Recent comments in /f/boston

SkiingAway t1_j5ylthv wrote

Reply to comment by usfunca in Boston police account for $31 million of city legal payouts since 2020, including $16 million for wrongfully convicted man - The Boston Globe by TouchDownBurrito

The pension fund can be $0.00, the amount of money Boston owes it's retirees has not changed.

Beyond that, I doubt there is any scheme you can come up with to try to implement what you're dreaming of that would pass a court. An employee signing a contract doesn't make illegal provisions valid.

There's a lot you can't do with compensation, and "taking money you've already paid away from one worker because of the actions of another" is usually right up at the top of that list, no matter how you want to phrase it.

As a basic example: Employee 1 crashes a company truck. Maybe he runs some people over in the process. Company is out $1m. Can the company come back and say to the other employees + former employees with retirement accounts "we're going to need each of you to return $10,000 from what we've paid you in the past to pay for it?" - obviously not, it's the company's problem. If they've got a strong enough case they can maybe sue Employee 1 for negligence although that probably won't come up with $1m.

But nothing they can write into their employment contract can force people who had nothing to do with it to pay for the company's problem.

The city of Boston is the "company" here.

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jbray90 t1_j5yljc7 wrote

Reply to comment by HistoryMonkey in Lawmakers pushing for MBTA to electrify Commuter Rail by 2035 by ToadScoper

It would, but Needham is being sacrificed (necessarily) at the altar of bigger fish with more passengers and more room for passenger growth. An electrified Regional Rail with 15 minute frequencies is going to eat up even more slots than Amtrak had provisioned for. There is no future where Needham doesn’t become a shuttle service to Forest Hills at rush hour. If the whole line wants high frequencies to downtown, they are going to have to switch to rapid transit over the commuter rail.

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alottaloyalty t1_j5yhvf0 wrote

Reply to comment by just_change_it in MBTA to close part of Orange Line to work on slow zones it said were eliminated, but weren’t, during full shutdown by ik1nky

There was a kind of resignation with the month-long OL shutdown, "Well I guess if it gets things working again, do what you have to do." The big closures are frustrating, but it's even worse when the issues either don't get fixed or don't stay fixed after the closure.

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Elfich47 t1_j5yg3v5 wrote

Reply to comment by Anustart15 in Lawmakers pushing for MBTA to electrify Commuter Rail by 2035 by ToadScoper

You miss the point: mass is pushing to limit or eliminate gas permits for new construction, so that will need more electricity. Plus electric cars. Now electric trains. That is a lot of electricity to be found.

Edit

Downvoting me will not change the fact that increasing the load on the electrical grid is likely to cause problems, and the electric trains are just another stone on that well intentioned path to hell.

Until the electrical provider issues are resolved, this is going to become a gigantic mess in about 10 years.

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