Now the only meaningful question is who gets to be the black lion...
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Voltron of Transportation
My good friend Mike who blogs now over at Transit Miami sent me this link about Boston looking to combine all of their transportation agencies into one super agency. I'll leave it to Bill to say whether this is a good idea or not but I don't think super agencies feel like they have to serve the needs of the transit constituency.
Now the only meaningful question is who gets to be the black lion...
Now the only meaningful question is who gets to be the black lion...
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9 comments:
That is absolutely NOT FAIR.
The city of Portland just changed the transportation office's name to the "Bureau of Transportation" (BOT or PBOT), and I've had this idea to make a big robot poster, a giant Transformer made up of bikes and streetcars.
Seriously, I just hatched the idea earlier this week -- and now someone has made a big robot poster for their own transportation agency! Even worse, they actually did theirs whilst mine is still just an idea.
Darn you simultaneous invention! Darn you self-motivation and initiative!
Oh, I see that it is merely a Voltron picture lifted from somewhere else, the final actual poster was never made... I still have my chance.
Bob...I hope you're not serious. You must know Voltron is a cartoon from the mid 80s from which the posted picture came from. My buddy Mike sent me a link that said Voltron with lots of exclamation points and like any child of the 80's the cartoon came to mind. PBOT can still come to fruition under your logo idea!
Well at least, the Vehicle Voltron wasn't used. That version sucked!
As a longtime follower of Massachusetts' transportation woes, I have to say that this idea is a good one. Right now, there are 4 entirely separate state agencies in charge of state roads in MA: the Department of Conservation and Recreation (a bunch of "parkways", many of which are major commuter arteries), the Port Authority (one bridge, albeit a big one), the Turnpike Authority (the Massachusetts Turnpike and the Big Dig tunnels) and the Highway Department (everything else). All of these have entirely separate and redundant bureaucracies, and extremely limited accountability. The Senate proposal eliminates the Turnpike Authority and brings it and all of the other roads under one roof. The new agency would have a separate division for the MBTA and the other regional transit authorities. Things such as pensions, benefits, hiring and contracting policies etc. are currently set by the authorities independently; this would make them the same as the rest of the state government (i.e. a lot less generous; the T's pension policies are particularly ludicrous).
"Voltron, Defender of the Universe!"
That line is at the end of the theme to the cartoon. I knew about it, and I thought so when I saw the title of this post. I'm more familiar with the Transformers than I am with the Gobots.
The black lion is the one in the middle!
Oh, I forgot. What about if Optimus Prime was able to transform into a train?
Go for it Bob. The PBOT Bot is all yours...
This might be a good idea for Boston. The previous governor saddled the MBTA with boatloads of debt and restricted its funding stream. (Not so for the roads authorities.) The combination could dump the debt on the roads folks and send the income to transit, if done correctly.
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