By Marc Draisen
ONE OF the greatest improvements to life in Metro Boston over the past 20 years is the MBTA. Whatever its shortcomings, the T today is a far cry from the one many of us rode as children. It is, for the most part, reliable, clean, and safe. The rebuilt Orange Line runs quickly downtown, and north to Malden. The Red Line has doubled in length, linking Braintree with Cambridge. Commuter rail lines knit the region together, and ferries bring passengers into town from the South Shore.
The T is also one of the economic engines of the Commonwealth. It has helped to revitalize neighborhoods with new jobs, housing, and parks. And these benefits extend beyond the urban core. The Metropolitan Area Planning Council is working with communities like Braintree, Weymouth, and Malden to create or refurbish "transit-oriented" town centers.
In addition to spurring economic development, the T limits congestion on roads throughout the metropolitan region. Congestion already costs Boston-area drivers dearly - according to one study, $895 annually in lost wages, gasoline, and other costs. That's $1.8 billion for the region as a whole. Imagine how much worse traffic would be without the T.
Today, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council will unveil a new plan for growth and preservation in Greater Boston. The plan, called "MetroFuture," was constructed with input from more than 5,000 residents and regional leaders. It calls for a new pattern of development based on "smart growth" - concentrating new homes and jobs near existing infrastructure, preserving farms and fields, and protecting air, water, and habitat. However, attaining the lofty goals of MetroFuture depends more on one institution than on any other: a healthy, stable, and growing transit system.
Yet, the future of that system is in doubt. The MBTA - and smaller transit systems elsewhere in the state - are in crisis. This crisis is, for the most part, not of their making. The T is crippled by debt - much of it associated with projects the Commonwealth placed on the T's books as a way to mitigate negative impacts of the Big Dig. Although one penny of the state's sale tax is dedicated to the MBTA, the gap between MBTA expenses and revenue has widened as sales tax collections have declined. Changes in how the T is organized or how it pays its staff are necessary, and a legislative conference committee is considering some of these changes. But let's be clear: no amount of reorganization, reform, or efficiency can generate the $160 million needed to close next year's budget gap, let alone the even larger deficits anticipated in the future.
Without new revenues, the MBTA faces draconian fare hikes - up to 20 percent, if last week's news reports are correct - that will disproportionately affect students, the elderly, and the disabled, all of whom are less likely to own a vehicle. In Boston, half of all subway and rail users, and two-thirds of all bus riders, come from homes earning less than $50,000 a year.
Worse than fare hikes, the MBTA is poised to eliminate every commuter boat, all commuter rail service on evenings and weekends, and many suburban bus routes, while cutting in half bus and subway service on evenings and weekends, and greatly restricting The RIDE, which serves elderly and disabled customers.
Much attention has been paid to toll hikes proposed for the Mass. Pike, Tobin Bridge, and harbor tunnels. The Commonwealth now appears poised to prevent those hikes by pumping state money into the Turnpike Authority. Yet no such commitment has been made to the T. Are those who pay T fares any less worthy of state assistance than motorists? Are they any more to blame for the state's transportation woes? The answer, in both cases, is no.
We need a strong transit system to accomplish almost every goal of MetroFuture: to cut greenhouse gas emissions, to reduce traffic congestion, to build neighborhood and town centers that can attract jobs and homes, to get young people to work and seniors to shops, and to meet our moral and legal obligations to people with disabilities. Perhaps most important, in order to compete with cities that are building new transit systems in the South and West, as well as Asia and Europe, we need to expand and improve the T.
It will take revenue as well as reform to save the MBTA - and more of each than the Legislature has provided thus far. Without quick action, Massachusetts will weaken one of its greatest economic assets. Just as increasing numbers of Greater Boston residents seem willing to "try the train," it would be amazingly short-sighted to kick them off the platform.
Marc Draisen is director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council.
