Pike spreads blame for its Easter jams

Massive Easter traffic backups caused by no-show Turnpike toll takers have hatched new levels of driver rage - and Pike managers are promising Memorial Day could be just as bad.

Traffic was snarled for hours and backed up for miles on the Massachusetts Turnpike Friday and Saturday. But the worst was Sunday, when it backed up from Allston as far as Sturbridge.

It was all because an untold number of toll takers called in sick, and managers were forbidden to call more in on overtime. At one point, the Allston-Brighton tolls were left with just one lane inching past a sole toll taker.

Pike director Alan LeBovidge said drivers better get used to it, or get a transponder. Memorial Day, he said, is likely to be just as bad.

“We’re really desperate for money and we’re working very hard to conserve cash,” LeBovidge said. Pike spokesman Colin Durant claimed the agency had not determined last night exactly how many toll takers failed to show up for work.

Outraged drivers said the Pike’s failure to respond to the crisis not only ruined their holiday, it showed the embattled agency is not just a financial mess . . . it’s a management disaster area.

“They made their problem everybody’s problem,” said Melissa Brooks, 32, of East Boston. “Instead of a nice relaxing day, I came home incredibly mad.”

Her typical 50-minute drive to her mother’s in Wrentham took more than two hours.

“It was the worst trip ever,” lamented Alex Durso, 36 of Melrose, who was trapped in his car with two young kids as a four-hour trip to Albany stretched into eight hours.

LeBovidge acknowledged his agency could have done a better job placing signs ahead of toll plazas telling drivers which lanes they should be in. But the Pike chief shifted the ultimate blame from his own management decisions and his toll takers’ work ethic to the drivers who were caught in the mess.

“If Alan LeBovidge were sitting next to me, I’d have punched him in the nose,” said holiday driver Brooks, citing the unhelpful signage as a major frustration.

Meanwhile, LeBovidge said if the Pike determines there was a pattern of abuse of sick time, there will be an investigation and possible diciplinary action.

Pike board member Mary Z. Connaughton said she hopes the Pike revisits the policy for Memorial Day weekend and future heavy-traffic weekends. “The (overtime ban) on the whole is probably a good one to save money, but there should be exceptions to keep the flow of traffic moving,” she said.

Pike’s ‘wave-through’ policy long gone

by Jessica Fargen

Massachusetts Turnpike Authority toll takers used to “wave through” cars when major traffic backups occurred, but that policy has since been eliminated as the toll road faces a huge budget gap.

Jennifer Flagg, chief administrative officer at the Pike, said Executive Director Alan LeBovidge eliminated that policy after he took the helm in 2007.

“We do not do that anymore. When we wave people through we don’t get the revenue. This is all about the financial situation,” she said today.

She said an exception would be made if drivers or toll takers were in danger.

“We would do that if it was a public safety emergency. People waiting in traffic is not a public safety emergency,” she said.

Former Pike board member Christy Mihos said the board had a wave-through policy that was put in place when the lines waiting at the tolls would inconvenience drivers and on days when the road could not handle increased traffic, such as a holiday.

News of the elimination of the “wave-through” policy comes as the Pike faces the white-hot heat of angry drivers, some of whom were stuck in traffic on the Mass Pike for hours over Easter weekend because of staffing shortages.

LeBovidge said yesterday that the T no longer pays overtime to fill the shifts of workers who call out sick. That policy, coupled with increased holiday traffic, led to a nightmare commutes all weekend.

Pike Teamsters union chief Robert Cullinane rejected Turnpike claims his members banged in sick in in high numbers, saying in a statement that “there was no deviation from normal absences on Easter Sunday.”

Cullinane insisted the Pike intentionally understaffed the tolls intentionally “ as part of their effort to force drivers into FastLane transponders.”

It's Wednesday. Alan LeBovidge still has a job.

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