MBTA steering into rough winter

“It’s just Manny being Manny.”

When Manny Ramirez was playing for the Red Sox back in the early ’00s, that phrase signified reliable flakiness and expected idiosyncrasies working in tandem within the gifted outfielder.

You never knew what he would do next.

These days, we can repurpose that saying a bit: “It’s just the T being the T.”

But there’s nothing madcap about the transportation situation in Boston, just maddening. And this franchise is hemorrhaging fans.

On Tuesday, a Red Line train derailed at Broadway station. None of the 47 passengers aboard were hurt. This followed Sunday’s malfunctioning escalator at Back Bay Station, which injured nine when it suddenly reversed at high speed, as the Herald reported.

Red Line riders heard the usual: The cause is under investigation, expect delays while work is being done.

These days, there are fewer riders to hear those announcements.

The transit agency’s own ridership dashboard shows 1.2 million trips were taken on an average weekday in February 2020 just before the pandemic landed.

Last month, that figure was down nearly 56% to 531,000 average weekday trips, the dashboard calculates. Bus ridership is picking up over the subway and commuter rail.

People are, however, hitting the road. Traffic jams have risen to prepandemic levels.

“Traffic has gone crazy over the past two months,” said Chelsea Police Chief Brian Kyes, president of the Massachusetts Major Cities Chiefs of Police.

“During rush hour, some cities have become gridlocked,” Kyes said, adding that some backups are even worse than before the coronavirus hit.

Workers may have missed their colleagues over the past year, but they don’t seem to have missed waiting on a platform. And driving gets one out of the house, but not in too close proximity to others.

“People are still working from home or on a hybrid schedule and just don’t feel the need to take the T,” said Mary Connaughton, the Pioneer Institute’s Director of Government Transparency. “Plus, people opt for the road rather than risk their health.”

Like businesses everywhere, the MBTA was blindsided by the pandemic as revenues and ridership plummeted.

Now, the agency faces a white-knuckle ride through the cold-weather months. Snow and ice on the tracks, winter storms — trains take a beating. People still remember the hellish winter of 2014-2015 when massive snowfall brought the T to its knees.

And maintenance money? The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation warned the T could be facing a “fiscal calamity” that would require $1.25 billion in new annual revenue just to meet operating and capital needs.

That does not include $2 billion in federal stimulus funds already paid out to the agency in COVID-era stimulus cash.

It’s hard to imagine, but COVID is still calling the shots, more than a year after the pandemic took hold. Ridership returning to the T will depend on how the delta variant hopefully ebbs from our region, and people feel safer about riding in an enclosed space.

Perhaps gridlocked roads will drive people back to the T.

But for all those who see the T less taken as less safe, perhaps Boston’s mayoral candidates, and those running for local and state office, could take a few photo-op trips here and there.

This would be a great way to lead by example.