Governor Charlie Baker has not ridden on the MBTA since a series of snowstorms battered the system earlier this month, he said on Boston Public Radio Thursday.
When asked if he had ridden the T recently, he answered: "Not since this whole mess has arisen."
"The idea that I would just go down and ride on it to make a symbolic gesture? First of all I don't think it's honest," Baker said.
"Secondly, I think if people said to me, 'would you rather have me or there or have me directing traffic in the bunker to make sure we're doing all the things we need to do to clear our roads and all the rest,' I think that one's pretty easy to answer," he continued.
Despite the difficulties of the past few weeks, Baker said he expected the T to run on a "mostly full" service on Monday, explaining that much of his senior staff was dividing their time between the T and Keolis to facilitate the rebound.
"I believe there will be a service running on Monday that will be far better than it was a week ago," he said.
Looking ahead to long-term fixes for the MBTA's woes, Baker was adamant that plans for a tax increase were not on the table at this time.
"The thing I find so disappointing about this is everybody just says: we should raise taxes," he said.
"They don't look at the fact that no mass transit system in the United States has grown faster than ours has over the course of the past 15 years in a marketplace where the population basically hasn't changed very much at all. They don't talk about the fact that we dramatically expanded our commuter rail operation at the same time the number of passenger trips actually went down. They don't talk about the fact that the operating budget for the T over the last seven or eight years has gone up by 50 percent," Baker continued.
"The notion we just automatically press that button first before we've done any of the analysis on how we got here or why we're here or how we get out, just strikes me as odd," he said.
To hear Governor Charlie Baker fill "Ask the Gov" segment, listen above.
