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Removing The Roadblocks To Transportation Improvement
Throughout this newsletter, we have talked about MASSPIRG’s work to find a solution to the problems facing the MBTA. While transportation in Massachusetts is more than the T, the problems standing in the way of making that system better, safer, and faster, affect the whole state.
Affordable and reliable public transportation is vital to our economy and quality of life. Public transportation reduces traffic congestion and air pollution, builds our economy, cuts our dependence on oil, provides more choices for commuting and travel, and is crucial for those who are disabled or don’t have access to a car.
Despite all the advantages of public transportation, Massachusetts has stymied improvements. The result is more traffic, less reliable service for T riders, and more expensive public transportation.
Wasting Our Resources
Seventy-four percent of Massachusetts commuters drive to work alone each day. And the Boston Metro area has consistently been named one of the worst traffic regions in the nation.
Each year we waste 100 million hours and burn 60 million gallons of gas sitting in traffic jams. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, wasted time and fuel from road congestion costs each person in eastern Massachusetts an average of $853 every year.
The vision we must have for the future of Massachusetts is one where we have more accessible and better quality public transit. Unfortunately we are moving in the opposite direction, with staggering debt in our transportation network, stagnating ridership, and deteriorating infrastructure.
Facing A Budget Shortfall
In 2004, the Legislature, recognizing the imminent crisis of transportation financing, appointed a special commission, the Transportation Finance Commission, to study transportation financing across all modes and to report back to the Legislature with their findings and recommendations.
A recent report by the Commission has revealed that the transportation sector across Massachusetts has critical funding problems, with an expected $16 billion to $19 billion shortfall over the next 20 years, including the MBTA, MassHighway, the Turnpike and local road and bridge infrastructure.
No shortfall is more serious than the one facing our public transportation systems, and without action we will see a decrease in transit services and transit ridership. For the MBTA alone the report predicts a $4 billion to $8 billion shortfall.
With no clear way to pay for future transit expansions, many needed projects are left up in the air.
In the future we hope to see the completion of the urban ring, a rapid transit line connecting the current red, green, blue, yellow and silver lines in Greater Boston (www.theurbanring.com).
Our state also needs completion of commuter rail service to Fall River and New Bedford, rail out past Worcester to Springfield, extensions of the green and blue lines, more regional transit bus service across the state in places like the Berkshires and on Cape Cod, to name a few, and improvements of existing infrastructure.
For some of the regional transit authorities, funding is the key issue. State funds to the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority (PVTA) have not even kept up with inflation.
Studies suggest that declining service from cutbacks has resulted in the loss of over a million trips since 2002, equaling thousands of daily riders that ended up traveling by car instead.
On the Cape, commuting to Boston and beyond is a major issue. Eighty-two percent of Cape Cod commuters drive to work alone.
Increasing daily ridership by just 10 percent on the Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority (CCRTA) would eliminate approximately 26,000 automobile trips annually—reducing traffic and oil consumption.
When it comes to the MBTA, which is responsible for approximately 90 percent of public transit ridership in Massachusetts, MASSPIRG research has found several key problems in the way the T has been financed.
As mentioned on the back page of this newsletter, MASSPIRG research has revealed that the T devotes more than one quarter of its budget to paying off $8.1 billion of debt, which added up to $363 million in 2007. In the future, as this debt amount increases, the T will devote more money to debt payments than they receive in fares. The MBTA has dramatically higher debt than other major transit agencies, which on average carry about 15 percent debt.
What Is The Debt’s Source?
In an example that clearly shows lopsided decision-making, some of the T’s financial problems stem from Central Artery “mitigation” commitments.
In the 1990’s, as the result of a lawsuit filed by environmentalists and public health advocates who anticipated the increased pollution that would result from Big Dig traffic, an agreement was struck that required the T to pay for some transit expansions aimed at offsetting increased pollution from traffic. These projects have added up to almost $2 billion.
While these transit projects will greatly benefit the Commonwealth, the cost should have been part of the Big Dig’s overall budget, and not saddled on to the MBTA. When you build a major public works project, the environmental and public health impact must be factored in and budgeted for.
All of this debt means fares have risen and will continue to rise and outpace the rate of inflation. Future fare increases will likely make the T one of the nation’s more expensive transit authorities for its size.
As the state’s Transportation Finance Committee has noted, “the MBTA finds itself in a downward spiral in which it cannot generate the revenue necessary to achieve a state of good repair, meaning that the MBTA cannot improve service quality, retain and attract riders, and increase revenue over time.”
The MBTA has further suffered because its external funding source has fallen short of the Legislature’s projections.
In 2000, the Legislature allocated the MBTA 20 percent of the state’s 5 percent sales tax as a way to replace most annual allocations.
This portion of the sales tax makes up about 55 percent of the T’s revenue base. Back then, analysts projected that the sales tax would grow by 5 percent each year or more as it had during the 1990s. But these projections did not pan out.
For example, in 2002 alone sales tax declined by 1.6 percent. As a result, the T has been left approximately $150 million short of projections since 2004.
All of this points to why transportation issues need to be a priority for Gov. Patrick and the Legislature. As decisions are made on how to address our transportation systems, MASSPIRG will work to ensure these decisions are made in the public interest.
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