Hey, there! Log in / Register
Organizing against MBTA service cuts
By adamg on Wed, 01/04/2012 - 8:28pm
Students Against T Cuts is just what it sounds like: Area college students working to fight proposed cuts at the T. Repeal forward funding, they argue.
Neighborhoods:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
More Information
Thanks for posting this, Adam! Jenn Paluzzi asked me to give you a shout-out!
To add to what Adam has already posted here, it's worth noting that SATC has NO problems with the fare hikes. Since the last fire increase in 2007, the MBTA has become one of the "cheapest" (in terms of cost to the rider) transit agencies in the country. Obviously, this cannot go on forever, and the fare hike is justified if it means compensating for increases in the cost of labor and materials. However, it is NOT ok for the increase to be used to pay down the massive debt the T is burdened by. Therefore, SATC recognizes that the service cuts are not a result of mismanagement or irresponsibility. The cuts are because the MA State Legislature refuses to properly fund the MBTA, first crippling it with "Forward Funding" and then, punching it in the stomach by passing the Big Dig debt onto it. How can the Authority operate a clean, efficient system when they have $8+ billion in debt to pay off, comprising 27% of their annual budget (more than their fare revenue.)
We hope that the public outcry from the cuts will pressure the Legislature into seriously reconsidering the way in which they allow the MBTA to hobble along every year.
Careful with your facts
I applaud your efforts, but some of the commentary on your website is just plain wrong. Forward Funding was a brainchild of Paul Cellucci, not Romney. Romney didn't take over until 2003 for one thing and Jane Swift was in the middle there too. Cellucci was faced with an expanding capital budget from the MBTA and saw this as a way to kneecap costs at the "out of control" Authority while also clearing the Big Dig debt off the state books, placating non-Boston residents tired of seeing all of the Federal highway money, state/Pike tolls, gas tax bucks, and the kitchen sink being spent on burying a few miles of highway to make Boston better while the rest of the state's roads and bridges went to pot.
Read up on a number of the recaps on how the legislation came to being if you are going to rally against it. The PDF of the report called "Born Broke" is a good place to start. There's also articles in Commonwealth Magazine on Cellucci's budget problems in 1999 that ultimately led to his pushing for Forward Funding in 2000. Just searching for "forward funding mbta" on Google should also provide a selection of analyses and articles from the past 10 years outlining how poorly the legislation was at funding the MBTA as early as 2003.
You may also want to combine efforts at times with the T Riders Union (TRU) as I'm guessing they'll have tips and information from their own organizing that might help you get started and know how/when to get your voices heard better. You can find them on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/tridersunion
Apologies
Good morning Kaz!
Thanks for your comments - and I apologize for the blatant mistake with regards to Governor Romney. Clearly, I did not research as well as I should have on that statement. I believe that the comments made on the Forward Funding and debt situation are correct, just incomplete. I will certainly use "Born Broke" to offer a more complete history of today's crisis; for the meantime, my main goal is to publicize the cuts' effects on students. Also, thank you for the TRU link, they seem like a worthy group to be in cahoots with!
Adding to what Kaz said
From the State Transportation Finance Commission recommendations in 2007.
Also,
http://www.mbta.com/uploadedfiles/Documents/Financ...
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/why_the_mbt...
Contempt of Court?
Shouldn't the CLF be getting an injunction here? The Legislature is effectively cutting service via the MBTA debt load from a highway project that came with a federal requirment to mitigate with transit enhancements.
The actions of the legislature are clearly leading to service cuts on top of not finishing and avoiding the mitigations and enhancements they were required to have in place over a decade ago.
The specific list of cuts will clearly lead to more driving into the downtown area, as people currently paying a premium to use express buses and bus lines serving rail lines will not tolerate two hour commutes. That isn't mitigation and enhancement - that is contempt of court and breach of contract.
Every day I ride the express
Every day I ride the express bus from Medford to the Haymarket. It takes me and my fellow riders over the Zakim bridge and through a small section of the Big Dig.
And even though we are a minority of the tunnel's users, and we only use a small portion of it, we are the only ones paying for the debt on that tunnel through our T passes. Everyone else we see on that ride is getting a freebie.
This is insane. The horse trading that led to the MBTA being liable for the overruns on the Dig was a disgrace, and it needs to be undone.
nice try, but no.
your intentions are good, but your logic is flawed.
I live north of the city, but work south of it and take the tunnel twice every day. in the evenings and on weekends I use the T or my bicycle to get around.
I know that I cannot be the only person who does this.
While it might make you feel superior to me,
is inaccurate.
http://www.bostonmagazine.com
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/why_the_mbt...
FLAWED FUNDING FORMULA Legislators anticipated that revenue from the sales tax would grow at 3 percent a year. That wasn’t an outrageous idea; it had gone up at an even higher rate in the 1990s. To enact forward funding, lawmakers dedicated one penny out of every 5 cents of the sales tax to the MBTA. But — and this is a big but — legislators never accounted for the possibility that healthcare, fuel, energy, or, really, any costs at all might ever increase. They also didn’t adequately prepare for future T expansion — not even for projects then mandated by Beacon Hill. To make matters worse, some $3 billion of preexisting debt was piled onto the system — including $1.67 billion in borrowing related to the Big Dig that had less to do with the T and more to do with political horse-trading.
yes, thank you. I'm aware
yes, thank you. I'm aware that the T shouldn't be in this situation.
My argument was against your self righteous assumption that you and your bus-mates are the only tunnel travelers who take the T.
Here's my argument:
I drive the tunnel.
I have a T pass.
Other people do the same thing.
no freebie here.
The T is not paying for the
The T is not paying for the Big Dig highway tunnel.
It's paying for *transit* projects which were required as part of the Big Dig's mitigation.
As long as people continue to post this half-truth, I will continue to correct them.
(I do think it's a terrible idea for capital debt for huge transit projects to be paid out of fares. But we still need to make sure our statements are correct.)
Right, except for one thing
Those transit projects were part of the cost of the Big Dig. The state was required to pay for the transit projects or else they would not have been allowed to build the tunnel. The state promised to pay for the improvements, but then turned around and dumped the bill on transit riders alone.
It's as if I told you that I was going to treat you to dinner, and then when the bill came, I handed it to you and said "Pay!"
Those costs belong on the state budget, as recommended by the Transportation Finance Commission, and not the MBTA's budget.
Wrong
Transit projects were MITIGATIONS to the highway building plan and were supposed to be paid for FROM THE HIGHWAY BUILDING budget.
Like most massholes, you fail to understand fundamental principles of federal funding mandates. No wonder our state gets so little money back - it isn't free candy!
The website needs to increase its bandwith
I've been trying for five minutes to load it--I guess a little too much publicity from this morning's Metro.
Bandwidth
Thanks for the heads up! Nobody expected this too take off so fast, so we are scaling up as we go!