BOSTON — Amtrak’s past fiscal foibles were bad enough. Then came the cracked yaw dampers on the Acela Express, which knocked out the money-making, high-speed service for a month. It’s still not all the way back, according to an editorial in the Boston Globe.
Given its financial track record, you’d think the ailing national rail carrier would have learned the value of a buck. But apparently Amtrak-contracted conductors on MBTA commuter rail lines find it tough to collect fares.
When word got around about the topic of this week’s column, Deb from Allston sent praise.
”People on the Attleboro/Stoughton train look at me as if I’m crazy when I complain about this,” she wrote. The problem is pervasive enough that some commuters have stopped buying passes and switched to cheaper 12-ride tickets ”to take advantage of the conductors’ laxness.”
”These people do not understand that even though the T does not cover its costs with fare revenue, it is a critical piece of their funding – and a way for the T to determine ridership and demand.”
(This paragraph alone made me wonder if Deb was not T General Manager Michael Mulhern in disguise. But I digress … .)
Since February, she wrote, she’s averaged two uncollected fares a month. And she can document it. ”The scary thing is that I only ride the train about four times a month to visit my boyfriend!”
She’s complained to the MBTA, which in turn complained to Amtrak, but with little result.
We have received many other letters like this. Too many, in fact, for this to be an anomaly.
When we told T spokesman Joe Pesaturo our topic this week, he let out a long, exasperated sigh.
”The MBTA has repeatedly brought this reported failure to collect revenue to Amtrak’s attention,” he said. In fact, the problem has been bad enough in the past that the T has withheld payments to Amtrak.
How bad has it been? The T has sent spies onto commuter rail trains to monitor fare collection.
How bad has it been? The contract for the new commuter rail operator calls for it to receive half of all fares collected above the previous year’s revenue, plus 3 percent (to take annual growth into account). It’s an incentive to collect fares, which seems silly on the surface, but after Amtrak …
”This issue had to be addressed,” Pesaturo said.
Amtrak spokesman Bill Schulz was stymied by the news.
”It’s inconceivable why a fare would not be collected,” he said. ”We would want to know of any incident where that may have occurred. It’s our money, too.”
”Amtrak is a lame-duck contractor with no incentive to do the job right,” Deb from Allston wrote, alluding to the fact that Amtrak will not bid on the T’s new commuter rail contract.
”Maybe a little public shame will serve as incentive for Amtrak to start collecting fares and stop short-changing the taxpayers of Massachusetts.”
Sweeps weeks
Dealing with issues ranging ”from truancy to terrorism,” MBTA police have begun a unique program called Operation Safe Travel, which involves quiet but noticeable sweeps of trains at Boston’s core stations downtown.
Started by acting T Police Chief Paul Fleming, the program began Sept. 10 and is more or less a component of community policing, albeit underground. It’s also a little intimidating, geared to be a quick security sweep without delaying trains.
The way it works is simple: After a train pulls into a station, the motorman is handed a card which reads: ”As part of Operation Safe Travel, the MBTA police will be making a random check of this train. Please report anything suspicious to the officers.” That’s it.
A sergeant and four to five officers, all wearing flourescent green vests (they are nicknamed the Green Hornets) walk into and then out of the train, checking out the riders. By the time the announcement is read over the intercom, the officers should be on and quickly off the train, Fleming said.
Thus far, the acting chief said there have been no complaints that the program has caused any delays. Nor have passengers complained about any harassment.
Thus far, the police presence is about more than nabbing perps; the operation has resulted in the arrest of a man smoking crack on a T platform and officers also offered backup during a knife melee last week at Downtown Crossing.
Fleming assured us that the program is not meant to unsettle passengers and is only as good as the information provided by riders. The units are also checking all aspects of the T’s underground property, looking for suspicious packages and the like while checking throughout the maze of tunnel complexes.
”Some passengers ask what’s going on, and others say, `It’s nice to see you guys,”’ Fleming said.
Night Owl rolls on
It’s been a year since the MBTA started its after-hours Night Owl service, and now changes are afoot to streamline the trips while cutting costs.
All in all, the Night Owl has been a success, T officials said this week in a letter to Mayor Thomas M. Menino. Not only has the T increased ridership, if only slightly, but the service has also helped Boston combat its image as a city that rolls up its sidewalks after midnight. Sometimes earlier.
The late-night transit service, which runs Friday and Saturday nights every half hour or better from 1 to 2:30 a.m., uses 59 vehicles a night to pick up nearly 1,600 passengers.
However, this has come at a heavy price – unused buses and too much staff working late into the night.
Bearing this in mind, the T is proposing cuts, eliminating some little-used aspects of the service while maintaining or enhancing the more popular routes. In all, the T expects to lose about 6 percent of its ridership through the changes.
Among the changes being proposed:
Eliminate 1 a.m. outbound trips from Government Center except on the Green Line Night Owl – Boston College runs.
Eliminate inbound trips that arrive at Government Center after 2:30 a.m. Poor ridership here.
Reduce the frequency of Routes 1N (Harvard/Holyoke Gate to BU Medical Center) 66N Harvard Square to Dudley Station via Allston and Brookline Village), 111N Woodlawn to Government Center), and the Green Line Night Owl – Riverside.
Add outbound trips at 2:15 a.m. to the Green Line Night Owl – Boston College, and Red Line Night Owl – Alewife.
Eliminate Route 9N (City Point to Government Center) due to low ridership.
Combine Red Line Night Owls to Ashmont and to Braintree and combine Route 77N with the Red Line to Alewife.
In all, the changes are expected to reduce the program’s costs from an original $3.35 million for the first year of the program to a proposed $1.46 million for the new fiscal year.
Pit stops
Areminder that the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge walk is next Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. … We want to know how the Romney/Healey ticket plans to enforce its proposed anti-rubbernecking measures in their proposed commuter bill of rights? … Tony Monaco, T bus driver extraordinaire, came in 11th in the national bus roadeo out of 125 competitors.
We answer as many inquiries each week as space allows. Please, no phone calls. You can reach us by e-mail at starts@globe.com. The column is also on Globe Online, which can be found at www.boston.com/globe/metro /