Commuters rail about T's faulty message system

There's good news and bad news regarding the MBTA's scrolling LED signs at commuter rail stops. The good news is down below. The bad news is that readers did not believe T officials last week when they said that, overall, the signs were "working well."

They aren't, according to a cascade of follow-ups we received last week.

Case in point: One sign at Wellesley Hills a few weeks ago read "All trains will be delayed 15-25 minutes." Moments later, Jay of Wellesley saw his train showing up on time.

"I hate to complain about the trains running perfectly on time, but the P512, scheduled to arrive at 8:33, showed up at 8:33. If I had actually checked the web site before I left the house, I'd have missed the train trying to avoid standing in single-digit temperatures for 20 minutes," Jay wrote.

There's more. "I really need to take exception to the T's response in today's column about commuter rail sign problems," wrote Ken of Sharon last Sunday. "Your correspondents were absolutely correct -- the signs rarely work, often proclaiming that they only warn of approaching trains or delays. Well, often, even those don't happen.

"Two weeks ago, at Canton Junction, many of us had to endure the minus-8 degree temperatures waiting for trains that were very, very late (but that's a separate issue). But the LED signs on the inbound side were completely blank, and we had no information whatsoever to guide us -- not a good situation when it's 8 below."

The North Shore is also having glitches. Dennis of Manchester-by-the-Sea wrote Monday that "at 6:25 this morning, the east sign said `All trains operating at or near schedule. Sunday, 01/11/04,' while the west sign said `10-to-15 minute delays. Monday, 01/26/04.' Needless to say, I was hoping to believe parts of both messages" -- the west's date and the east's on-time report -- "but it turns out the west one was correct."

Now, the good news. After T officials were sent copies of reader complaints, they vowed to get the problem solved.

The T's deputy director of railroad operations, John Ray, said the T will begin by assigning not one, but two people to inspect commuter rail's 125 stations -- and their LED signs -- throughout the system. One person will handle routes to the north, the other will monitor the south.

Yes, there are people other than these two folks checking the signs for errors, assured T spokesman Joe Pesaturo, including train crews and maintenance workers. The sole responsibility of the two workers, however, will be to check on the signs and anything else that's amiss at the stations, he said.

If there is an error on a sign, the person inspecting the station is supposed to call the mistake into dispatch, which is then supposed to send a test message back to the sign, Ray said.

In addition, LED signs on the Old Colony Lines are going to be replaced with new signs that can communicate with dispatchers in Boston. The new signs, unlike the old, can detect errors themselves and notify dispatch automatically.

The sign program's overall problem, however, is the wireless communication system that allows the signs to talk to Boston and Boston to talk to the signs. It's old. The system suffers from low-throughput (slow speed), as they say, and is about to lose its technical support from the phone company because it's so passe -- the Windows 98 of wireless systems. The T doesn't know when the maintenance cutoff date will happen, but officials said they don't expect that to cause the system to shut down or hiccup.

"That will be the number one improvement that we can make," Ray said. "This [current wireless system] is the bottom end of the spectrum. We have to change it even if it was working fine for us because the phone company will no longer support it."

The T expects to replace the communication system "within the next year," although Ray acknowledged the replacement program is thus far unfunded. "It's not overly expensive, though," said Ray.

"Money's not an issue," said Pesaturo, adding that T General Manager Michael H. Mulhern is actively involved in improving the system.

By the way, in January the T sent out some 230,000 messages to 125 stations regarding some of the 460 daily commuter rail trips.

"We spent a lot of time and effort to make this thing work," said Ray. "It's not 100 percent, but it's very good."

T-eed off

The following was sent to feedback@mbta.com. It was also sent to starts@globe.com. It was not signed and was sent from a strange e-mail address that did not respond to our queries. Our comments are in brackets. We print this as an example of how not to create change within a public transit agency."Hey clowns! [feedback@mbta.com] Thanks for the privilege of driving behind another one of your diesel-Spewing [sic] buses yesterday in Revere! Always a pleasure! I didn't want to BREATHE anyway. GLAD TO SEE THAT RAISE [fare increase] IS GOING TO GOOD USE [no comma] IDIOTS!"

Pointers for the next time you write. Find the number of the bus, train, or trolley that's ruining your life, the route it was running, and the time of day. Then, we can help.

No applause

Um, go Pats! See you at the parade on Tuesday?! We can say that in this newspaper. But according to reader response last week (as well as word from federal officials) the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority should not be cheering on anybody via their variable message signs.

Last week, Pike spokesman Sean O'Neill said the traffic signs were a means of galvanizing community spirit. He also promised to put up more signs after tonight's game, win or lose. Not so fast, wrote John of Newton.

According to the Manual On Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), the federal guidelines governing traffic signs, such highway signs "shall not bear any advertising message or any other message that is not related to traffic control."

"When the Turnpike flashes `Go Pats' or `Cowboy Up' on message signs [see Jan. 25 Starts and Stops], it violates this law," John wrote. "Signs are supposed to help drivers. It's OK to mention a gas station or restaurant because drivers might need to exit and get gas or food. It's OK to give directions to Fenway Park or Gillette Stadium because some drivers need help finding them. It's not OK to distract me from driving just to tell me that the Turnpike likes one team instead of another."

We have heard this argument since we started writing this column, so finally we asked the feds to speak to the issue.

Long story short: It's not necessarily illegal, but it's not legal either. So discouraged is the practice that the Federal Highway Administration has issued past warnings to the Pike and the Massachusetts Highway Department that they should stop the practice. In other rare instances, they have threatened to remove an agency's federal funding if the practice continues.

But "it isn't so much of a law," said Alex Almeida, project delivery team leader for the Federal Highway Administration's offices in Cambridge. "The MUTCD is the federal standard for the uniform application of traffic signs and controls. . . . That is the recognized standard that we all use."

There are some exceptions, Almeida said. But "I don't think you'll find anybody to agree that you can use these variable message signs for anything other than traffic information.

"I know we've on occasion alerted both MHD and MTA of instances where there are traffic control devices which aren't in close conformance with the manual. But the problem is when it's so infrequent. By the time we get around to warning them the signs are down. They should know beforehand, and once in a while they get carried away . . . but I think in general terms we haven't had any problems with the MHD and the MTA."

Doug Hanchett, Pike spokesman, responded as O'Neill had the week before.

"We believe the variable message boards are being used in a responsible manner," Hanchett wrote in an e-mailed response.

Pollution solution?

So you're environmentally curious and want to figure out what you are contributing to the nasty carbon dioxide emissions that are filling the air. You should check out travelmatters.org, an emissions calculator created by the Chicago-based Center for Neighborhood Technology. The calculator, a project overseen by the Transportation Research Board and the National Academy of Sciences, uses your monthly mileage, use of public transportation, airline miles traveled, and even bike miles ridden to come up with a fairly accurate calculation of what you're belching into the atmosphere.

If you're really intrigued, you can save your profile and monitor it over time, either individually or as a group. Public transit agencies can also use it to monitor the impact that route or technology changes will have on overall emissions.

The calculator has you identify the area in which you live, the vehicle you drive, the number of miles you drive per month, and the type of traffic you drive in to begin the process. The next page includes the number of miles you traveled by bus per month, the type of fuel those buses used, and any other miles traveled on public transit.

Then there's a page for airline travel (which really burps pollutants).

In the end, with no airline travel last month, our Toyota Corolla basically burned five 20 pound bags of charcoal, which would require 59 sugar maple trees to offset or scrub away the impact of our emissions. When we added an imaginary direct flight from Boston to San Francisco, the numbers skyrocketed to 51 bags of charcoal and 588 sugar maples. Pretty interesting.

"We think it's very powerful to make information available to people," said Sharon Feigon, research and development manager for the Center for Neighborhood Technology. "We really don't understand the impact we have on the environment and the big difference we can make by just making a few changes in our life."

Can't get there . . .

The Massachusetts Turnpike eastbound between Exit 22 (Prudential/Copley) and South Boston will be closed from 11 p.m. tomorrow to 5 a.m. Tuesday and 11 p.m. Thursday to 5 a.m. Friday. Direct access to the Ted Williams Tunnel from Interstate 93 north, Frontage Road North, and South Boston will remain open. I-93 north over the Charles River will be closed from 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m. Wednesday and Thursday.

The Sumner Tunnel onramp to I-93 north will be closed from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. tomorrow through Friday and from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. Tuesday through Thursday morning.

The Haymarket onramp to I-93 north will be closed from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. Tuesday through Thursday morning.

The Atlantic Avenue onramp to I-93 north will be closed from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. Tuesday through Thursday morning and from 10 p.m. Friday until 5 a.m. Monday.

The Massachusetts Avenue onramp to I-93 north will be closed from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. tomorrow through Saturday morning.

Exit 26 (Storrow Drive) off I-93 north will be closed from 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m. Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday mornings.

The ramp from the Sumner Tunnel to Storrow Drive will be closed from 12:01 a.m. to 6 a.m. Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday mornings.

The Rutherford Avenue onramp to the Tobin Bridge will be closed from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. Tuesday through Saturday morning.

The Mystic Avenue onramp to I-93 south in Somerville will be closed from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. tonight through Friday morning.

The Haymarket onramp to I-93 south and the Callahan Tunnel will be closed from 6 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. today.

Blackstone Street between Sudbury and Hanover streets will be closed from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. today.

I-93 south around South Station will be closed from 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m. today.

Complain to us at starts@globe.com. Don't forget to send us your hometown. Outside of the paper, the column can be found at www.boston.com/news/local/startsandstops/. Our mailing address is Starts & Stops, P.O. Box 2378, Boston, MA 02107-2378.