Report finds cost-cutting move caused Easter traffic snarls on Pike

YOu might think it would be worth it, as I am sure qutie a number of people pulled off the Pike berfore they would have, thus costing the turnpike a loss of income. Anyone think of that??

Perhaps the toll workers who were "sick" on Easter should not continue to have their $93, 000 job. I can't call in sick on a Holiday.

This is a lie and a cover up. They knew on Friday when they cut staffing this would cause huge backups, how about some real reporting. How many workers are normally staffed for a Holday wkd? How many were staffed this wkd?

If they called in sick on Easter, fire them. They can grieve it and prove they were sick.

Make more booths into FastLane lanes. Now that the transponders are free, make more lanes use them. More people will get them, and this silliness will be controlled.

But then again, the MTA directors don't get paid for results, so why do they care?

Here's the genius of turnpike chief Alan LeBovidge... Save the turnpike money by not calling in people to collect the money?!?!?!

Garbage garbage garbage. If LeBovidge is smart enough to run this organization, he should have been able to predict this scenario. He did not.... fire him, in the same breath... The union should be disbanded. Temp workers and part timers should run the tolls .... It is a moronic, albeit dangerous job. A union shouldn't exist for this job. disband the union and the problem goes away.

Simple solution here. Tell every toll worker their salary is being cut to a level commensurate with the skills required for the job: minimum wage, no overtime. Don't like it? Fine, go find a job in the private sector. The line to replace you will be almost as long as the lines caused by the greedy scam-artists who called in "sick."

Of course this will never happen, because this is the People's Republics of Massachusetts, and these workers deserve their $70k average salary, paid for by the work of private-sector employees. You work for the government, the term "civil servant" was coined for a reason. If you want to make more than $50k a year get a job in the private sector where your pay is based on how much value you bring to the profit-generating enterprise. Want to work for the government? Sorry, we are paying you with the money taken by fiat from other citizens, you get the minimum amount necessary to staff the position.

Fire them all and the problem is solved.

Why didn't they call managers into collect tolls. That is the normal way a business is run. I'm sorry I said business. The toll collectors may have started the ball rolling toward this disaster but it showed there is no management in the management ranks. They are the ones to fire. The state police should have opened the booths for safety sake. No just pork average Joe the tax payer!

It was just a stunt by the union to make a point. All the overpaid underworked union members that call in sick that day should be fired!

but.. this is MA, so we will just look the other way and take more money from the Taxpayers

Get the pike automated and set the rate evenly. Better yet turn it back to a public road that's already been paid for 3 times. They keep extending the original bonds and issue new ones. All those jobs are for nepotism, patronism and cronyism. This State has turned communist where one party rules all. Worst state in the union and most corrupt.

Let's open one lane 8am-4pm Monday thru Friday. That will save money.

This "blame" isn't true, because the Pike action didn't lower costs.

Sure, refusing to pay overtime did reduce dollars paid out in salaries. But it also REDUCED DOLLARS IN, because tens of thousands were forced to avoid the Pike over the course of the weekend. That means that this action actually cost the Pike money. It lost more than it saved! This is not the idea of cost cutting.

Imagine if McDonalds decides to go down to one employee at the counter in order to save on wages. That McDonalds will lower the cost of employees, but it will also do a lot less business! People will avoid the long lines and long waits. Thats what happened over the weekend at the Pike, even with the huge traffic.

The real goal of the Pike is to coerce wide adoption of Fast Lane, which will eventually carry a steep monthly fee to keep and is a gateway to a broader toll collection system in the state. We should be watching for legislation to require that one must have a Fast Lane account in order to register a car in Massachusetts! I would not be surprised to see such an effort.

This is all a ploy to get everybody on fast-lane to increase their own bottom line.
They are taking advantage of the economic times we are facing and they ought to be investigated.

It's not "cost cutting" it's a political stunt. Cost cutting is when you can't find a damn pencil or stapler, or half the lights are turned off (maybe all of them on a certain bridge). It's a political stunt when you deliberately try to invoke public outrage and misguidedly thing the union workers will get the blame, not the management,

Where I work, a middle manager would get fired for lettingworkers disrupt half a million customers. This guy at the top, LeBovidge has proven incompetence and should be forced to resign immediately with no golden parachute.

I have never seen a state in my 54years that has horrible roads. pay as you go tolls, and the unbeleivable amount the almost high school graduate level employees earn. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE GOVERNER? GOD WHAT AN IDIOT.

Question: What would happen if we took an excavator to the toll booths, disbanded the Turnpike Authority, and let all the employees go?

Answer: Nothing. The Turnpike exists to support itself, it contributes nothing meaningful to the State in terms of revenue. Lastly, don't blame the poor schmucks that take the tolls and breathe diesel fuel all day. Blame the outrageous number of six-figure executives that work for the Pike.