Gov. Charlie Baker is standing by his position not to raise taxes in order to fix the ailing MBTA.
Baker was at a Dorchester rail yard Wednesday to give an update to the MBTA’s preparations for the coming winter. The T is working on miles of third rail in the exposed portions of the T’s lines in Boston, Quincy and Braintree in preparation for the kinds of conditions that crippled the system last February.
Baker says the T has to continue to reform how it does business before there’s any talk of adding more taxpayer dollars to the system.
“Until we get a heck of a lot better at what to do, I’m not willing to talk — I mean, are you talking taxes? I’m not talking taxes. Period. Not talking taxes. Because as far as I’m concerned we have a long way to go here,” Baker said, responding to a question about how the revenue question is being dealt with through the MBTA’s numerous reports and financial explorations.
Baker’s opposition hasn’t been quiet. The Boston Carmen’s Union Local 589 rallied at their headquarters on Devonshire Street early Wednesday morning against the MBTA’s first move to privatize some MBTA services.
The T is looking at offers from companies to run some of its less-travelled bus lines, including the tragically underused late-night buses, in place of union-operated MBTA employees.
Baker and his MBTA management team argue shifting to some private services will free up drivers to deal with other parts of the transit system, efficiency will improve and no jobs will be lost.
The privatization power was awarded to Baker and his new Fiscal and Management Control Board by the legislature in the hopes of finding new ways to cut costs at the T without harming service.
Carmen’s Union President James O’Brien wants Baker to look beyond management and performance issues and work with lawmakers to infuse more money into the T.
“You know, it’s always been 'reform before revenue’ and we’ve had plenty of reforms and the revenue has never followed the reforms,” O’Brien said.
The Fiscal and Management Control Board, Baker’s own team of MBTA fiscal overseers, reported this week that the T’s expenses are increasing at nearly three times the rate it’s own revenue is growing.
The advocacy group Transportation for Massachusetts has been encouraged by Baker’s moves to shore up the fiscal management of the agency, but insist that revenue also needs to be a part of the solution.
“No amount of reform will be enough to allow the MBTA to catch up on its $7.3 billion state of good repair backlog in a timely way, never mind meet the other accessibility, capacity, and safety needs the report outlines,” the group wrote in a statement on the board’s report.
Former transit activist and now-Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack, Baker’s top transportation aide, agrees with her boss that there’s a ways to go before the tax dollar spigot spews back into the MBTA’s coffers.
Pollack told The Boston Globe's Yvonne Abraham earlier this month that “the T is like a bathtub full of holes.”
“Turning the spigot to let more water in is not going to fill up the bathtub. We need to fix the holes,” Pollack told the newspaper.
