Oppose the MBTA Fare Hikes and Service Cuts

Sierra Club Urges Action to Save Public Transportation

After many months of anticipation and dread, the shoe has finally dropped. On January 3, 2012, the Mass Department of Transportation (MassDOT) finally unveiled its plans for a massive MBTA fare increase and service cut to go into effect on July 1, saying they were needed to close a growing budget gap.

Under two different scenarios, fares would rise between 35 and 43 percent. Both would eliminate all commuter ferry service and cut commuter rail service after 10pm and on weekends, as well as eliminate weekend service on the E branch of the Green Line and the Mattapan trolley. Both scenarios would also slash bus schedules, but the smaller fare hike would necessitate more drastic cuts, including the elimination of many bus routes. Proposals: www.mbta.com/about_the_mbta/?id=23567.

Not surprisingly, these proposals have provoked a strong backlash, coming just a few weeks after reports in the press that the T is enjoying its highest ridership in many years. A series of two dozen public meetings from January to the first week in March promise to be one forum for dissent, with other protests planned.

Three hundred people filled Newton’s War Memorial Hall at the first meeting on January 17, where several riders with disabilities who depend on the #52 bus spoke eloquently of the hardship that its elimination would mean for them. Two days later a meeting at Roxbury Community College (RCC) drew 150, including several elected state and local officials who criticized the cuts. Residents of adjacent Mission Hill, joined by representatives of neighboring colleges and other institutions, roundly condemned weekend suspension of the E-line service. Over 200 people joined the T Riders Union and 20 other groups in a protest rally in front of the State House on January 23, followed by a march to the fare hike meeting at the State Transportation Building.

Speakers at RCC and the Transportation Building addressed the MBTA’s $5.2B debt, the highest of any transit authority in the country, and stressed the need for legislative relief for the Authority. At RCC, Sierra Club Transportation Chair John Kyper noted that the biggest burden hobbling the agency’s fiscal health is the nearly $2B of Central Artery debt that was shifted onto the T during the “Forward Funding” legislation passed a little over a decade ago—as a result, the T’s annual operating deficit (~$160M in the current fiscal year, increasing to $200M in FY 2013) is now approximately equal to the debt service that it must pay out each year.

At his “State of the Commonwealth” address later on the evening of the 23rd, Governor Deval Patrick made absolutely no mention of the plight of the T, or of the need to give more financial support to all of our public transportation services. Clearly, we all have a lot of work in front of us.

Countering the spin from hostile legislators, the Sierra Club is working to help people understand that the entire region depends on Greater Boston’s economic engine. The economy of the state will suffer greately if the financial troubles of the MBTA result in steep increases and drastic service cuts.

While the financial plight of the MBTA might be more extreme, it is hardly alone among the regional transit authorities (RTAs) - either in Massachusetts or nationally - in finding itself the hostage of fickle funding formulas and a perilous economy, threatening its very ability to deliver its services to the public. To attempt to balance its budget by penalizing its most loyal riders would be a self-defeating strategy that could only send public transit into a tailspin of fare hikes and service cuts, irrevocably damaging our economy and our quality of life.

Action Alert: The MBTA is proposing to drastically increase fares and slash transit services that are vital to hundreds of thousands of Boston-area residents.

a. Attend the hearings and make your voice heard. The Sierra Club and our many allies will be there – and your presence will help. To find out the upcoming hearing nearest you, visit www.mbta.com/about_the_mbta/?id=23567.

b. Contact your state Representative and Senator (no matter where you live in the state), www.malegislature.gov/ or 617-722-2000 and tell them to support proper and dependable funding for the MBTA.