Commuter battles MBTA parking hike

Musicians such as Mihoko Abe and Sean Farias performed Friday at North Station, as part of a new commuter program. (ESSDRAS M SUAREZ/GLOBE STAFF)

The MBTA's parking hikes take effect this week, and not everyone is accepting them sitting down. A 35-year-old scientist from the South Shore has been canvassing the aisle of his commuter train, gathering signatures for a letter to Governor Deval Patrick from riled-up suited suburbanites.

"It's just sort of the last straw," said Michael Quinn, who takes the Kingston line to work in Cambridge.

Quinn blames the $2 parking increase - double the existing fare at commuter rail lots - on mismanagement and says he had gathered 1,800 signatures as of late last week. He plans to deliver his letter to Patrick on Tuesday. He fumes that a modern, billion-dollar agency still collects parking fees by asking passengers to stuff crinkled dollar bills into an honor box, a system that invites fraud, he said.

"I think the parking's so ridiculous," he said. "Where else in 2008 do you use cash and you can't get a receipt?"

He urges fellow passengers to start paying with checks, and he wants Patrick to ask the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority general manager, Daniel A. Grabauskas, to resign.

Despite his efforts, the fee hike is not likely to be rescinded. A spokesman for the Patrick administration would not comment on that question last week and said officials would respond to Quinn's specific letter when they get it.

The MBTA advisory board gave final approval to the new rates Thursday, and urged the MBTA's board of directors to meet with political leaders to remedy the agency's long-term financial problems. The T responded to criticism of the parking hike with an explanation of some of those big picture problems, including its $8 billion debt load and a sales tax that has been underperforming since 2000, when the Legislature gave the T a penny from every dollar spent in the Commonwealth as its primary source of funding.

The T says parking rates in downtown Boston remain far higher, more than $30 per day at many garages, and that most MBTA lots have not had an increase since 2003. Spokesman Joe Pesaturo said the T is considering replacing the honor box system "in the very near future," replacing it with the CharlieCard or some other electronic system. (He also said Grabauskas was not resigning.)

That might be tough to pay for, of course, given the T's finances.

Quinn is not impressed with the T's arguments. He can get cheap subsidized parking in Cambridge and believes the T will lose riders - undermining environmental gains - if it keeps raising rates.

Quinn is wrestling with the idea of giving up riding the train and driving his car to work.

Ethical questions
When the MBTA board approved a $190 million contract to build commuter rail train coaches in February, board members were not told that the MBTA's chief of operations had recused himself from the selection process because of a potential conflict of interest.

Richard J. Leary, chief operating officer, had informed T management in March 2007 that his father had consulted for Rotem, the South Korean train-maker that won the contract, in the past. He also informed the state Ethics Commission at the time that he intended to recuse himself.

But two board members said last week that they were disturbed to learn the back story on the contract for the first time in the Globe, in an article published last month.

"Should not the board be involved in providing guidance and stewardship there?" asked Darnell L. Williams, who handed out copies of Leary's disclosure letter to fellow board members on Thursday.

MBTA legal counsel William Mitchell said only Grabauskas is informed of potential conflicts under current policy.

Williams and fellow board member Janice Loux want the policy changed.

"We've actually voted on [changing the policy] repeatedly," Loux said. "I've never seen this [letter] before, and it does concern me."

MBTA response a 'disgrace'
A bizarre train crash in Salem on Monday night left an elderly Peabody man dead after he inexplicably drove his car into a train-only tunnel.

One passenger wrote to the Globe, lamenting the tragedy but calling the MBTA's logistical response a "disgrace." The passenger said trains bound for the North Shore continued to leave North Station 20 minutes after the accident, without telling commuters about the crash, even though it was clear passengers would be diverted to buses once they got to Lynn.

Instead of designating separate buses for Swampscott, Salem, and Beverly, T managers merged passengers onto buses that drove right passed Swampscott - to Salem and Beverly - before returning 45 minutes later and dropping off Swampscott passengers "three dark blocks from the station."

The passenger said he was legally blind and could have been in great danger, if not for the guidance of another commuter.

David Carney, chief of MBTA bus operations, responded in an e-mail to the Globe that the T deployed 44 buses, many from outside the North Shore. Managers sent the buses in packs of five or six because most of the drivers did not know the route. Though one driver got lost briefly on the way to Lynn, none reported getting lost while transporting passengers, he said.

Despite the lack of reported problems, Carney said the driver who skipped Swampscott on the way to the other stops may not have known where the station was.

"The driver should not have left any customers in a dark, secluded area far from the station," Carney wrote.

Carney said he would investigate, if the passenger can provide identifying information about the bus. I could not reach the passenger Friday and do not know whether his disability prevented him from learning the bus number or other identifying details.

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