It was the story of our endless winter: Can we finally fix the MBTA?
Governor Charlie Baker provided a road map Wednesday, formally unveiling his high-profile commission’s findings and recommendations. The 50-page report has something for everyone: Transit advocates can exhale that new projects won’t be halted, and the fiscal watchdogs, from the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation to the Pioneer Institute, get to say “I told you so.”
Now the hard part begins. The governor and Legislature have to act. Our history is littered with T reports that collect dust. If we follow through this time, here’s a rundown of the winners and losers:
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WINNERS
■ Expansion: A Better City, Transportation for Massachusetts, and other business and regional leaders were so worried that Baker would stop expansion in its tracks that they rallied in front of the State House last week. The message: Our economy depends on a bigger T. The panel, perhaps exercising a form of political jiujitsu, advised that projects with federal or private funding can move forward. In other words, the projects people care about still get the green light, including Boston Landing, and extending the Green Line to Somerville and the Silver Line to Chelsea.
■ Secretary of transportation: The panel wants future T managers to report directly to — and be hired by — the Cabinet secretary, rather than the board of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. The commission also calls for the transportation secretary to chair the department board. Currently, the transportation secretary just sits on it. Ultimately, the changes mean that Baker, through Secretary Stephanie Pollack, would get more control of the T. That’s a good thing because when the wheels fall off the bus, the riding public needs someone who feels accountable to us.
■ The panel: It had a rocky start when its first chairman, Paul Barrett, quit amid a controversy swirling over his personal financial troubles. The panel, led by Harvard University honcho Katie Lapp and Massport executive Brian McMorrow, met 18 times over six weeks to deliver a rapid diagnosis of the MBTA’s problems. Expectations were low, given that we’ve pretty much studied the issues to death. But the commission wisely focused on trouble-shooting operations and in doing so even impressed David D’Alessandro, the former John Hancock chief executive and author of the last state-issued T report. “It certainly goes further than my report,” D’Alessandro said. “It’s much more pointed about not only what went wrong, but what’s needed to fix it.”
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LOSERS
■ Low-income riders: The panel lays out a case for raising fares, citing how the $2.10 subway price is lower than what peer transit systems in Chicago and New York charge. Even the MBTA’s $50 monthly bus pass is half what
it is in those cities. No doubt our system could use the additional revenue, but many T users are on fixed incomes. For example, about 17 percent of subway riders and about 30 percent of bus riders come from households with incomes of $30,000 or less. In an age of gaping income equality, fare increases hurt those who can least afford them, unless the state can implement need-based discounts. It’s something that Pollack is looking at, and that Seattle’s system launched last month.
■ ‘Reform before revenue’: Can we retire the phrase, please? The report declares, perhaps once and for all, that the T needs reform and revenue to get back in shape. It’s a phrase the Legislature likes to trumpet when it doesn’t want to spend money to fix transportation problems. This report was long on reform, short on revenue, but nonetheless acknowledges we need to do both.
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■ T culture: The authority’s nearly 6,000 employees enjoy perks and pensions like few others. Now the report exposes one other workplace practice: excessive absenteeism. The absentee rate is about 11 percent, nearly twice the national average for comparable agencies. MBTA employees, including vacations, on average miss 57 days, or close to 12 weeks, a year. The result: poor customer service and tens of thousands of bus trips canceled each year because of unplanned absences. A culture change is in order.
■ The board: In an earlier column, I concluded that we needed a new state transportation board. The panel agrees and asks current board members to hand in their resignations so the governor can get a fresh start. The report also recommends setting up a separate five-member fiscal control board to oversee the T for three to five years. This board, which would report to the transportation secretary, would
restructure the MBTA and shore up its finances.
■ Rich Davey and the Olympics: At one point, this wunderkind was considered a triple threat. Davey went from running the commuter rail to being the general manager of the MBTA to serving as Deval Patrick’s transportation secretary — all before age 40. After reading the report, Davey seems more like a triple liability. You can’t blame him for everything — many of the authority’s problems were decades in the making — but you wonder what role he played. Now, as chief executive of Boston 2024, Davey’s track record in transportation can’t be good for selling the Olympics to a skeptical electorate.
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Shirley Leung is a Globe
columnist. She can be reached at shirley.leung@globe.com. Follow
her on Twitter @leung.