Neither side wanted to budge. Both sides sincerely wanted to come together, but thoughts of horrible past experiences gradually weakened their mutual resolve. In the end, we had a stalemate on our hands.
That was fine by me. The last thing I wanted to do on Easter was travel 100 miles across the state to spend a lovely five hours with my in-laws. The second to last thing I wanted to do on Easter Day was to force my in-laws to drive 100 miles to spend a lovely five hours at our place.
It's not that I hold dear the Easter holiday, or even observe it particularly, except in the most secular way (stealing my daughter's jelly beans and stuff like that.) And it's not that I don't enjoy spending time with my wife's family, whom I love dearly. No, my reluctance to host or be hosted by them wasn't about anything other than the 100 miles of road travel such a family gathering would entail—travel that includes about 50 miles on the MassPike.
After hearing last week's news, I'm glad we decided to postpone our Easter fete until the following weekend. Not surprisingly, when we finally sat down to feast upon the Easter ham, the main topic at the table was the nightmare scenario we'd wisely avoided. Reportedly, the whole weekend was a mess on the Pike, especially on Sunday, when traffic was backed up from Allston to Sturbridge, turning an hour's drive into a three- or four-hour ordeal. State officials blamed the backups on a large number of toll takers not reporting for work and subsequent refusal by turnpike officials to pay overtime wages to replace the absentees.
The effort of transportation officials, and ultimately Gov. Deval Patrick, to account for the Easter weekend nightmare largely fell on deaf ears at our belated holiday celebration. Everyone at the table has made the trek across the state on Easter, as well as most of the other major holidays. The MassPike, particularly the stretch from I-495 to the I-84 exit in Sturbridge, is always a misery on holidays, even in years when agency officials have been happy to call in extra help at time-and-a-half wages. The only exception lives large in my extended family's memory: a few years back, under some Republican governor or other, holiday backups in Sturbridge were quickly eased by a decision to make the Pike free for the day. Ever since then, we've wondered, does the revenue gained on a holiday ever make up for the cost of charging motorists for the privilege of sitting in a traffic jam and showing up four hours late to grandmother's Easter dinner?
Hammered for more than a week about the traffic disaster, state officials have finally begun to talk about ways to keep it from happening again. Alas, an action plan released by Turnpike Executive Director Alan LeBovidge and state Transportation Secretary James Aloisi is a belated and insincere apology, nothing more. LeBovidge initially refused to accept any responsibility for the tieups, advising motorists to "grin and bear it" or buy a Fast Lane pass. A wealthy ?migr? from the private-sector world of high finance, LeBovidge added to his reputation for speaking unguardedly when he detailed his own Easter Sunday spent lounging in front of the TV watching sports. Yes, he said, he received messages about traffic problems, but those problems didn't seem any worse than the usual holiday back-ups, hardly warranting a move to open the tolls and let motorists pass for free.
After LeBovidge's tin-eared response to the cries of tens of thousands of irritated motorists, he, Aloisi and Patrick were widely accused of creating the traffic delays as a ploy to push more Fast Lane transponders and the governor's proposed 19-cents-a-gallon gas tax. It took the politically inept Patrick until midweek to ask Aloisi to investigate what went wrong, and several more days went by before the LeBovidge/Aloisi plan emerged—a plan that pushes the Fast Lane as a panacea. Apparently, the state's transportation brain trust doesn't realize that the Fast Lane is only fast once you get to it, not when you're at a dead stop 50 miles from your desired exit.
LeBovidge and his bosses cynically reach for what many politicians view as a get-out-of-jail-free card: the crappy economy has left the state broke. "We're really desperate for money," LeBovidge said at the start of the controversy. Too bad for him and his pals; we're all hurting, most of us far more than LeBovidge, Aloisi and Patrick. By adding arrogant disregard for the public to their list of sins, they only underscore their failure to reform the repulsive culture that, top to bottom, keeps Aloisi and no-show toll takers fat and happy.
