'T' Officials Get an Earful on Fare Hike, Service Cuts
Mayor Driscoll calls proposal 'a double whammy,' as crowds overflow the City Hall Annex to protest end of weekend and late night service, fare hikes and services to special needs passengers.
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The blind, the wheelchair bound, students, the elderly, business owners, museum lovers, city and state officials and other concerned citizens from Salem and surrounding towns overflowed two public meeting rooms at the City Hall Annex Wednesday night to protest proposals by the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority to cut service and raise fares.
About 125 people showed up to pummel MBTA officials, who had to use two rooms to accommodate the crowd.
Mayor Kimberley Driscoll called it “a double whammy,” paying more for less service. “It is like you are cutting off our left arm and our right arm,” she said.
She praised acting MBTA General Manager John Davis for being creative in working on the deficit problem. But she said, “What we have before us is not the place to start.”
The mayor, joined by several state legislators, pledged to work with MBTA to come up with a different proposal to help the transit agency solve its estimated $163 million deficit.
The MBTA deficit is caused by interest and principal payments on $5.2 billion in debt, higher operating costs for the Ride and lower sales tax revenues, the agency said.
Of its $5.2 billion in debt, which accounts for 30 percent of the agency's budget, $3.6 billion was transferred to it from the state to cover the costs of constructing the Big Dig road system in Boston. The statewide sales tax, which allocates 20 percent to the MBTA, has not produced the expected revenues. And operating the Ride for special needs passengers has increased by 400 percent over the last 10 years.
Driscoll said Salem's MBTA station is one of the busiest in the state, often topping the list, because it has a large commuter population and a huge number of tourists who use the trains and buses to visit Salem.
“One of the keys to revitalizing gateway cities like Salem is transportation,” she said.
The public hearing in Salem was one of up to 30 scheduled in Boston and surrounding East Massachusetts cities.
Raise Fares Either 43 or 35 Percent
MBTA officials presented two options — one that would impose next July an overall fare increase of about 43 percent or a second proposal that would increase fares by about 34 percent. The higher fare hike would require a smaller reduction in services. The lower fare hike would require more service cuts.
There were gasps in the crowd when an MBTA official said a monthly pass on the commuter rail zone 3, which is Salem, would rise from $163 to $234 under option 1. Under the lower rate hike of option 2, the monthly pass would rise from $163 to $219.
The daily fare, now $5.25, would rise to either $7.50 or to $7.
Service cuts would end all commuter rail service after 10 p.m. and on weekends.
The higher-fare scenario would keep most bus service on the North Shore, eliminating only routes with lower ridership. The lower-fare plan would eliminate most MBTA bus service on the North Shore.
The Ride service would also be reduced.
The elimination of weekend service brought a strong outcry from members of the audience, who complained that it would hurt those people who work on weekends and those who use the MBTA for recreation, shopping and fun.
State Rep. Brad Hill, R-Ipswich, called the proposed elimination of weekend service “a disaster for Salem.” He said, “This proposal would kill tourism throughout the region.”
Others said the cuts would hurt their lifestyle, preventing them from going into Boston to the museums or to dinner or to professional sporting events.
"A Death Sentence"
Still others pleaded with the MBTA officials to keep the service because they use it to visit doctors and other medical care professionals.
“The Ride is the difference between life and death. It (the proposed cuts) is a death sentence,” said Nancy Houghton of Beverly. Confined to a wheelchair, she said her Boston doctors have kept her alive longer than they originally predicted.
Many speakers said the proposed cuts and fare hikes would deeply impact the elderly, people with special needs and children who take the buses to school.
Business owners, particularly restaurateurs, said they would not be able to staff their operations if service was eliminated after 10 p.m. and on weekends. The owner of a Marblehead restaurant said all of her cooks commute by bus from east Boston every day.
Several speakers proposed that the state legislature impose a nickel a gallon gas tax to help retire the MBTA debt, arguing that the costs of building the Big Dig should be paid by car commuters.
Several speakers also complained that the MBTA does not collect fares from many of its passengers, costing the agency millions of dollars.
Rep. Hill cited one woman who stopped buying a monthly pass, opting to carry a 12-ride pass that she said has been punched 25 times.
Dr. Janet Crane, a Salem School Committee member, noted that Massachusetts had the oldest public transit system in the country.
She said, “We should be leading the nation in public transit systems. Not doing this.”
John Dumas
8:17 am on Thursday, January 26, 2012
I can not use public transit in Massachusetts because if I were to go into Boston at lets say 8:30 pm I must rush away before the subway closes. Why not spread the schedule out instead, thereby, attracting new riders and having more passengers per trip?
Don Nadeau
8:35 am on Thursday, January 26, 2012
Since I took a job in Boston my monthly fare has DOUBLED. I decided to go green and rely on mass transit and i sold my car. Thankfully there now is ZipCar in Salem ro fill some of the gap - at an added cost. Increasing fares by almost half and more importantly elimination a large portion of the service will force people to go back to cars, further lowering ridership and revenues. It is a potential a death spiral. Two questions: how much of the cost is the Ride, and who shouldered us with the Big Dig debt? Which should clearly be shouldered by those it serves.
Don Nadeau
8:37 am on Thursday, January 26, 2012
Sorry for typos.
Bob Simoneau
9:08 am on Thursday, January 26, 2012
I'm a disabled veteran who uses the Commuter Rail and Blue line to go to Boston frequently to see my doctors in Boston. I am also on a fixed income because my disability prevents me from working. As it is now, I have to schedule my appointments around the MBTA's schedule. What is being proposed cuts folks like me deeply, right to the bone. What the T needs is better management and enforcement of fare collection. Before you cut service or raising fares, try cutting the fat within the organization.
Maggi Smith-Dalton
9:19 am on Thursday, January 26, 2012
For heaven's sake, taxing CAR USE (for the Big Dig AND for supporting public transport) is the no-brainer solution and should have been from the beginning!
Rick Bingham
10:53 am on Thursday, January 26, 2012
Having attended last night's meeting, I was particularly struck by the story of one young woman who is a single mother of two kids. She works full time to support her family and depends on the trains/buses to get to and from work. Her kids meet her at work by riding buses after school so that she can continue to support her family. Most of the cuts would affect those very buses she uses. So, when she loses her job due to an inability to get there or stay there for the full day, who will pay the cost of that ?
Beyond that one story there were many others. I was also struck by the fact that the T is bound to have a balanced budget, arrived at within its own means (fares, sales tax income, etc.) This is very short sighted. Mass Transportation should be a national issue and the funding for a world class system in & around our cities should come from the national budget. Perhaps we could , uh, oh, I don't know...ah...cut the huge tax subsidies we give the large oil and coal industries and use the money to fund a much more energy conservative transportation system ?
Speaking of which...where were our Congressional and Senatorial (U.S., that is) representatives ? If they don't get on the stick along with local & state folks, our third world public transport system will never reach the first world status of Japan & Europe where 150mph bullet trains are a normal, everyday occurrence.
TaX Break subsidies ? Watch this to learn more:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_rLbxlM8Gk
Jared Robinson
10:54 am on Thursday, January 26, 2012
$71 fare increase to use less service (for a Zone 3)
SEVENTY DOLLARS!
absolutely ridiculous. It would be cheaper for me to drive into the city now!
Leslie
10:57 am on Thursday, January 26, 2012
I'm with you, Maggi. On what Planet does it make any sense to drive people away from public transportation and increase dependency on motor vehicles? Why is no one looking at the big picture of the financial consequences to the Commonwealth?
--impact of higher traffic on our already crumbling infrastructure
--impact on state and local tourist economies
--impact on people's ability to afford the jobs they have, or take jobs they want
--general impact on the economy. When a commuting couple has to pay $112 - $142 more a month to take the train, they have that much less purchasing power. Multiply that by hundreds of thousands of people.
I'm sure we'd all love to see a ballpark estimate of the amount of money the MBTA is losing due to uncollected fares and unpunched tickets. Why is it that everyone seems to know about this except the MBTA?
We'd also like to see the results of the rider study + survey conducted by the MBTA to estimate the impact of each price point and various service reduction levels on overall ridership (and therefore revenue).
Hm? They didn't conduct a study? Well, well.....
Rick Bingham
11:27 am on Thursday, January 26, 2012
BTW: In re: Big Oil & Gas Tax subsidies: How Big are they ? $4 Billion Per Year. How big is the MBTA Deficit this year ? $163 Million. How many deficits for public transit would be eliminated in just one year by collecting those taxes and distributing the money to Public Transit ? 24 Transit systems could get the same $163 Million...Or, They could send $3.5 Billion to Boston for the MBTA eliminating the Debt entirely..and still have $500 Million left over in just one year. Then, the same could be done next year for a different transit system. But no...it just seems right to make that single Mom and her kids pay for those subisidies out of their own pockets...Don't you think so too ? Guess they should have planned ahead and bought a car.
ken weaver
11:31 am on Thursday, January 26, 2012
Lets see; less public transportation increases individual transportation + ( more co2 to the atmosphere) + increase use or fossil fuel = ( more revenue for the oil companies )
+ ( job loose-less tax revenue to the state ) x ridership on the North Shore
Robert Booth
12:03 pm on Thursday, January 26, 2012
I'm with Maggi and Leslie, and those at the meeting who proposed raising the state tax on gasoline--it's cars, trucks, and roads that are the expensive parts of transportation, not the rails and buses. Whatever state policy might have been in place earlier, it has evidently been "derailed" by the combined continuing effects of the financial meltdown of 2008 and the epic overspending of the Big Dig. It is amazing that people are willing to spend hours idling in their cars on the Mass Pike and 128 every day instead of taking a train or bus, but it shows the nearly insane attachment to their cars--too bad that our consumer/advertising culture has made them "drivers of cars" instead of "people using transportation." Obviously, society will beneft from fewer gas-powered cars and less driving, not from higher fares and less usage of public transportation. In a state full of universities and transportation experts, we are all owed much better policy from our government, and more self-restraint as well.
Michael McNeil
2:25 pm on Thursday, January 26, 2012
Don't worry. After Obama and the Taxanistas get done they'll be no jobs to go to.
These Al Gorons green people need to layoff the Kool-Aid.
Marsha Finkelstein
7:55 pm on Thursday, January 26, 2012
How is they got me sticking my tongue out? Hmmm... Oh well...
David Moisan
1:09 pm on Friday, January 27, 2012
"Spreading out" the service by running fewer trains or buses is a loser. At one time, the 450 bus ran every hour.
Now, it's more like 80 to 90 minutes. An hour and a half. I use the route to shop and I have to plan my schedule around it.
If I miss the bus, I wait.
I can't ask people to take the T if they're going to have to budget two hours a day for missed buses.
For close to 30 years now I have heard about "tough realities" and "austere financial circumstances".
What if the gas tax were the hardest truth I could say? What if?