Transportation Agenda In The News

After already doubling fares since 2000, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority would have to raise prices by at least another 38 percent, cut service or borrow more money to close its budget gap over the next five years, according to a report released yesterday.

From fiscal years 2009 to 2013, the MBTA’s budget deficit will likely fall between $357 million and $438 million, largely because of the $5.1 billion in debt the transit agency carries, the report by the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group concludes.

“The options available to the T to close the deficits - higher fares, less service or a greater debt - all would negatively impact ridership,” said Eric Bourassa, a consumer advocate at the not-for-profit. “The consequences . . . would be worse traffic congestion and air pollution and greater stress on our already deteriorating roads and bridges.”

In 2000, the state Legislature decided that the only state funding the T would receive was 1 cent for every 5 cents of sales-tax revenue the state collected.

Because those revenues have risen by only a fraction of what the state projected at the time, the T has raised fares three times in the past seven years, and borrowed more money, largely to build transit projects required under an agreement to offset pollution and congestion from the Big Dig.

If the state could spend nearly $15 billion on that project, Bourassa said, it can spend a fraction of that to help pay off the T’s debt, rather than forcing T riders to shoulder the burden.

Two currently stalled bills would require the state to pay $2.9 billion - or about $280 million a year - of the T’s debt in exchange for limiting future fare increases to the rate of inflation.

To address this “critical issue,” Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration also is developing a plan to better govern and finance the state’s roads, bridges and transit system after decades of neglect, said Erik Abell, spokesman for the Executive Office of Transportation and Public Works.