Jeff Mullan: MassDOT Promises Customer Focus

Jeffrey Mullan begins his duties as the Secretary & CEO of MassDOT, effective November 1. Governor Patrick appointed Mullan yesterday. Watch Jeff's message of commitment to efficiency, innovation, and customer service. Visit the Governor's web page to learn more.  We encourage your comment and conversation as MassDOT becomes a reality.  

Comments

[Michael Farren]

After 4-1/2 years of commuting to work in under 30 minutes, I am now back to commuting to work from the south shore through Boston. Much to my disappointment, I was reintroduced to the HOV ("zipper") lane. Much to my amazement, it is even more inefficient than I remeber. My recommendation to the MA DOT is that you discontinue its use.

Anyone who has driven 93N from the Braintree split to Boston, anytime after 5:00am on a work day, knows first hand just how monumentially ridiculous it is in both its design and application. The crossover in Braintree creates a huge bottleneck, slowing and stopping traffic which quickly backs up routes 93 and 3 for miles. Where the HOV lane merges back into 93, it also creates a bottleneck which quickly backs traffic up all the way to the crossover in Braintree. And as for the HOV itself, it seldom moves any more quickly than the main highway. It is not unusual for the approximately 7 mile trip from the crossover to the merge to take 45-60 minutes.

It would be refreshing to see the Commonwealth put the thousands of daily commuters, who use this stretch of road, ahead of the politics and handful of hack jobs it creates. However, I am sure the "zipper lane" will be here for many years. Why would the Commonwealth actually do something which actually puts the citizens first, is intelligent and increases efficiency? Afterall, this is the land of the "Big Dig"!!

[CJ Adams]

I have lived in the metro Boston area for over
15 years. I have low vision and travel exclusively by public transit all my life. I have traveled on a bunch of the transit system in US and Canada. This includes Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Washington DC,Boston,and The best one yet, Trimet of Portland Oregon.
http://trimet.org
Over the years I have seen both good and bad transit. Trimet seems to have found a way to build new lines fast efficiently with less public funds. They have made deals with business that helps fun these expansions and also lets them come in under budget with great features. They consistently keep riders up to date on where trains and busses are!. you can track them within 20 feet with a web countdown even. They manage to handle fairs with an open and honor system. NO big budget charlie card roll out. They instead have transit police and fair inspectors that will go on trains and busses as they travel and check for ticket slips and or passes. This Very visible presence makes fair evasion very very low. And there are NO delays on boarding vehicles. Their fleet is modern very clean very well maintained. They wash ever train and bus in the morning and clean them as they are serviced during the overnight shutdown. They manage their budget well and also provide timely and accurate information to the public of any diversions and changes via automated announcements (that you can actually hear clearly) and drivers / signage. Also they have a very very very well done web presence and automated system for both next bus / train arrivals online with countdown for each stop with gps tracking!. (ones that employees cant disable) They run so efficiently time wise that if a bus is late or off route for more then a few mins they will assume a problem and send the transit police to see if they are disabled! this means that trains and buses are on-time all the time. Instead of trying to put a band-aid on the T's functioning Instead look to other places in the US and the world where they are doing it cheaper better and with more customer oriented service. Now more then ever with a bad economy and global warming. Public transit needs to be more efficent cleaner better run and MUCH MORE USABLE then it has in the past. Time to look outside of the MA area for solutions rather then trying the same things that got us here in this messed up situation to start with.
If you ever need someone that feels strongly as a transit advocate I would be glad to help in any public way that I can. This is something that i rely on day to day with no other choice. Who better then myself to know how transit impacts day to day life and with experience of riding transit through out us and canada. I have a fairly good idea of what does and does not work Customer service end of things.

CJ Adams
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MassDOT Responds: Your experiences and offer to assist are much appreciated and are being shared with our transit leaders. Governor Patrick and MassDOT Secretary Jeff Mullan have made customer service a top priority of the new MassDOT, including transit. The focus will be on "you, the traveler", as the Governor said today.

[J. Payne]

Welcome Mr. Mullan, as a former T-insider I feel there needs to be more meetings within the organisation to make sure everyone is on the same page. I can't tell you how frustrating it was to get increased collaboration between various departments within the organization. Each department pulls in its own direction instead of all pulling together. This I think was the most frustrating thing about working at the MBTA. I called it quits because I genuinely felt it all was not for me, but hopefully others in the future could benefit from future reforms which hopefully will encompass better collaboration between the various departments. Your work is certainly cut out for you but I wish you all the best.

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Jeff Mullan responds:

Thanks for the note. One of the key objectives of the transportation reform law is to increase coordination among the various transportation modes. I am a big believer in the power of one and pledge to you and the people of Massachusetts my best effort to improve the system in this area.