T Rider’s Union: Beacon Hill should bail out MBTA

by christina wallace / metro boston

OCT 11, 2006

BOSTON — Commuter advocacy groups believe the Legislature should step in to relieve the MBTA of its whopping debt in order to spare riders from another fare increase.

MBTA and state transportation officials have agreed to meet with several rider advocacy groups and commuters during a closed-door session next week to discuss alternatives to an increase in fares.

T officials maintain a fare increase is necessary in January in order to chip away at the authority’s $8.1 billion debt. The fare increase, which includes a jump in bus fares from 90 cents to $1.25, and subway fares from $1.25 to $1.70, needs to be passed by the T Board of Directors next month.

Officials from the T Riders Union, an advocacy group strongly against the proposed fare increase, believe the newly proposed fare increase will only put a Band-Aid on the T’s fiscal woes and in three years the T will be asking taxpayers for more cash. The last fare increase was in 2003.

“We are looking to the MBTA to acknowledge there’s a larger problem,” said Lee Matsueda of the T Riders Union. “There’s been a cycle [of fare increases], and the service continues to be the same.”

Last week, Sen. Jarrett T. Barrios, D-Cambridge, testified against the fare increase and proposed that a bill be drafted for the Legislature to kick in funds for T rail security.

According to MBTA General Manager Daniel Grabauskas, the proposed fare increase would bring in an additional $71 million a year. As it stands, the T is expected to have a $70 million operating deficit next year.

According to a spokesman from the MBTA, legislators need to step up to the plate if they want to assist the T with debt relief because T officials are not in the position to ask for funds from Beacon Hill.