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> The MBTA's a case study in incompetence, due to years of turf battles between the lege and governor's office. It's run by a bunch of overlapping boards with a
by tjic 17y ago
> The MBTA's a case study in incompetence, due to years of turf battles between the lege and governor's office. It's run by a bunch of overlapping boards with an org chart that looks like a spider web.
Why is it that the MBTA, BART, the Phoenix light rail, etc. always have these problems (unrealistic projections, turf battles, overlapping spheres of control, etc.), and yet Greyhound, Southwest Airlines, etc., don't?
I'd suggest that this sort of problem is endemic to government run transit organizations, and doesn't crop up in the private sector because there's competition, and private firms can only get as many dollars of budget as the paying public is willing to give them.
Horrific incompetence results in extinction ... in the private sector.
- jbooth 17y agoYou know, when I'm talking to engineers, if they say "relational databases are always good" or "relational databases are always bad", I conclude that they're either inexperienced or stupid. The same oughta be true when evaluating different methods of solving other problems as well. Busses can be run by private companies as long as the government provides the roads, because you don't need government involvement to drive on a road. Building a road, or a train track, requires some amount of government involvement, especially in dense areas with small lot sizes. Unless we're gonna knock down half the skyskrapers for 30 story parking garages in our major cities, we need to find a way to make mass transit work. There's 2 approaches towards that -- try to help the right people get into government, or throw your hands up, bury your head in the sand and declare that "databases are never the right solution".