Once again thanks to all the Dems in this state for taxing us back to the stone age.

richstan, maybe you can enlighten the rest of us and share your thoughts on maintaing and improving the transportation system without new revunes. Waving a magic wand and sprinkling pixie dust will not solve it.

only is the bidding porcess is open to all - not just union shops

The "Massachusetts Transportation Department"  wonder who runs that shop-some politically appointed folks no doubt.  After fleecing the nation for the "Big Dig" folks should be asking hard questions.  Sure the roads are falling apart and have some time just drive to any other state and see the difference.  So who has been in charge?  Handing the MA gov possibility the most corrupt in the nation more money won't solve the problem.             

While the money spent on the Big Dig can certainly be blamed for some of the neglect roads have had, this is not a new story.  

http://www.eot.state.ma.us/downloads/tfc/TFC_Recommendations.pdf

It was only 5 years ago the transportation finance committee made similar recommendations.  

We all acknowledge the roads suck.  A higher gas tax is the most fair, equitable way to deal with the needs.  If you drive a heavy car or use the roads a lot, you pay more.  If you don't, you don't.

Isn't going to happen, regardless.  No political will.... Yet another blue-ribbon commission produces another study designed to collect dust.

USE YOUR HEADS_THINK_THINK_THINK

#1. Monitor, supervise and  ENFORCE the policies & procedures for using the "Ride." There are too many gov. employees using the "Ride" as their private chauffeur.

#2. Eliminate ANNUAL Transponders that motorists purchase if they claim they will use their vehicle   to car-pool!!!!! They are NOT car-pooling, and no one is monitoring this program.

#3. Eliminate most Fast Lane toll takers, and have only 1 lane for motorists who want to pay cash.

#4. Monitor & assess the thousand of "handicap decals." They are used by young, able bodied people who are using handicap spaces in the business areas & residential, to avoid paying meters and also for convenience. Also, Red Sox fans park in handicap spaces around BU and WALK to FENWAY!!!!!

When Deval was running for reelection did he tell the people that he would later be asking for more taxes? And not on just the "Rich". On the Middle Class. On EVERYBODY. And the the Globe, which endorsed Deval, tell us about more taxes? OF COURSE NOT. And "“We cannot adequately pay for the transportation system we have today, and the improved statewide system that our customers want is one we definitely cannot afford without additional funding,” the board said in releasing the report, “The Way Forward: A 21st-Century Transportation Plan.”  Actually we CAN. By cutting outragfeous salaries and eliminating political hack jobs, something the Globe expects us to believe is OFF THE TABLE.

Just based on "averages", this will cost the "average" family in Massachusetts about $3,090 per year to fund transportation. This figure was based on Sales Tax increase, Gas Tax increase, Income Tax increase, and payroll tax for those in the "transit area", It doesn't even include the cost of the mileage use tax or whopping increase in tolls, annual car inspection fees and license fee renewals or an annual increase in MBTA fares. Open your wallets residents ! What hasn't been done is a true consolidation of Transportation bureaucracy. The same number of employees at MBTA, RMV, Massport, Mass Highway, Mass Turnpike authority which are under one roof are still in place. This consolidation was supposed to reduce about 12,000 employees to 8,000. A savings of 4,000 employees at an average salary and employee benefits cost of (4,000 x $82,000) = $328,000,000. There is a big chunk of the transportation fix. All of these agencies, while under one umbrella, MASSDOT, still have there own Human resource departments, purchasing departments, Accounting and Finance departments, Law Departments, Technology Departments and the list goes on and on. Are you really paying for improved transit or bloated bureaucracy ?

In 1990, the last increase in the gas tax was earmarked for transportation improvements and maintenance. The pinheads on Beacon Hill eventually put that incfrease into the "general fund" to spend on deadbeats, hacks and cronyism. Sure, let's trust them this time.

Deval is coming after your wallets once again! Anytime your paycheck shunks, it's because of a Democrat.

MA has the most clueless voters in the country!

We know this money will go to transportation and not to the general fund because Deval said so. Have some more Kool-aid.

No need to raise taxes.  Just cut some hacks and thuggers...and cull the EBT herd...

Plenty to go around then, even for "the children"...

Well the people of this state continute to put the same hacks back into office, what do you expect, them to change because you voted them in again, again, again, again, again Patrick is giving us the finger before he leaves the state to be wiith his buddy in DC

Property tax hikes already.  Increases in the MWRA water rates (a tax, to be sure). Hikes on the Federal level. Waste in government, with EBT, etc. etc. and all the rest.  Can any of these so-called self-annointed smart people come up with some creative ways to save money (like not spending so much and REALLY looking for waste) instead of just raising taxes?  Mass. must have the worst elected politicians in the nation. The state is turning into a cesspool.

Public housing fiascos, the drug lab thing, Annie Dukhan certainly contribute to deficits, but also "fiscal responsibility" which is shorthand for shielding taxpayers from required hikes over the years so government could pat itself on the back. It's like a house that needs work, but you keep putting it off because you don't want to face up to it. Then when it starts to fall down you're faced with an insurmountable, huge problem. Things cost money. Thinking you should have transportation available at less than cost is endemic, whining about people's "wallets", people up at the state house demonstrating because if T fares go up twenty five cents theyn can't pay their rent anymore, etc. Something for nothing is attractive but unrealistic.   

Go for it, Deval.  We will be happy to accept business investors from MA who want to relocate here in NH.

$1.02 billion = 500 million in actual work being done-the rest will "disappear" as with the big dig, not including the cost overruns!

Good jobs at good wages.  Who knows how much all this will end up costing.  

Before we give them a dime more how about "investing" in some private business consultants, and forensic accountants expertise to blow all the deadwood and inefficiencies out of this august agency. Salary freezes and head count reduction would also be in order (within the real world). Perhaps Mitt could get us a discounted rate from the Bain Boys best and brightest?

NOT making it in TAXACHUSETTS!

Elizabeth Warren says "The Middle Class is getting HAMMERED!"

you mean pay back for unions....did you know after 20 years working at the MBTA you can retire with a pension and now they have to pay some of their health insurance, where before they didn't.... I thought that tolls collected paid for roads, gas sales tax paid for roads...this money was used for everything but roads & bridges....Deval will pass a tax for infrastructure and the pork & corruption just like in the Big Dig..be in it.....I never got over that the state paid $50 million for a parking space when the big dig was going on and then gave it back to the original owner for nothing... can't think of name...the one that bought the baseball team in Calif.....Just like Pres. Obama the middle class will not have their taxes raised...I will sell you the Sagamore bridge if you believe either one of them.

End all entitlements, EBT, WIC, Mass Health ! When I was growing up my parents received income the ole fashioned way, they EARNED it !. Handouts are out of control.

Does any of the people here writing these comments actually drive on the roads? while big dig was a huge money pit and it did solve alot traffic problems thru Boston before the structures crumbled down. We need to get some reform from the unions and cutting down on the wishful thinking of railroad connections on this list but ROADS, BRIDGES, AND INFRASTRUCTURE need attention throughout the entire state.

SELL off the T and privatize it. Dump the hacks and the unions and the texting affirmative action hires. We are fed up. 

Why do they always act like they aren't already getting a boatload of taxes???

sell off the t. cut the payrolls to pay for this

As with Deval's new $1 Billion tax to educate the children of Illegal Immigrants (OOPS, the Globe forgot to say exactly who the new education funds would go to), Elizabeth Warren says "The Middle Class is getting HAMMERED!"

Redoing the interchange at 93 and 95/128 in Woburn/Reading will accomplish nothing in terms of traffic flow (and may, due to higher speeds resulting from the new design, exacerbate the alledged current safety issues).  Instead, possibly (but there are no guarantees), traffic flow issues around the interchange will be pushed downstream.  This will cause a perceived (by MDOT) need to redo other interchanges, especially along 95/128.  In the last analysis, the only accomplishment will be the expenditure of loads of dough! 

Over the past 10 1/2 years (or more), the public (in the towns surrounding the interchange) has been involved in the 93 - 95/128 interchange redesign process.  Throughout this involvement, the public has consistently opposed the redo of the interchange to the point that the project was dead a few years ago.  I am dismayed that Governor Patrick has suddenly dug up this dead body.