This is actually illegal in MA. If you catch the plates you can report it.

Not sure we just loved the little shops downtown and we sat at an outdoor pizza place and then we walked by the water. We just had a nice day. Went with my kids 20 and 22 and a few of their friends.

Moving from Tampa to Boston in 2023 is WILD.

I mean, violent crime rises with income inequality, which is rising across the country because of late stage capitalism.

Very little she can do

Most people care a little, some care a lot and some don't at all. Seems like you are behind someone who was careless.

Best thing to do is just give people lots of space to be stupid.

Biggest waste of money. Why are we spending a billion dollars on fare collection when the trains are not even maintained properly?

I know the MBTA is not a household but the analogy holds that of that if you have a fixed budget you should pay your rent/mortgage before you pay your cable bill.

The T needs to get its deferred maintenance backlog caught up before it even thinks about a luxury like this. And you can’t “chew bubble gum and walk at the same time” if you have a finite ammount of money to spend like the T does.

>The MBTA does not expect to fully implement its nearly $1 billion automated fare collection system in 2024, as previously planned, effectively pushing back a project that was already three years behind schedule.
>
>This project, when completed, will replace the 2006 CharlieCard system with a modernized contactless payment approach, allowing riders to tap or board at any door with a fare card, smartphone or credit card, with an additional aim of cutting down on fare evasion.
>
>To that end, electronic fare gates were introduced at North Station in October, and will eventually be installed at South and Back Bay stations.
>
>“The Healey-Driscoll administration has undergone a preliminary review of this complex project to assess its current status and timeline for completion,” MBTA spokesperson Joe Pesaturo told the Herald on Saturday.
>
>“Based on the review so far, it’s clear based on the contractor’s most recent schedule, it is unlikely to meet the current 2024 timeline for full implementation. As the review process advances, more information will become available.”
>
>It’s the latest setback for the T’s fare collection overhaul project, which is being implemented by Boston AFC 2.0 OpCo LLC, a subsidiary of Cubic Transportation Systems, per a 2018 contractual agreement.
>
>The original contract called for full implementation by 2021, at a $723.3 million cost to the MBTA, but the T’s Fiscal and Management Control Board amended the deal in April 2020, pushing that timeline to 2024 and driving up the final price tag to $935.4 million.
>
>Pesaturo did not address a Herald inquiry about whether the extended timeline would increase the cost of the project, but a source with experience in the fare payment industry said a price increase is likely.
>
>“It came out that it was $200 million over budget, for a total cost of just under a billion,” the source said. “And that’s the last update we’ve had. I think we can all expect that there’s going to be future cost overruns that are going to get this project over a billion dollars.”
>
>Brian Kane, executive director of the MBTA Advisory Board, said the board has been asking for a project update as part of its capital budget oversight process for the past couple of years, but has not been getting much of a response from the T.
>
>“It looks like they’re trying to do this incrementally and not make a big deal about it, and have this be a whole big, giant program or project that’s subject to systemic failure issues,” Kane said. “I think they’re going to incrementally phase in stuff over the next three, four or five years.
>
>“And by 2026, ‘27, ‘28, you will see a wholly transformed fare collection system out there. But you won’t have a giant ribbon cutting.”
>
>Stacy Thompson, executive director of LivableStreets, said the contract is overly bloated and complex, making the project’s “endgame” more difficult to accomplish. The MBTA should have focused on its fare policies first, she said, before implementing new fare payment technology.
>
>“The MBTA must start putting policy before technology because at the end of the day, we have a fare collection system that is off-track, is costing us a billion dollars, and we don’t have low-income fares,” Thompson said.
>
>“We haven’t figured out our fare policies in a post-COVID world. None of that work has happened. Technology will not save us.”
>
>Pesaturo said the MBTA continues to review fare policy, “through the lens of equity, to deliver a project which modernizes the fare system to reflect customer payment choices, such as mobile devices and contactless credit cards.”
>
>Charlie Chieppo, a transportation watcher at Pioneer Institute, said a big part of the problem is with the vendor, which has control of a large share of the market, in terms of transit agencies seeking to implement this technology.
>
>In May 2022, Pioneer Institute published a report on the project, which cited a 2017 Governing Magazine article that described problems and delays that had occurred in other transit agencies that had contracted with Cubic for similar technology, including Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
>
>“If you want this kind of fare system, you don’t have a lot of other places to go,” Chieppo said. “So I think they’ve done a lot of overpromising and under-delivering.”
>
>However, an observer of the T’s project pointed out that in New York City, the much-larger Metropolitan Transportation Authority was able to get its contactless payment system up and running faster and at a lower cost than the MBTA.
>
>“They’re up and running and going and the T’s system is nowhere to be found,” the source said. “So it’s not exactly a situation where the T can blame the vendor … because the vendor successfully rolled out a similar procurement at a much bigger agency in the same time frame.”

We went to Newburyport for the first time a few weeks ago, but mostly to see the Parker River Wildlife Refuge. We grabbed lunch in town, but didn’t really notice an area that looked like interesting walking. What did we miss?

>How are we 3 years over projections and a quarter billion over?

Because anything involving massdot is incapable of being completed on time or on budget. The levels of nepotism, corruption, and incompetence are astounding.

Lmao there is definitely already multi door boarding now for the green line

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> For what it’s worth, it seems like ALL the features won’t be out by 2024. > > > > The only thing I care about is multi-door boarding on Green Line and buses.

i just want to be able to use my phone as my pass so i don't have to worry about my charlie card expiring for no reason. (plus being able to add value to my card without having to physically be at the station)

Welcome to massachusetts.

Fares never fully paid for the cost of running the system. I don't remember the exact percent, but it's only as high as 60%, and that feels high. It's public transit and uses public money to operate with.

Studies have shown the costs of collecting and enforcing fares is pretty close to what the fares bring in in many systems.

CVS

> NYC did their rollout pretty quickly and efficiently… years ago. How are we 3 years over projections and a quarter billion over?

Part of the problem is that we're using the same company NYC did and they had to wait for the NYC rollout to finish in 2021 before they even started working on Massachusetts.

The original ETA of this new fare system was 2020-21. Yeesh.

Got a drink and hashbrowns from Dunkin on Uber eats. Dunkin is a 10 or so minute walk away. I am just oh so lazy

That time that even the Herald admitted violent crime was down.

It’s unfortunate that we even need this system, as opposed to free rides, but free rides would require a financial commitment from the state to make up the lost fare revenue and it’s exceedingly unlikely the state government will do that (Healey, in fact, is today introducing a tax cut bill).

That being said a billion dollars for fare collection absolutely boggles the mind. I can’t even imagine how it could cost that much. I’m not sure we’re even spending a billion to replace the Orange and Red cars and we definitely aren’t to replace the RL and OL signal systems, two projects that will improve the T significantly more than this will. My guess is that the contractor is fleecing the T with billable hours here.

That’s the homie pout says it right there

I have a grocery store on the other side of the street and I get delivery. I usually get a lot at once instead of going frequently. So it’s nice to wheel my caster shelves to the lobby and get my stuff and just bring it up and not leave the building.

Just the other day I watched a Nissan Rogue with an uncleared roof hit a massive pothole which knocked the ice forward and right onto the windshield blocking all of the driver's visibility.

For what it’s worth, it seems like ALL the features won’t be out by 2024.

The only thing I care about is multi-door boarding on Green Line and buses.

Sushi. I live about 5 min from a Genki YA, After a long day of conference calls - 10 hours worth of eye stabbing management shenanigans - I had a mountain of rolls delivered, to restore my faith in humanity.