Cleveland Circle redo will feature trolley/signal synchronization

There isn't the rigid separation from the private and the public spheres. Even a medium-sized development will have public impacts - altered vehicle traffic patterns, altered public transit patters (i.e. if you build a massive TOD project at the fringe of rapid transit line, you're inducing more people onto an earlier stage of vehicles run and running the risk of overcrowding rippling down to other stops along said route), utilities charges and utility upgrades - it's completely within the bounds of city government and, yes, even quasi-public agencies to charge developers for mitigation fees. How those fees are collected (or in the BRA's case if they're collected) and how they are administered is a question of management, not their theoretical and legal right to collect them.

Public improvements are going to be financed through public means, no amount of public-private partnership nor Federal grant support will obviate the need for taxpayer money, but closing off an avenue to collect transit funds just forces the MBTA and the City to find a new revenue stream which will eventually lead to us. It's all well and good to lambaste the BRA and the City for charging unseemly fees, but it's a messy world and the alternatives are either a) don't collect the fees and don't receive transit improvements, b) don't collect the fees and shift the burden to taxpayers writ-large (most of whom won't ever come into contact with a given development). You can deflect by arguing the BRA needs to run a far tighter ship, but that's a management question and does nothing to solve the underlying lack of funds.