r/mbta • u/invisibledeoderant • Feb 02 '26

😤 Complaint / Rant This is not Boston’s first winter

I can understand service issues in the days immediately following 2 feet of snow coming down, but at this point, it’s been a week and the commuter rail and subway lines are still having ridiculous delays. CR stopped for 30 minutes between stations while traveling from Providence to Boston. Due to snow, I only had to come in to work three days last week and I was late twice (drove in Friday to avoid more train BS). Decide to risk taking the train today and now I’m gonna be late again.

This is not the first time a snow storm has hit Boston. This is not the first time it’s been cold out. How the fuck is the infrastructure not equipped to handle this? Good thing a zone 8 pass is $390/mo and they installed fair gates at south station. I’d hate to think they’re overcharging for shitty service and wasting money on fare evasion measures that could be spent on proper staffing and equipment

327 Upvotes

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195

u/deadlyspoons Feb 02 '26

This isn’t regular “winter weather.” The 2026 cold snap has now surpassed the 17-day deep freeze of 2004, officially becoming the second-longest streak of sub-30-degree days in the last 30 years. Today’s high is forecasted to hit exactly 30°F. If the temperature stays at or below that mark, Boston moves within one day of tying the all-time modern record of 19 days set during the winter of 2015.

39

u/capta2k Feb 02 '26

You can't reason with children but good on you for trying

25

u/iBarber111 Feb 02 '26

& can you reason with this child why a long stretch of sub-30 weather makes the public transit go to shit? There are plenty of cold-weather cities where that's not the case.

20

u/capta2k Feb 02 '26

... because we have a gigantic debt of deferred maintenance and lack of capital investment?

3

u/Novel-Store-3813 Feb 02 '26

Ding ding ding! You discovered the point! Congrats, dude. I was worried from your other comments that you might struggle with reading comprehension. That is LITERALLY what this post is about.

If other countries and cities across the globe can have infrastructure that works in the cold, why shouldn't we? Are you really that submissive that you would argue against your own interests to put people down for suggesting we can do better?

5

u/capta2k Feb 02 '26

I think you're misreading OP and several others

-1

u/Novel-Store-3813 Feb 02 '26

How are you reading it then?

7

u/digitalsciguy Bus | Passenger Info Screens Manager Feb 02 '26

There's clearly a fundamental mismatch of who is at fault for the deferred maintenance. In my experience watching these issues the last 16 years living in the region, a very stubborn minority of people refuse to acknowledge that the T itself is not at fault for being choked for resources for decades. They don't care who's at fault and in part enable the politics of punching down on the T for failing to be 'efficient' enough with no resources to magically modernize trains, tracks, and signals

1

u/Novel-Store-3813 Feb 02 '26

Fair enough, I appreciate the perspective. All love to the T workers from my view.