December 31, 2025 • 41 mins
Bradley Jay Filled In On NightSide with Dan Rea
This year saw a significant expansion of transportation with the addition of commuter rail service to Fall River, Taunton, and New Bedford. For the first time in decades, you can grab a train from South Station and land in East Taunton and beyond. Bradley chatted with Brian Kane, the Executive Director of the MBTA Advisory Board, about this new line and more!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBS Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
You know, the weather affects most people most of the time.
It's very important. You want to know what the weather is.
It affects everything. There are very few things that affect
you as much and as directly as no weather. You
want to know another one transportation. Transportation effects where you live,
(00:28):
the cost of the stuff you buy, how much you
make at your job, what kind of job you have.
It affects your health, how you spend your time. And
it's so important that people are actually leaving Massachusetts because
of transportation issues, and that is something that needs to
(00:49):
be addressed. And I have with me, and I'm very
happy to have Brian Keane, Executive Director of MBTA Advisory Board.
That's a big, important job. It must be kind of
a brutally tough job having to deal with all these issues.
And I spoke with you that this afternoon, and I
hadn't realized how transportation and I would have if I
(01:12):
thought about it, how transportation insinuates itself to every aspect
of life wherever you live. And here we are in Massachusetts,
and so I'd like to go through that if I
could do do one thing during the course of this
hour is how have folks go away from this realizing WHOA,
the traffic problem in Boston really affects me even though
(01:36):
I live in Pittsville. The MBTA its well being really
affects me, even though I might live in far away
you know, far Awayville. And so that's what we're going
to go through. Thanks for being with us.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
It's a real honor to be on your air waves tonight.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
I am fascinated by how someone gets to your position.
And you've been with the MBTA in trans intation for
a long time, and I'd love to hear that story journey.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Well, first of all, I think BZ has figured out
the connection between the weather and transportation. You do traffic
and weather together. There you go on the threes, right,
So good for you. Clearly BZ figured this one out,
you know. Good, good job there putting that together. I
went to graduate school at Northeastern. I wanted to be
a town manager and I met this guy named Michael Dukakis,
(02:26):
and I had him for three or four classes, and
he convinced me to not go into municipal management but
instead go down the transportation route. And I've been cursing
that man every day. So he had me believe that
I could make more of a difference to this place
that I love. And Massachusetts is a great place to live.
It has one of the highest Human Development Index scores
(02:47):
in the world. It's up there with Norway, it's up
there with with Switzerland.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
What's that Human Development School.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
It's a score that is put together by international bodies
that looks at how well people who live in a
particular place kind of do what. It's length, education, entertainment levels,
things like longevity, how long people live, how healthy they are,
things like that. Massachusetts scores very high. This is a
great place to live and a great place to raise
my family. My wife and I are choosing to raise
our kids here and we want them to be able
(03:15):
to stay here and also be able to live in
this great place. But it's getting really hard to do
that because it's incredibly expensive to live here, and it's
really difficult to move around. It's really difficult to do
the things that we want to do. And that's what
I've dedicated my career to trying to figure out. It's
how we can make that a little bit easier for
folks to move around and make it a little bit cheaper.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Right, And there are solutions out there and we'll get
to them. And what are some of your other career
notches in your journey?
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Well, I so I after leaving graduate school, I was
a budget and policy ANOST at the Advisory Board where
I am now, which by the way, is a quasi
state agency, very small. There's three employees and we represent
one hundred and seventy eight cities and towns that comprise
the NBTA service District. So that's everywhere from Born to
the New Hampshire border and as far west as Worcester.
(04:06):
I left there. I was inside at the tea itself
for about eight years. Left my time there, moving people
on buses and trains and operations. And by the way,
I wanted to mention there's three or four thousand MBT
employees working tonight.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
I was going to mention that. I mean, this is
a big, big New Year's Eve was a big night
for the MBTA, and it's particularly valuable to all of
us on New Year's Eve.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
And I think fairs just just went off, so it's
free right now as of now at eight o'clock.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I have to say before I forget. I noticed that
some of the trains were decorated. Did you notice.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
That it's a new thing this year they're doing. I
have to say I loved it.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
It's great. Rangy Line has Christmas lights on some of
the Orange nine trains have Christmas lights on the outside,
and a Green Line train one of the newer ones,
which I love. Those cars had sort of holiday happy
holiday yeah thing on it.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
It's nice, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
It's real nice. Yeah. Some of them have Google.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Eyes as well. I didn't see the Google Yeah, there's
googly eyes. Those are from a while ago. But I
loved my time at the tea and I worked a
lot of nights. I looked, worked a lot of snowstorms.
What did you do? I mean, what were your actual duties?
What were you doing? So I was a budget and
policy analyst inside, and then I ran the operating budget,
which at the time was about two billion. And then
(05:22):
when I left in operations, I was in charge of
all the diversions that we do around that were being
done around the city at the time. This was a
while ago, so versions.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Sorry.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
When a bit of the rail line is shut down
and you got to move people on buses, I.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Always thought that must be a really hard thing to
do to get a contract all these buses.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Well, we started the process, it was there wasn't really
any any roadmap, so we kind of made it up
as we went along.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
But I noticed a lot of them on Mercedes buses
and I, well, some folks are griping about having to
get on the bus. I think this is a Mercedes bus,
this is deluxe. So but those are driven by Contra outside.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Yeah, so there's not enough buses that the Tea has
itself in order to provide both daily service and run
a diversion during the weekday.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
So you have to train them on the routes and
where the stops are. Yep.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
And it's very expensive. And for instance, when we shut
down the Red Line, this was several years ago, we
had to bring in an additional two or three hundred
buses from all over the Northeast. We had buses coming
in from Washington, d C. We had buses coming in
from Pennsylvania. There's just not At the time, there wasn't
enough of a private coach fleet in the region to
move all the people we had to move. And one
(06:34):
of my favorite notes is that when I was running
a diversion. The then Secretary of Transportation for the United
States was on one of my shuttle buses going to
the Harvard commencement that year, and I felt very good
that we were moving her safely.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
And that is good, you told me, And I'd love
you to tell the folks how what percent of Massachusetts
residents are in some ways served by the MBTA.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Well, the first thing to note is that seventy eight
percent of the state's population, sorry, eighty three percent of
the state's population lives in something called the MBTA Service District.
That's the one hundred and seventy eight cities in towns,
and that's you know, well over eighty percent. Forty percent
of the state's residents actually live within the one twenty
eight belt. If you think about that, I did not
realize that forty percent. So we are very heavily concentrated
(07:19):
in the eastern part of the Commonwealth. It's where a
lot of the economic activity takes place, it's where a
lot of the folks live. It's not to say there's
anything wrong with other parts of Massachusetts. These are just
the facts on the ground. And that's one of the
reasons why the Tea is so important to the overall
economy of the commonwealth.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Can you speak to that a little more? Can you
answer the question why Fred in Sturbridge should care about
the MBTA? Fred, if you're out there, I know what
you're saying. He's a made up person. You're saying, why
do I care. I don't want to spend my tax
dollars on that. Why should Fred care?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
So Fred's tax dollars are paying for that. One penny
of the sales tax that everyone contributes wide goes to
the MBTA, So we're all paying for it based on
where the population is. More of it is being paid
here in the eastern part. But the reason why it
matters to Fred is that the Massachusetts state government exists
to do many things. One of the big reasons it
(08:15):
exists is to transfer money from the eastern part of
the state to the western part of the state. The
state does a lot of redistribution of wealth to make
sure that schools and all the stuff that is needed
around the commonwealth are taken care of. And the fact
of the matter is, there just isn't the population in
all parts of the state to be self supporting, So
the state government takes some of the money that's generated
(08:35):
here and distributed to the rest of the state, and also,
by the way, distributed to the rest of the country,
because Massachusetts is a net contributor state, not a net
recipient state. But that's another subject. The reason why Fred
and Shrewsbury or Sherburn or Stourbridge needs to worry about
this is because a lot of the state aid that
his town is receiving to operate its schools, it's police,
it's fire, and all of the stuff that it does
(08:57):
is being generated here in Boston by folks taking the
tar to and from work. And we have seen with
the diversions, with the time the rail has been shut down.
We saw in twenty fifteen when the snow knocked out
everything that the tea was running that without the tea,
Boston doesn't work all right.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
After this quick break, we'll take a look at how
a healthy tea and transportation system in Boston affects how
much you pay for things. It affects your bottom line,
It affects how much stuff food, et cetera, you can
afford to buy.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
After this on WBZ, You're on Night Side with Dan
Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
We continued with Brian Kane. We're going to get into
specifics about what's going on transportation wise in Massachusetts, but
I would like to really make you understand how important
transportation that works, traffic that works in Boston, how it
matters to everybody economically. And you pointed out to me
(09:53):
during our pre show chat that I hadn't even thought
about this. If the transportation syst and in Massachusetts is
substandard and catastrophically bad, things cost bar explain that.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Well, we do know that Boston. According to a recent
study by an international group, Boston ranks as the twelfth
worst traffic in the world, and including like bygon Mumbay, yeah, anywhere.
Now it's starting to look a little bit Mumbai, and
it's the fourth worst in the United States. And what
congestion does is drive up the cost of everything. Almost
(10:31):
everything we buy, we consume, we eat, we drink comes
in by truck. There's very little that comes in by
rail anymore, very little that comes in by air free.
I mean there are some things, obviously, and a lot
of stuff does still come through the Port of Boston,
and most of that gets put on trucks. Those trucks
make money by delivering stuff quickly, and if they're stuck
in traffic, that's just racking up costs and racking up
(10:52):
costs and racking up costs, and it's really unproductive time
that none of us benefit from. So moving trucks in
and around this region faster will reduce costs for everybody.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
We will get to some potential solutions. And I mentioned
a list of things that it also affects. It can
affect how much you make at your job, because it
can dictate where you can work. Absolutely, if you can't
get to work in a humane amount of time, you
just can't. You can't work there. And I mentioned that
(11:27):
in general quality of quality of life, there's people seem
to focus on money, but time, time, time. It's not
just time is money. Time is wildly important. And can
you give me an idea now, how much an average
person might spend how much of their life is taken
(11:50):
up stuck in traffic or on the highway or in
their commute.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Well, I mean, obviously it depends, but Boston, I believe
the number was something like eighty three hours per year
are wasted by the average Massachusetts residents sitting in traffic.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Say time that by say the average lifespan seventy five.
You take the working ISSU years, say say fifty years,
yeah times eight. That's insane and.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
It's the years of your life.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
And if you how much do you make per hour?
How much you know what the opportunity cost of that
is used? That could have been you could have been
doing something else to make money. Instead you're sitting in traffic,
burning fuel and polluting and blocking ambulances trying to get
to the trying to get to the hospital, blocking trucks,
(12:36):
trying to get your goods in there. Now, explain to
me how bad it's getting. I mean, you kind of
gave them an idea saying it's the twelfth worst in
the world, including can't including cities in India.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Yeah, Africa's India. Well, I mean, think about this one.
Bradley Jay so u Haul and other moving companies report
that Massachusetts is near the top of the list for
one way moves out of state in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Do you have a reason and do you have well
there causing effect?
Speaker 3 (13:03):
There's polling, so a poll this earlier this month, one
in three people have considered moving out of Massachusetts. There
is a poll last January that talks about one of
the two thirds of the people who were were polled
said to the high cost of living was the primary
factor why they considered leaving. There was another poll of
people who'd already left Massachusetts who also said two thirds
of them also said high cost of living was the factor.
(13:26):
And there's a poll less in twenty twenty four that
put transportation and housing costs as the principal reason why
folks are leaving. It's all linked together.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
You mentioned housing, How does the transportation affect housing?
Speaker 3 (13:39):
So we have a housing crisis here in Massachusetts. Statewide.
The Commonwealth believes that we need to build about two
hundred and twenty two thousand more homes by twenty thirty
just to keep up, just to keep prices from going
through the roof. That's about twenty two thousand a year.
Last year we built fourteen thousand, So we're already falling
behind where we need to be. We all know that
(13:59):
the further away you get from job centers, the cheaper
housing gets. That's just economics, it's supply and demand. But
we cannot build more housing in Massachusetts without doing something
to be able to move folks around or else we're
just going to make congestion worse, and I don't know
how it can get much worse. So imagine if we
did build twenty two thousand more homes statewide every year,
(14:21):
and those folks all get in a car one day,
turn the engine on and start driving to where they
want to be on roads that are already full, on
trains that are already full, and buses that are already full.
That's just going to add to the congestion walls, and
that's just going to add to the economic decline that
we're facing. So for regular folks, we need to figure
out a way to think a little differently about this.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
I would argue, okay, and each transport there's a big
overall system, and each element of the transportation system affects
the other. Can be pretty specific about how a busted
MBTA effects traffic and how and vice versa. How endless
(15:04):
building and high rise luxury condos in a world where
was finite road space crowds traffic to the point where
there's actual gridlock and you can go through multiple light
cycles and not move at all. How does that affect
the MBTA? How does it all affect each other?
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Well?
Speaker 3 (15:21):
The so I do talk to folks that operate these
systems quite a bit. I talk to the folks in
highway operations at the Department of Transportation, and they will
tell you point blank that if a commuter rail line
is down, traffic is going to be worse on that road.
And it makes sense. If there's a couple of thousand
people taking the Wooster Line in from Wooster, they're not
folks gone on the pike. Same thing on Route three
(15:43):
and the old Colony line, same three on the north side.
It's all connected together. So if the trains are not running,
there's going to be more cars on the road. If
there's more cars on the road, congestion is just going
to get worse. Costs are going to just go up,
and our air quality is going to get worse. So
what we need to figure out a way to do
is to keep people moving in and around the region
(16:03):
without adding to the congestion and without adding to the pollution.
And I think there are ideas that are out there
that could do that. One of them is this idea
called regional rail, where you have smaller trains running within
one twenty eight every fifteen to twenty minutes. And like
I said, forty percent of the state's population lives within
one twenty eight. There's fifty commuter rail stations inside one
(16:24):
twenty eight. Would you have to build new rails new already?
Have the rails already, have Smar trains already, have North Station.
We need to build elect we need to electrify it,
and we need to get new trains. Right now, we're
running more or less thirty to forty year old diesel
locomotives along those lines. In fact, on the Providence line,
we run diesel trains under an electric wire that propels
(16:45):
Amtrak trains electrically.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
So you could just use that electricity.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
You could do it tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
And why hasn't it been done?
Speaker 3 (16:54):
The TEA, for a variety of reasons, decided years ago
that it wanted to move if the Pharamont line. It's
the first electrified rail line in the system, even though
Providence was already done. I happened to think that was
a strategic mistake. How much influenced does the the board have?
So the advisory board, we are a consultant dive agency.
(17:15):
We used to have a veto over their budget, but
they didn't like what we did with that, so they
took that away from us a few years ago. Right now,
we have soft power by talking to folks like you.
But we also do have one member of the MBTA
Board of Directors. Now it's a little confusing. There's a
nine person board of directors that runs the tee. One
of those nine is appointed by us, and three of
the other members are members of our organization, and so
(17:37):
they kind of, we like to tell, we like to
think they listened to us.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
From time to time, we all see a lot of
the development cranes up in the air. I guess it's
reduced a little bit, but it seems still seems kind
of endless. Again, I find the roads. You're already fool
building more more housing, lectually, condos, et cetera. Do you
have to do we have to slow down development. We
(18:02):
don't have to slow down development. What we have to
do is slow down the number of cars that are
that are needed per development. Okay, do that?
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Well, that's a project of something called zoning, which we
all know about. So in right now in Massachusetts, for
every depending on the town you live in, for every bedroom,
you have to have at least one car in many places,
or sometimes two cars. As a requirement to build the building,
whether or not someone's gonna have the car or not,
they have to have the parking space for the car.
And so one of the things that folks are doing
is thinking about ways to decouple that. Why, especially in
(18:32):
downtown Boston, the Beeg high rise building on top of
South Station had to have something like two thousand parking
spots built with it, even though it's sitting on top
of South Station because of our zoning.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
And how why is it hard to change that rule?
It seems like it's a no brainer.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
It's just the way it's been done. And again, we
need to think differently about this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
What will be your strategy to try to make that happen.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Well, it's already happening in cities and towns across Massachusetts,
including in Boston. They are getting rid of something called
parking minimums, which is the required number of parking spaces
needed for each bedroom and each bed. So that is
starting to change, and that's a great thing. We need
to accelerate that. We also need to look at changing
some of the other requirements to be built into buildings,
(19:18):
like some in some parts of the country, some parts
of the world, they're getting rid of second staircases in
smaller buildings. Right now, you have to have two forms
of egress, two staircases to get out of even a
three story building. Places like France other parts of Europe
they don't have that, and it makes building a lot cheaper,
and it makes you to be able to build more
housing within the structure for people to live instead of
(19:40):
just having space for people to move around.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
You're doing anything to motivate developers to encourage micro mobility.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Well, there are lots of requirements as part of what
it's called mitigation. So when a developer agrees to build something,
they have to also agree to give the city or
town or the local regions some goodies. Micromobility is one
of those things. Think about the blue bikes that we
have here in Boston as a version of micromobility. There's
also a lot of requirements for putting up screens and buildings,
(20:13):
but there is no requirement or even ability right now
for developers who build massive developments to give money to
the tea to run additional service. That mechanism just doesn't
exist in state law.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
All right, They're going to take a break before we do.
I just want to give you a little number here
can make you understand how important making this transportation system
work and doing what you can, calling who you must
to make it happen. Rapid delivery growth, the tonal number
of third party food delivery. Actually that's going to be
(20:46):
part of another I'd rather put that as part of
another question that I ask you. So we'll break now
and I'll get to that later. I'm busy.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
You're on night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's News.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
You. Our guest is Brian Kane, Executive Director, MBTA Advisory Board.
And during the break, I was just saying, and I
know you all know how much I love the MBTA.
I love not having to drive in Boston. I love
I can get way way far. I can go to Providence.
You know, I can go where I want and I
don't have to drive. I love it. And you said, boy,
(21:24):
I hope I get a chance to talk about how
the more people that are like you, the better it
is for everybody on the road.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
And so well, I mean, one of the worst parts
about driving I think all of us have had this
experience is other drivers, others they're just it's just awful.
You get cut off.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Okay, all right, let's which brings me to I guess
this is as good a time as any to get
to this. It is part of the problem with traffic
is everyone knows there's no trafficing. There's very little traffic enforcement.
I have seen zero in where I live. I've seen
zero in Boston, none, zero people pulled over. I see
(21:59):
many in fract and even many, many more by scooters,
which seem It seems folks have decided that they are
immune from traffic laws and let them just turn the
bike lanes, which cost so much money, into delivery scooter
lanes at the peril of bike riders. That's another thing
we'll get to later. But in order to have the
(22:23):
economy run, transportation has to run, which means traffic has
to run, and there have to be rules, and the
rules have to be obeyed. In Scandinavian countries, you don't
need so much enforcement because they like their government, they
like their rules. But not here. It's like we're a
nation of outlaws, even in Massachusetts. And I'm curious. I
(22:45):
would ask you first how much of an issue is
lack of enforcement and lack of adherance to the rules.
I would try to take a cab from my house
in Brookline to the Liberty Hotel. It took like an hour,
and people were blocking the box, against the law, against
the rules. And when that happens, you go through multiple
(23:08):
light cycles not moving at all, and then people just
get fed up, get out of line, and it becomes
it looks like Saigon. It's just a free for a
literal free for all. People get to the point where, Wow,
I'm not going to get home unless I now break
the law. So I'm curious. I don't know if I
(23:32):
can get into why. Well, it's a lack of willfrim
communities don't seem to want to prioritize it.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
I think a lot of it has to do with
the human factor. And I think what we're seeing with
a lot of law enforcement folks is that they are
getting more and more concerned about being asked to use
their best judgment in a situation for a variety of reasons.
One of the ways to sort of make that easier
for them and better and fairer, though not one hundred
(24:00):
percent fair, but fairer is by making it automatic and
using technology. Lots and lots of places use cameras to
do enforcement. We don't do that here in Massachusetts, although
we are about to start. We are, we are. I
did not know on T buses. New legislation was passed
last year. The TEA just finalized its rules. So there's
we're tiptoeing into camera enforcement. How will that work with
(24:22):
TEA buses? What do you mean so right? If it
hasn't started yet, But if if a car is parked
in a bus stop and a T bus shows up
and can't get into that bus stop, the bus is
equipped with cameras, three sixty cameras, it's going to be
able to identify that car by its license plate, the operator,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and that person will
automatically get a fine in the mail.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Okay, they've broken the seal.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
I certainly hope that's the case. It's won't. It'll there'll
be some challenges we're gonna have to get through it.
But I hope that is the start of many to come.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
All right and listen to all of you out there,
no matter where you are, within the sound of my voice,
I'm now going to make the case for your town
adopting automated enforcement. Most people you know we're America. No,
that's so an American. That's terrible. But let me make
the case. First of all, it will save it will
make money for your town. It will be a money generator.
(25:14):
You can spend that money on whatever you want. Spend
that money on more police officers to do other non
traffic related things. Spend it on your school, spend it
on what you guys decide, you people decide. That's fine. Secondly,
it will erase any chance that people are stopped based
on things they shouldn't be stopped on, based on discriminatory
(25:39):
potentially discriminatory reason they will take. It will relieve the
police of worrying about that. It just won't happen. It
will be you're a lawbreaker. That will be it. And
of course it will traffic will run more smoothly. And
it's a crucial thing. It's a crucial part of the
(25:59):
answer to how the transportation can be fixed, so our
economy can get fixed in the price of things, it
will be less expensive. It's just a crucial thing. I
don't know what. And I'll ask you right now, anybody
six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty, what is
your beef with automated enforcement. It's good. Your town will
make money. Police departments will be relieved of that responsibility.
(26:23):
I don't I don't see the problem. What am I missing?
I think you're you're, you're nailing it.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
It will also allow police to focus on actual crime,
right and making people's lives better, which is really what
we want them to be.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Doing, right, all right. Next up is a potential piece
of the transportation situation. A lot of people drive cars,
don't need to really drive cars. They're only one of them,
and they're not going on a highway or anything. And
you know, I have a love hate relationship with the scooters. No,
(26:55):
I don't have a love. There's no love, actually, but
I can see where school might be part of a
transportation solution because they take up exponentially less space then
an suv, which most people have some for crossover suv
during decent weather and all. However, of course, there seems
(27:17):
to be zero enforcement on those. Seems to be a
knowledge that the uppers seem to have that knowledge, and
this is all This is sort of economically driven, perhaps
because businesses want scooters to deliver their goods as quickly
as possible and are happy that the scooters don't have
to obey traffic laws, and the scooters are have usurped
(27:39):
the bicycle lanes, which I don't know, hundreds of thousands,
probably millions of dollars has been spent on to create
a safe alternative route for bicyclists, and that's not safe
anymore because the scooters are in there using it as
those are delivery lanes like delivery super highways with no rules.
So I can see scooters would be a good thing
(28:01):
if they were regulated properly, ensured properly, so when one
hits you, you're not on the hook for all your
hospital bills. I believe that businesses that hire scooter delivery
people need to they have to be employees so that
you can sue the company when their employee breaks the law.
And further, in a state and in towns that profess
(28:25):
to be green and care about the environment, it is
my understanding that scooters have they don't have to be
tested for emissions. How much have scooters increased in numbers?
Oh yeah, well I have here. You know, if you
(28:46):
don't trust AI, then you can dismiss this. I actually
don't really trust it, but maybe this one happens to
be right. Rabid delivery growth. The total number of third
party food delivery trips in Massachusetts more than doubled between
back in twenty nine to twenty twenty one, and it's
gone way off the chat since then. But it grew
then from forty five million trips to over one hundred
(29:09):
million trips, and it's much more than that now. So
these scooters have to be taken seriously as a possible solution,
but as a real danger to the environment and to
public safety and to traffic flow. That was a big,
long statement, But what do you say.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Well, you're obviously correct. The state has yet to catch
up with the technology. I was at a form a
couple weeks ago with the two chairs of the Transportation
committee from the House and the Senate. They agree that
this is something that needs to be addressed. They're actually
working on it right now. I would expect to see
legislation come out in twenty twenty six. But until the
state takes action, cities and towns are really hampered because
(29:52):
right now there are no laws that they can actually
enforce on a lot of these things. And the manufacturers
also need to be sort of talk to in a
certain way, because right now, from what I understand. My
mechanical knowledge is very limited.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Thing.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
If your vehicle can go over twenty five mph, it's
considered a vehicle. If it can't.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Talking the fast e bikes now or the fast well,
I didn't get to that. Okay, that's us. I have
a complete beef for that. Yeah, right, Some of them go,
I know a lot about this, and I have actually
written to my town very carefully worded missives and receive
not a whole lot of love on it because it
(30:36):
doesn't seem to for whatever reason, doesn't seem to be
a will. Everybody's so locked into the idea of bicycles
they don't realize that these aren't bicycles. Now. I went
to a dealer and asked them, I asked all about them.
Many of them go forty forty five miles an hour.
They're marketed. I can send you this as as a
(30:56):
group of them not getting to work or home or school,
but you know doing you know, ramming around, as my
mother would say. And I was told at a place
of business that sold these that, yeah, the pedal is
just put on there, so they're legal in bike lanes.
It's a weird loophole. It seems pretty easy to seem
(31:20):
easy to close one thing you could do without spending
many money, Well much money is nobody even knows if
there are rules. Nobody even knows if there are community expectations.
So communities could put up signs, they could have a
digital campaign. Look, this is how we expected to behave
on a scooter and on a bike. That's that's starters.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Well, much like what with with vehicles years ago, where
the federal government and states got involved in setting regulations.
States and the Feds need to set some regulations around
e bikes. It's just one of those things that has
to happen and be enforced at a at a bigger level.
Cities in towns alone can't do it. I'm glad you
brought that up. So what makes you think something will
happen in twenty twenty six? Hearing rumblings of people writing legislation, Yeah, yeah,
(32:07):
the Saint the chairs of the House in Centate Transportation
Committee have been very vocal the last few weeks and
will continue to be based on their schedules talking about
this stuff. So I do think they're very serious and
they want to do something with that. Said, twenty twenty
six is an election year, and I think we all
know how things go in election years. We don't tend
to make big moves in election years, but maybe you
(32:29):
never know.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
All Right, We're going to take a break and finish
up with Brian here on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's news radio Radley.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
J for Dan Beck with Brian Kane, executive director of
the MBTA, and so much more. We want the you
want a lot of ridership on the MBTA, You need
to make some money. Now, I know that fairs don't
account for a large you know, the largest allion's share
part of the budget.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Right, it was forty percent sent in twenty nineteen for
the pandemic. Well now it's down to around thirty percent.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
And why didn't people not come back after the pandemic.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Well, what's interesting is that the ridership numbers themselves have
come back, but it's really a different kind of ridership.
We're seeing a lot more folks riding on weekends with passes.
Ten dollars passes. You can buy a family pass on commuter.
That's one of the best deals arise in the state.
I think four people for the cost of two on
commuter rail ten bucks per adult and you can go
anywhere you want to the whole system all weekend.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
It's amazing. Okay, So of course funding, everything's about money,
and funding is very important and paying the fare, which
is crazy reasonable for a ride. It goes. You can
go anywhere you want for a handful of change. Really
and for a while, well, no, for the longest forever
(33:49):
until recently, every phrase there was a bottle that because
you had to get on the front and pay you
fair on the front, I didn't open the doors on
the outside on the above ground tracks, and it seemed
they would be a good idea to have a system
where people got on and any door and paid, Like
in most countries, most civilized countries that have public transportation,
(34:13):
you have some sort of pass, you validate that pass
or pay somehow at whatever door you go into, and
of course if you didn't, if you just got on,
you would be subject to a serious penalty. That would
be the incentive to pay. Well, part of that dream
came true. The NBTA did install payment devices at doors
(34:38):
at all doors. However, they don't seem to have the
will to make people pay. I use the t all
the time and I feel like I'm one of the
few fools who pay my fare. People know no one cares,
nothing's going to happen to them. They get on and
(34:58):
they don't pay their fare once some people do, I
would say, in my opinion, most don't. Why the hesitation
to have some sort of enforcement. It wouldn't be that hard.
All you'd have to do is have some somebody paid
very little money to go around check and check did
(35:23):
you pay? Did you validate? And if you didn't define
it would be five hundred bucks something painful and people
would then pay. That's the way it works and has
worked for decades in other countries. Why not enforce that here?
Otherwise those payment methods at Easter waste of money. Why
not just say hey, it's free.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
So one of the things that filling the new GM
I guess he's not new now it has been doing?
Is Is Is that very much that Bradley? So today
or yesterday fairgates at sut Station opened for all Salts side.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
I noticed that, yes. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
When they were installed in North Station, revenue went up
by twenty seven percent year over year. So this will
be a game changer on the South Side for at
least for folks who take commuter rail and the Tea
will see a lot more money coming out of that good.
With respect to the Green Line and buses, they are
trying to introduce what are called fair enforcement officials out there. However,
(36:18):
the law was also changed a couple of years ago
where it's now no longer really that much of a
penalty or really that much of a fine for for
faar evating.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Who's in charge of that law?
Speaker 3 (36:29):
That was the legislature passed it two or three years ago.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
It's now it's not even a misdemeaning group that goes
there and says shakes them by the collin and says,
wake up, legislature.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
I think there's some concerns that folks might get caught
up in stuff and in fairness. Mean, you don't want
a kid getting a criminal record for not paying.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
A fair It wouldn't be a crime. It would be
like a parking ticket.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Yeah, look at I agree. I mean when I was
at the tee, this was ten years ago, I ran
the numbers. It would have cost more money at the
time to put people on all the platforms with portable
devices to make it, but we don't need to do that. Yeah,
than it would. Now, what we need to do is
get folks on board, running around, running on the system,
making sure that they can actually do that.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Now, if there was a hint, a sentilla of a
chance that you would have to pay five hundred bucks,
it would make a difference. It would least, you know,
make people know this is what's expected of you. Get
you get no argument from me now. They don't even
know that it's expected. They think it's kind of free
and you only pay if you're a sucker.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
One of the things that drives me most crazy about
the Tea, and I've been working with them for a
long time, is they have one of the third I
think it's the third or fourth biggest police department in
the state. And you never see a police officer on
board a train or a bus.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
There you go and you don't even need police officers.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
No, but start with them if you really want to.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
You have people already on the pay roll. Yeah, every
once in a while, Every once in a while, let's
have a few roam in the tea.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
I don't think I've ever seen a te cop on
a train or a bus.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
I mean, there there are many many countries where it works,
like a charm yep and we seem broken. One further thing,
as far as enforcement goes happy to talk, how many
people have gone under the tee and seen somebody with
a bicycle on the tee taking up I have a
photo in my phone that I just showed Brian of
a one of the giant e bikes that's foldable, folded
(38:23):
up in the handicapped spot, and somehow that's okay. First
of all, shame on you whoever did it. But the
system says, just as is with traffic and scooters, we
really don't care. We are for some reason do not
have the will to make you do what you probably
(38:44):
should do. What about that? Do you need to just
tell the operators to to tough it up a little bit? Well?
Speaker 3 (38:52):
I think we as a society need to have a
real debate about what isn't isn't a bike because when
the two bikes.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Are not bike, they're electric motorcycles. Fair enough, if you
go forty miles an hour your electric motorcycle and certainly
should not be allowed in a bike lane or on
the tee or on the tea. Thank you, I appreciate that.
Let's we have Steven Brookline and Steve, you have two minutes,
as Dan Ray would say, what can you do with it?
What can you do with it? Steve? Hie, Steve, Steve,
(39:21):
are you there? Hi? Hi?
Speaker 4 (39:24):
Hello, This is actually Keith.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Hi.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
It's actually Keith, not Steve, and I'm here with Brian.
I just wanted to say I moved to it to
Brookline in nineteen ninety four and one of the things
that I kept calling home to Swansea, Massachusetts about was
the fact that Boston never shut down because the tea
always ran. And you know, over the cost of time,
(39:48):
we witnessed the team not running anymore. And it's nice
to kind of see the tea starting to run again.
And I have Brian with me, Brian Kane. It's it's
a different Brian, and I don't know who you are,
but but I appreciate everything you doing.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Thank you. I appreciate that too. Jesus out of time. Well,
look who it is on the phone calling now, Tim Murphy. Wow,
famous tea operator. He's an inspector. He's even above an inspector. Now,
he's a legend. He's a legend. He's a he's a
te operator. This gives me an opportunity to remind everybody
that as I understand that every Tea employee in operations
(40:26):
is working tonight on New Year's Eve.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Yeah, four or five thousand.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Of them, So be nice to them. Say thanks, Please
be nice, and thank you so much for coming in
and being very frank in your responses to me. I
appreciate thanks for having me. Well, you know what, folks,
New Year's Eve, if you're listening to me, you're probably
not out with you know, the the party yours. So
it's you and me, you plural and me, and we'll
(40:51):
chat together. I'm going to open up the line. It's
going to be open lines, but I kind of lean
towards talking about the year past, the year future, hope
with your dreams. Well, we'll have more specific questions to that.
That's coming up on WBZ. There's Radio ten thirty and
Tim callin then
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBS Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
You know, the weather affects most people most of the time.
It's very important. You want to know what the weather is.
It affects everything. There are very few things that affect
you as much and as directly as no weather. You
want to know another one transportation. Transportation effects where you live,
(00:28):
the cost of the stuff you buy, how much you
make at your job, what kind of job you have.
It affects your health, how you spend your time. And
it's so important that people are actually leaving Massachusetts because
of transportation issues, and that is something that needs to
(00:49):
be addressed. And I have with me, and I'm very
happy to have Brian Keane, Executive Director of MBTA Advisory Board.
That's a big, important job. It must be kind of
a brutally tough job having to deal with all these issues.
And I spoke with you that this afternoon, and I
hadn't realized how transportation and I would have if I
(01:12):
thought about it, how transportation insinuates itself to every aspect
of life wherever you live. And here we are in Massachusetts,
and so I'd like to go through that if I
could do do one thing during the course of this
hour is how have folks go away from this realizing WHOA,
the traffic problem in Boston really affects me even though
(01:36):
I live in Pittsville. The MBTA its well being really
affects me, even though I might live in far away
you know, far Awayville. And so that's what we're going
to go through. Thanks for being with us.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
It's a real honor to be on your air waves tonight.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
I am fascinated by how someone gets to your position.
And you've been with the MBTA in trans intation for
a long time, and I'd love to hear that story journey.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Well, first of all, I think BZ has figured out
the connection between the weather and transportation. You do traffic
and weather together. There you go on the threes, right,
So good for you. Clearly BZ figured this one out,
you know. Good, good job there putting that together. I
went to graduate school at Northeastern. I wanted to be
a town manager and I met this guy named Michael Dukakis,
(02:26):
and I had him for three or four classes, and
he convinced me to not go into municipal management but
instead go down the transportation route. And I've been cursing
that man every day. So he had me believe that
I could make more of a difference to this place
that I love. And Massachusetts is a great place to live.
It has one of the highest Human Development Index scores
(02:47):
in the world. It's up there with Norway, it's up
there with with Switzerland.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
What's that Human Development School.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
It's a score that is put together by international bodies
that looks at how well people who live in a
particular place kind of do what. It's length, education, entertainment levels,
things like longevity, how long people live, how healthy they are,
things like that. Massachusetts scores very high. This is a
great place to live and a great place to raise
my family. My wife and I are choosing to raise
our kids here and we want them to be able
(03:15):
to stay here and also be able to live in
this great place. But it's getting really hard to do
that because it's incredibly expensive to live here, and it's
really difficult to move around. It's really difficult to do
the things that we want to do. And that's what
I've dedicated my career to trying to figure out. It's
how we can make that a little bit easier for
folks to move around and make it a little bit cheaper.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Right, And there are solutions out there and we'll get
to them. And what are some of your other career
notches in your journey?
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Well, I so I after leaving graduate school, I was
a budget and policy ANOST at the Advisory Board where
I am now, which by the way, is a quasi
state agency, very small. There's three employees and we represent
one hundred and seventy eight cities and towns that comprise
the NBTA service District. So that's everywhere from Born to
the New Hampshire border and as far west as Worcester.
(04:06):
I left there. I was inside at the tea itself
for about eight years. Left my time there, moving people
on buses and trains and operations. And by the way,
I wanted to mention there's three or four thousand MBT
employees working tonight.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
I was going to mention that. I mean, this is
a big, big New Year's Eve was a big night
for the MBTA, and it's particularly valuable to all of
us on New Year's Eve.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
And I think fairs just just went off, so it's
free right now as of now at eight o'clock.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I have to say before I forget. I noticed that
some of the trains were decorated. Did you notice.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
That it's a new thing this year they're doing. I
have to say I loved it.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
It's great. Rangy Line has Christmas lights on some of
the Orange nine trains have Christmas lights on the outside,
and a Green Line train one of the newer ones,
which I love. Those cars had sort of holiday happy
holiday yeah thing on it.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
It's nice, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
It's real nice. Yeah. Some of them have Google.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Eyes as well. I didn't see the Google Yeah, there's
googly eyes. Those are from a while ago. But I
loved my time at the tea and I worked a
lot of nights. I looked, worked a lot of snowstorms.
What did you do? I mean, what were your actual duties?
What were you doing? So I was a budget and
policy analyst inside, and then I ran the operating budget,
which at the time was about two billion. And then
(05:22):
when I left in operations, I was in charge of
all the diversions that we do around that were being
done around the city at the time. This was a
while ago, so versions.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Sorry.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
When a bit of the rail line is shut down
and you got to move people on buses, I.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Always thought that must be a really hard thing to
do to get a contract all these buses.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Well, we started the process, it was there wasn't really
any any roadmap, so we kind of made it up
as we went along.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
But I noticed a lot of them on Mercedes buses
and I, well, some folks are griping about having to
get on the bus. I think this is a Mercedes bus,
this is deluxe. So but those are driven by Contra outside.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Yeah, so there's not enough buses that the Tea has
itself in order to provide both daily service and run
a diversion during the weekday.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
So you have to train them on the routes and
where the stops are. Yep.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
And it's very expensive. And for instance, when we shut
down the Red Line, this was several years ago, we
had to bring in an additional two or three hundred
buses from all over the Northeast. We had buses coming
in from Washington, d C. We had buses coming in
from Pennsylvania. There's just not At the time, there wasn't
enough of a private coach fleet in the region to
move all the people we had to move. And one
(06:34):
of my favorite notes is that when I was running
a diversion. The then Secretary of Transportation for the United
States was on one of my shuttle buses going to
the Harvard commencement that year, and I felt very good
that we were moving her safely.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
And that is good, you told me, And I'd love
you to tell the folks how what percent of Massachusetts
residents are in some ways served by the MBTA.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Well, the first thing to note is that seventy eight
percent of the state's population, sorry, eighty three percent of
the state's population lives in something called the MBTA Service District.
That's the one hundred and seventy eight cities in towns,
and that's you know, well over eighty percent. Forty percent
of the state's residents actually live within the one twenty
eight belt. If you think about that, I did not
realize that forty percent. So we are very heavily concentrated
(07:19):
in the eastern part of the Commonwealth. It's where a
lot of the economic activity takes place, it's where a
lot of the folks live. It's not to say there's
anything wrong with other parts of Massachusetts. These are just
the facts on the ground. And that's one of the
reasons why the Tea is so important to the overall
economy of the commonwealth.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Can you speak to that a little more? Can you
answer the question why Fred in Sturbridge should care about
the MBTA? Fred, if you're out there, I know what
you're saying. He's a made up person. You're saying, why
do I care. I don't want to spend my tax
dollars on that. Why should Fred care?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
So Fred's tax dollars are paying for that. One penny
of the sales tax that everyone contributes wide goes to
the MBTA, So we're all paying for it based on
where the population is. More of it is being paid
here in the eastern part. But the reason why it
matters to Fred is that the Massachusetts state government exists
to do many things. One of the big reasons it
(08:15):
exists is to transfer money from the eastern part of
the state to the western part of the state. The
state does a lot of redistribution of wealth to make
sure that schools and all the stuff that is needed
around the commonwealth are taken care of. And the fact
of the matter is, there just isn't the population in
all parts of the state to be self supporting, So
the state government takes some of the money that's generated
(08:35):
here and distributed to the rest of the state, and also,
by the way, distributed to the rest of the country,
because Massachusetts is a net contributor state, not a net
recipient state. But that's another subject. The reason why Fred
and Shrewsbury or Sherburn or Stourbridge needs to worry about
this is because a lot of the state aid that
his town is receiving to operate its schools, it's police,
it's fire, and all of the stuff that it does
(08:57):
is being generated here in Boston by folks taking the
tar to and from work. And we have seen with
the diversions, with the time the rail has been shut down.
We saw in twenty fifteen when the snow knocked out
everything that the tea was running that without the tea,
Boston doesn't work all right.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
After this quick break, we'll take a look at how
a healthy tea and transportation system in Boston affects how
much you pay for things. It affects your bottom line,
It affects how much stuff food, et cetera, you can
afford to buy.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
After this on WBZ, You're on Night Side with Dan
Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
We continued with Brian Kane. We're going to get into
specifics about what's going on transportation wise in Massachusetts, but
I would like to really make you understand how important
transportation that works, traffic that works in Boston, how it
matters to everybody economically. And you pointed out to me
(09:53):
during our pre show chat that I hadn't even thought
about this. If the transportation syst and in Massachusetts is
substandard and catastrophically bad, things cost bar explain that.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Well, we do know that Boston. According to a recent
study by an international group, Boston ranks as the twelfth
worst traffic in the world, and including like bygon Mumbay, yeah, anywhere.
Now it's starting to look a little bit Mumbai, and
it's the fourth worst in the United States. And what
congestion does is drive up the cost of everything. Almost
(10:31):
everything we buy, we consume, we eat, we drink comes
in by truck. There's very little that comes in by
rail anymore, very little that comes in by air free.
I mean there are some things, obviously, and a lot
of stuff does still come through the Port of Boston,
and most of that gets put on trucks. Those trucks
make money by delivering stuff quickly, and if they're stuck
in traffic, that's just racking up costs and racking up
(10:52):
costs and racking up costs, and it's really unproductive time
that none of us benefit from. So moving trucks in
and around this region faster will reduce costs for everybody.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
We will get to some potential solutions. And I mentioned
a list of things that it also affects. It can
affect how much you make at your job, because it
can dictate where you can work. Absolutely, if you can't
get to work in a humane amount of time, you
just can't. You can't work there. And I mentioned that
(11:27):
in general quality of quality of life, there's people seem
to focus on money, but time, time, time. It's not
just time is money. Time is wildly important. And can
you give me an idea now, how much an average
person might spend how much of their life is taken
(11:50):
up stuck in traffic or on the highway or in
their commute.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Well, I mean, obviously it depends, but Boston, I believe
the number was something like eighty three hours per year
are wasted by the average Massachusetts residents sitting in traffic.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Say time that by say the average lifespan seventy five.
You take the working ISSU years, say say fifty years,
yeah times eight. That's insane and.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
It's the years of your life.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
And if you how much do you make per hour?
How much you know what the opportunity cost of that
is used? That could have been you could have been
doing something else to make money. Instead you're sitting in traffic,
burning fuel and polluting and blocking ambulances trying to get
to the trying to get to the hospital, blocking trucks,
(12:36):
trying to get your goods in there. Now, explain to
me how bad it's getting. I mean, you kind of
gave them an idea saying it's the twelfth worst in
the world, including can't including cities in India.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Yeah, Africa's India. Well, I mean, think about this one.
Bradley Jay so u Haul and other moving companies report
that Massachusetts is near the top of the list for
one way moves out of state in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Do you have a reason and do you have well
there causing effect?
Speaker 3 (13:03):
There's polling, so a poll this earlier this month, one
in three people have considered moving out of Massachusetts. There
is a poll last January that talks about one of
the two thirds of the people who were were polled
said to the high cost of living was the primary
factor why they considered leaving. There was another poll of
people who'd already left Massachusetts who also said two thirds
of them also said high cost of living was the factor.
(13:26):
And there's a poll less in twenty twenty four that
put transportation and housing costs as the principal reason why
folks are leaving. It's all linked together.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
You mentioned housing, How does the transportation affect housing?
Speaker 3 (13:39):
So we have a housing crisis here in Massachusetts. Statewide.
The Commonwealth believes that we need to build about two
hundred and twenty two thousand more homes by twenty thirty
just to keep up, just to keep prices from going
through the roof. That's about twenty two thousand a year.
Last year we built fourteen thousand, So we're already falling
behind where we need to be. We all know that
(13:59):
the further away you get from job centers, the cheaper
housing gets. That's just economics, it's supply and demand. But
we cannot build more housing in Massachusetts without doing something
to be able to move folks around or else we're
just going to make congestion worse, and I don't know
how it can get much worse. So imagine if we
did build twenty two thousand more homes statewide every year,
(14:21):
and those folks all get in a car one day,
turn the engine on and start driving to where they
want to be on roads that are already full, on
trains that are already full, and buses that are already full.
That's just going to add to the congestion walls, and
that's just going to add to the economic decline that
we're facing. So for regular folks, we need to figure
out a way to think a little differently about this.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
I would argue, okay, and each transport there's a big
overall system, and each element of the transportation system affects
the other. Can be pretty specific about how a busted
MBTA effects traffic and how and vice versa. How endless
(15:04):
building and high rise luxury condos in a world where
was finite road space crowds traffic to the point where
there's actual gridlock and you can go through multiple light
cycles and not move at all. How does that affect
the MBTA? How does it all affect each other?
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Well?
Speaker 3 (15:21):
The so I do talk to folks that operate these
systems quite a bit. I talk to the folks in
highway operations at the Department of Transportation, and they will
tell you point blank that if a commuter rail line
is down, traffic is going to be worse on that road.
And it makes sense. If there's a couple of thousand
people taking the Wooster Line in from Wooster, they're not
folks gone on the pike. Same thing on Route three
(15:43):
and the old Colony line, same three on the north side.
It's all connected together. So if the trains are not running,
there's going to be more cars on the road. If
there's more cars on the road, congestion is just going
to get worse. Costs are going to just go up,
and our air quality is going to get worse. So
what we need to figure out a way to do
is to keep people moving in and around the region
(16:03):
without adding to the congestion and without adding to the pollution.
And I think there are ideas that are out there
that could do that. One of them is this idea
called regional rail, where you have smaller trains running within
one twenty eight every fifteen to twenty minutes. And like
I said, forty percent of the state's population lives within
one twenty eight. There's fifty commuter rail stations inside one
(16:24):
twenty eight. Would you have to build new rails new already?
Have the rails already, have Smar trains already, have North Station.
We need to build elect we need to electrify it,
and we need to get new trains. Right now, we're
running more or less thirty to forty year old diesel
locomotives along those lines. In fact, on the Providence line,
we run diesel trains under an electric wire that propels
(16:45):
Amtrak trains electrically.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
So you could just use that electricity.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
You could do it tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
And why hasn't it been done?
Speaker 3 (16:54):
The TEA, for a variety of reasons, decided years ago
that it wanted to move if the Pharamont line. It's
the first electrified rail line in the system, even though
Providence was already done. I happened to think that was
a strategic mistake. How much influenced does the the board have?
So the advisory board, we are a consultant dive agency.
(17:15):
We used to have a veto over their budget, but
they didn't like what we did with that, so they
took that away from us a few years ago. Right now,
we have soft power by talking to folks like you.
But we also do have one member of the MBTA
Board of Directors. Now it's a little confusing. There's a
nine person board of directors that runs the tee. One
of those nine is appointed by us, and three of
the other members are members of our organization, and so
(17:37):
they kind of, we like to tell, we like to
think they listened to us.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
From time to time, we all see a lot of
the development cranes up in the air. I guess it's
reduced a little bit, but it seems still seems kind
of endless. Again, I find the roads. You're already fool
building more more housing, lectually, condos, et cetera. Do you
have to do we have to slow down development. We
(18:02):
don't have to slow down development. What we have to
do is slow down the number of cars that are
that are needed per development. Okay, do that?
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Well, that's a project of something called zoning, which we
all know about. So in right now in Massachusetts, for
every depending on the town you live in, for every bedroom,
you have to have at least one car in many places,
or sometimes two cars. As a requirement to build the building,
whether or not someone's gonna have the car or not,
they have to have the parking space for the car.
And so one of the things that folks are doing
is thinking about ways to decouple that. Why, especially in
(18:32):
downtown Boston, the Beeg high rise building on top of
South Station had to have something like two thousand parking
spots built with it, even though it's sitting on top
of South Station because of our zoning.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
And how why is it hard to change that rule?
It seems like it's a no brainer.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
It's just the way it's been done. And again, we
need to think differently about this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
What will be your strategy to try to make that happen.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Well, it's already happening in cities and towns across Massachusetts,
including in Boston. They are getting rid of something called
parking minimums, which is the required number of parking spaces
needed for each bedroom and each bed. So that is
starting to change, and that's a great thing. We need
to accelerate that. We also need to look at changing
some of the other requirements to be built into buildings,
(19:18):
like some in some parts of the country, some parts
of the world, they're getting rid of second staircases in
smaller buildings. Right now, you have to have two forms
of egress, two staircases to get out of even a
three story building. Places like France other parts of Europe
they don't have that, and it makes building a lot cheaper,
and it makes you to be able to build more
housing within the structure for people to live instead of
(19:40):
just having space for people to move around.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
You're doing anything to motivate developers to encourage micro mobility.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Well, there are lots of requirements as part of what
it's called mitigation. So when a developer agrees to build something,
they have to also agree to give the city or
town or the local regions some goodies. Micromobility is one
of those things. Think about the blue bikes that we
have here in Boston as a version of micromobility. There's
also a lot of requirements for putting up screens and buildings,
(20:13):
but there is no requirement or even ability right now
for developers who build massive developments to give money to
the tea to run additional service. That mechanism just doesn't
exist in state law.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
All right, They're going to take a break before we do.
I just want to give you a little number here
can make you understand how important making this transportation system
work and doing what you can, calling who you must
to make it happen. Rapid delivery growth, the tonal number
of third party food delivery. Actually that's going to be
(20:46):
part of another I'd rather put that as part of
another question that I ask you. So we'll break now
and I'll get to that later. I'm busy.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
You're on night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's News.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
You. Our guest is Brian Kane, Executive Director, MBTA Advisory Board.
And during the break, I was just saying, and I
know you all know how much I love the MBTA.
I love not having to drive in Boston. I love
I can get way way far. I can go to Providence.
You know, I can go where I want and I
don't have to drive. I love it. And you said, boy,
(21:24):
I hope I get a chance to talk about how
the more people that are like you, the better it
is for everybody on the road.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
And so well, I mean, one of the worst parts
about driving I think all of us have had this
experience is other drivers, others they're just it's just awful.
You get cut off.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Okay, all right, let's which brings me to I guess
this is as good a time as any to get
to this. It is part of the problem with traffic
is everyone knows there's no trafficing. There's very little traffic enforcement.
I have seen zero in where I live. I've seen
zero in Boston, none, zero people pulled over. I see
(21:59):
many in fract and even many, many more by scooters,
which seem It seems folks have decided that they are
immune from traffic laws and let them just turn the
bike lanes, which cost so much money, into delivery scooter
lanes at the peril of bike riders. That's another thing
we'll get to later. But in order to have the
(22:23):
economy run, transportation has to run, which means traffic has
to run, and there have to be rules, and the
rules have to be obeyed. In Scandinavian countries, you don't
need so much enforcement because they like their government, they
like their rules. But not here. It's like we're a
nation of outlaws, even in Massachusetts. And I'm curious. I
(22:45):
would ask you first how much of an issue is
lack of enforcement and lack of adherance to the rules.
I would try to take a cab from my house
in Brookline to the Liberty Hotel. It took like an hour,
and people were blocking the box, against the law, against
the rules. And when that happens, you go through multiple
(23:08):
light cycles not moving at all, and then people just
get fed up, get out of line, and it becomes
it looks like Saigon. It's just a free for a
literal free for all. People get to the point where, Wow,
I'm not going to get home unless I now break
the law. So I'm curious. I don't know if I
(23:32):
can get into why. Well, it's a lack of willfrim
communities don't seem to want to prioritize it.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
I think a lot of it has to do with
the human factor. And I think what we're seeing with
a lot of law enforcement folks is that they are
getting more and more concerned about being asked to use
their best judgment in a situation for a variety of reasons.
One of the ways to sort of make that easier
for them and better and fairer, though not one hundred
(24:00):
percent fair, but fairer is by making it automatic and
using technology. Lots and lots of places use cameras to
do enforcement. We don't do that here in Massachusetts, although
we are about to start. We are, we are. I
did not know on T buses. New legislation was passed
last year. The TEA just finalized its rules. So there's
we're tiptoeing into camera enforcement. How will that work with
(24:22):
TEA buses? What do you mean so right? If it
hasn't started yet, But if if a car is parked
in a bus stop and a T bus shows up
and can't get into that bus stop, the bus is
equipped with cameras, three sixty cameras, it's going to be
able to identify that car by its license plate, the operator,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and that person will
automatically get a fine in the mail.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Okay, they've broken the seal.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
I certainly hope that's the case. It's won't. It'll there'll
be some challenges we're gonna have to get through it.
But I hope that is the start of many to come.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
All right and listen to all of you out there,
no matter where you are, within the sound of my voice,
I'm now going to make the case for your town
adopting automated enforcement. Most people you know we're America. No,
that's so an American. That's terrible. But let me make
the case. First of all, it will save it will
make money for your town. It will be a money generator.
(25:14):
You can spend that money on whatever you want. Spend
that money on more police officers to do other non
traffic related things. Spend it on your school, spend it
on what you guys decide, you people decide. That's fine. Secondly,
it will erase any chance that people are stopped based
on things they shouldn't be stopped on, based on discriminatory
(25:39):
potentially discriminatory reason they will take. It will relieve the
police of worrying about that. It just won't happen. It
will be you're a lawbreaker. That will be it. And
of course it will traffic will run more smoothly. And
it's a crucial thing. It's a crucial part of the
(25:59):
answer to how the transportation can be fixed, so our
economy can get fixed in the price of things, it
will be less expensive. It's just a crucial thing. I
don't know what. And I'll ask you right now, anybody
six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty, what is
your beef with automated enforcement. It's good. Your town will
make money. Police departments will be relieved of that responsibility.
(26:23):
I don't I don't see the problem. What am I missing?
I think you're you're, you're nailing it.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
It will also allow police to focus on actual crime,
right and making people's lives better, which is really what
we want them to be.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Doing, right, all right. Next up is a potential piece
of the transportation situation. A lot of people drive cars,
don't need to really drive cars. They're only one of them,
and they're not going on a highway or anything. And
you know, I have a love hate relationship with the scooters. No,
(26:55):
I don't have a love. There's no love, actually, but
I can see where school might be part of a
transportation solution because they take up exponentially less space then
an suv, which most people have some for crossover suv
during decent weather and all. However, of course, there seems
(27:17):
to be zero enforcement on those. Seems to be a
knowledge that the uppers seem to have that knowledge, and
this is all This is sort of economically driven, perhaps
because businesses want scooters to deliver their goods as quickly
as possible and are happy that the scooters don't have
to obey traffic laws, and the scooters are have usurped
(27:39):
the bicycle lanes, which I don't know, hundreds of thousands,
probably millions of dollars has been spent on to create
a safe alternative route for bicyclists, and that's not safe
anymore because the scooters are in there using it as
those are delivery lanes like delivery super highways with no rules.
So I can see scooters would be a good thing
(28:01):
if they were regulated properly, ensured properly, so when one
hits you, you're not on the hook for all your
hospital bills. I believe that businesses that hire scooter delivery
people need to they have to be employees so that
you can sue the company when their employee breaks the law.
And further, in a state and in towns that profess
(28:25):
to be green and care about the environment, it is
my understanding that scooters have they don't have to be
tested for emissions. How much have scooters increased in numbers?
Oh yeah, well I have here. You know, if you
(28:46):
don't trust AI, then you can dismiss this. I actually
don't really trust it, but maybe this one happens to
be right. Rabid delivery growth. The total number of third
party food delivery trips in Massachusetts more than doubled between
back in twenty nine to twenty twenty one, and it's
gone way off the chat since then. But it grew
then from forty five million trips to over one hundred
(29:09):
million trips, and it's much more than that now. So
these scooters have to be taken seriously as a possible solution,
but as a real danger to the environment and to
public safety and to traffic flow. That was a big,
long statement, But what do you say.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Well, you're obviously correct. The state has yet to catch
up with the technology. I was at a form a
couple weeks ago with the two chairs of the Transportation
committee from the House and the Senate. They agree that
this is something that needs to be addressed. They're actually
working on it right now. I would expect to see
legislation come out in twenty twenty six. But until the
state takes action, cities and towns are really hampered because
(29:52):
right now there are no laws that they can actually
enforce on a lot of these things. And the manufacturers
also need to be sort of talk to in a
certain way, because right now, from what I understand. My
mechanical knowledge is very limited.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Thing.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
If your vehicle can go over twenty five mph, it's
considered a vehicle. If it can't.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Talking the fast e bikes now or the fast well,
I didn't get to that. Okay, that's us. I have
a complete beef for that. Yeah, right, Some of them go,
I know a lot about this, and I have actually
written to my town very carefully worded missives and receive
not a whole lot of love on it because it
(30:36):
doesn't seem to for whatever reason, doesn't seem to be
a will. Everybody's so locked into the idea of bicycles
they don't realize that these aren't bicycles. Now. I went
to a dealer and asked them, I asked all about them.
Many of them go forty forty five miles an hour.
They're marketed. I can send you this as as a
(30:56):
group of them not getting to work or home or school,
but you know doing you know, ramming around, as my
mother would say. And I was told at a place
of business that sold these that, yeah, the pedal is
just put on there, so they're legal in bike lanes.
It's a weird loophole. It seems pretty easy to seem
(31:20):
easy to close one thing you could do without spending
many money, Well much money is nobody even knows if
there are rules. Nobody even knows if there are community expectations.
So communities could put up signs, they could have a
digital campaign. Look, this is how we expected to behave
on a scooter and on a bike. That's that's starters.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Well, much like what with with vehicles years ago, where
the federal government and states got involved in setting regulations.
States and the Feds need to set some regulations around
e bikes. It's just one of those things that has
to happen and be enforced at a at a bigger level.
Cities in towns alone can't do it. I'm glad you
brought that up. So what makes you think something will
happen in twenty twenty six? Hearing rumblings of people writing legislation, Yeah, yeah,
(32:07):
the Saint the chairs of the House in Centate Transportation
Committee have been very vocal the last few weeks and
will continue to be based on their schedules talking about
this stuff. So I do think they're very serious and
they want to do something with that. Said, twenty twenty
six is an election year, and I think we all
know how things go in election years. We don't tend
to make big moves in election years, but maybe you
(32:29):
never know.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
All Right, We're going to take a break and finish
up with Brian here on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's news radio Radley.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
J for Dan Beck with Brian Kane, executive director of
the MBTA, and so much more. We want the you
want a lot of ridership on the MBTA, You need
to make some money. Now, I know that fairs don't
account for a large you know, the largest allion's share
part of the budget.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Right, it was forty percent sent in twenty nineteen for
the pandemic. Well now it's down to around thirty percent.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
And why didn't people not come back after the pandemic.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Well, what's interesting is that the ridership numbers themselves have
come back, but it's really a different kind of ridership.
We're seeing a lot more folks riding on weekends with passes.
Ten dollars passes. You can buy a family pass on commuter.
That's one of the best deals arise in the state.
I think four people for the cost of two on
commuter rail ten bucks per adult and you can go
anywhere you want to the whole system all weekend.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
It's amazing. Okay, So of course funding, everything's about money,
and funding is very important and paying the fare, which
is crazy reasonable for a ride. It goes. You can
go anywhere you want for a handful of change. Really
and for a while, well, no, for the longest forever
(33:49):
until recently, every phrase there was a bottle that because
you had to get on the front and pay you
fair on the front, I didn't open the doors on
the outside on the above ground tracks, and it seemed
they would be a good idea to have a system
where people got on and any door and paid, Like
in most countries, most civilized countries that have public transportation,
(34:13):
you have some sort of pass, you validate that pass
or pay somehow at whatever door you go into, and
of course if you didn't, if you just got on,
you would be subject to a serious penalty. That would
be the incentive to pay. Well, part of that dream
came true. The NBTA did install payment devices at doors
(34:38):
at all doors. However, they don't seem to have the
will to make people pay. I use the t all
the time and I feel like I'm one of the
few fools who pay my fare. People know no one cares,
nothing's going to happen to them. They get on and
(34:58):
they don't pay their fare once some people do, I
would say, in my opinion, most don't. Why the hesitation
to have some sort of enforcement. It wouldn't be that hard.
All you'd have to do is have some somebody paid
very little money to go around check and check did
(35:23):
you pay? Did you validate? And if you didn't define
it would be five hundred bucks something painful and people
would then pay. That's the way it works and has
worked for decades in other countries. Why not enforce that here?
Otherwise those payment methods at Easter waste of money. Why
not just say hey, it's free.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
So one of the things that filling the new GM
I guess he's not new now it has been doing?
Is Is Is that very much that Bradley? So today
or yesterday fairgates at sut Station opened for all Salts side.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
I noticed that, yes. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
When they were installed in North Station, revenue went up
by twenty seven percent year over year. So this will
be a game changer on the South Side for at
least for folks who take commuter rail and the Tea
will see a lot more money coming out of that good.
With respect to the Green Line and buses, they are
trying to introduce what are called fair enforcement officials out there. However,
(36:18):
the law was also changed a couple of years ago
where it's now no longer really that much of a
penalty or really that much of a fine for for
faar evating.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Who's in charge of that law?
Speaker 3 (36:29):
That was the legislature passed it two or three years ago.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
It's now it's not even a misdemeaning group that goes
there and says shakes them by the collin and says,
wake up, legislature.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
I think there's some concerns that folks might get caught
up in stuff and in fairness. Mean, you don't want
a kid getting a criminal record for not paying.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
A fair It wouldn't be a crime. It would be
like a parking ticket.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Yeah, look at I agree. I mean when I was
at the tee, this was ten years ago, I ran
the numbers. It would have cost more money at the
time to put people on all the platforms with portable
devices to make it, but we don't need to do that. Yeah,
than it would. Now, what we need to do is
get folks on board, running around, running on the system,
making sure that they can actually do that.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Now, if there was a hint, a sentilla of a
chance that you would have to pay five hundred bucks,
it would make a difference. It would least, you know,
make people know this is what's expected of you. Get
you get no argument from me now. They don't even
know that it's expected. They think it's kind of free
and you only pay if you're a sucker.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
One of the things that drives me most crazy about
the Tea, and I've been working with them for a
long time, is they have one of the third I
think it's the third or fourth biggest police department in
the state. And you never see a police officer on
board a train or a bus.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
There you go and you don't even need police officers.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
No, but start with them if you really want to.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
You have people already on the pay roll. Yeah, every
once in a while, Every once in a while, let's
have a few roam in the tea.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
I don't think I've ever seen a te cop on
a train or a bus.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
I mean, there there are many many countries where it works,
like a charm yep and we seem broken. One further thing,
as far as enforcement goes happy to talk, how many
people have gone under the tee and seen somebody with
a bicycle on the tee taking up I have a
photo in my phone that I just showed Brian of
a one of the giant e bikes that's foldable, folded
(38:23):
up in the handicapped spot, and somehow that's okay. First
of all, shame on you whoever did it. But the
system says, just as is with traffic and scooters, we
really don't care. We are for some reason do not
have the will to make you do what you probably
(38:44):
should do. What about that? Do you need to just
tell the operators to to tough it up a little bit? Well?
Speaker 3 (38:52):
I think we as a society need to have a
real debate about what isn't isn't a bike because when
the two bikes.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Are not bike, they're electric motorcycles. Fair enough, if you
go forty miles an hour your electric motorcycle and certainly
should not be allowed in a bike lane or on
the tee or on the tea. Thank you, I appreciate that.
Let's we have Steven Brookline and Steve, you have two minutes,
as Dan Ray would say, what can you do with it?
What can you do with it? Steve? Hie, Steve, Steve,
(39:21):
are you there? Hi? Hi?
Speaker 4 (39:24):
Hello, This is actually Keith.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Hi.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
It's actually Keith, not Steve, and I'm here with Brian.
I just wanted to say I moved to it to
Brookline in nineteen ninety four and one of the things
that I kept calling home to Swansea, Massachusetts about was
the fact that Boston never shut down because the tea
always ran. And you know, over the cost of time,
(39:48):
we witnessed the team not running anymore. And it's nice
to kind of see the tea starting to run again.
And I have Brian with me, Brian Kane. It's it's
a different Brian, and I don't know who you are,
but but I appreciate everything you doing.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Thank you. I appreciate that too. Jesus out of time. Well,
look who it is on the phone calling now, Tim Murphy. Wow,
famous tea operator. He's an inspector. He's even above an inspector. Now,
he's a legend. He's a legend. He's a he's a
te operator. This gives me an opportunity to remind everybody
that as I understand that every Tea employee in operations
(40:26):
is working tonight on New Year's Eve.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Yeah, four or five thousand.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Of them, So be nice to them. Say thanks, Please
be nice, and thank you so much for coming in
and being very frank in your responses to me. I
appreciate thanks for having me. Well, you know what, folks,
New Year's Eve, if you're listening to me, you're probably
not out with you know, the the party yours. So
it's you and me, you plural and me, and we'll
(40:51):
chat together. I'm going to open up the line. It's
going to be open lines, but I kind of lean
towards talking about the year past, the year future, hope
with your dreams. Well, we'll have more specific questions to that.
That's coming up on WBZ. There's Radio ten thirty and
Tim callin then
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.