this morning:

From: "do_not_reply@mbta.com" <do_not_reply@mbta.com>
To: jik@kamens.brookline.ma.us
Cc: chowze@mbta.com
Subject: Thank you for contacting the MBTA
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 10:38:28 -0500

We appreciate your business and value your feedback.  A customer service
issue was logged on 2007-05-22 at 10:35:05

A tracking number of 00054837 has been assigned to this call.  Please
reference this number on any additional communications you may have
regarding this issue.

The information you provided has been forwarded to the appropriate group.
If additional actions are required, a member from that department will
follow up on your issue.

Should you have additional questions or concerns regarding this issue,
please contact the Customer Support Services at 617-222-3200 or
800-392-6100, Monday through Friday ,6:30 AM to 8:00 PM and Sat/Sun from
7:30 AM to 6:00 PM.

** NOTE ** This email is being sent from an automated system and is an
unmonitored account.  Please do not reply to this message.

...

The punchline is that I received exactly the same message (except for the “…” at the end) on May 22, 2007.  And yes, I did check the “Received:” headers and confirmed that it was the MBTA’s servers that regenerated the message:

Received: from mbta.com ([131.108.100.65])
	by message1.mbta.com with SMTP; Thu, 22 Jan 2009 10:38:29 -0500

Two MBTA complaints for the price of one

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

This morning’s complaint:

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You call this a bus stop?

Thursday, September 20th, 2007

Believe it or not, this is an MBTA bus stop (on the outbound side of Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, right before the BU Bridge):

“bus stop”

Note the clear informative signage (not!), the comfortable, shaded bus shelter (double not!) and the easy access to the bus from the sidewalk (as long as you don’t mind walking over uneven, unfinished concrete and lifting up the barrier tape to walk underneath it!).

Memo to the T: It’s customary in decently run public-transit systems to make some effort to mitigate construction that impacts transit stops.

MBTA complaint of the day

Tuesday, May 15th, 2007

It never ceases to amaze me that the folks who run the MBTA can’t seem to handle the simplest aspects of running a working public transit system.  Over and over again, I’ve found myself complaining to them about things that just shouldn’t come up, because they should just be handled properly to begin with.

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