Next stop in the lengthy process of raising fares for MBTA riders: public meetings with commuters none too happy with plans to hike fares by up to ten percent and add extra cost to monthly subway passes.
The MBTA Fiscal and Management Control Board, put in place last year after the Legislature granted Gov. Charlie Baker the power to establish a group to focus exclusively on fixing the T’s dire financial situation, voted Monday to consider two plans to raise fares, one by five percent and another by ten percent, to be put into effect this summer.
Monthly pass holders would feel the biggest additional burden under both of the options the MBTA is entertaining.
One scenario would raise the number of rides a monthly subway pass holder needs to take in order break even. If the board chooses to adopt the plan, it would mean additional price increases for the monthly “link pass” program on top of the percentage fare hike for the whole system.
“The price goes up more than five percent because we’re increasing the base price and then we’re basically decreasing the discount,” Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack said Monday.
“A monthly pass is a discount, it says instead of paying the $2.65 every single time, you pay once a month,” Pollack said.
The board Monday rejected proposals to boost fares without the additional costs to passes.
The five percent plan would bring $23.4 million more into the T’s coffers.
The smallest fare hike on the table, that amount would only allow the T to keep up with growing cost, but would not affect its massive structural deficit or backlog of maintenance projects.
A ten percent increase would yield a projected $43 million. This would fund the T’s operations and try to make a dent in the deficit.
Adding costs to monthly pass prices would raise an additional $6 million to $10 million, bringing the total high-end estimate to around $49 million in raised fares.
“The most important thing the T can do next year to improve service is to spend money on maintenance and on fixing the assets. And until we get past the persistent problems in the operating budget, we’re not going to be putting our dollars where our dollars really need to go,” Pollack said.
Members of the public spoke out against possible fare hikes at the meeting, characterizing increased trip costs as regressive fees that will hurt the state’s poor and elderly.
“We urge the board to reject proposals that would disproportionately target and impact vulnerable communities, particularly low income, transit dependent riders until a viable safeguard is put in place,” Barbara Mann, president of the Massachusetts Senior Action Council, told the board.
The board approved a plan Monday to host a series of public meetings around the MBTA’s coverage area, a swath of the state from Haverhill Rhode Island and as far west as Worcester, to consider raising the cost of fares.
Pollack told reporters that the conversation about raising fares has to happen now in order for fare boxes and other systems to be updated to new prices before the July 1 start of the new fiscal year. In the meantime, according to Pollack, the MBTA’s management team will work to lower costs by identifying problems in worker absenteeism, preventing fare evasion and moving forward with a plan to potentially privatize some bus lines.
Pollack addressed concerns that the T is turning to fare increases first in order to close the budget gap.
“We’re actually turning last to fares,” Pollack said, adding that the MBTA has already implemented plans to increase non-fare revenue before opening the discussion on raising rider costs.
“Fares really come last in the sense that they’re how we close the remaining gap after we’ve done everything else,” Pollack said.
The T last increased fares in July 2014 by five percent.
