Public meetings begin on plans to decimate bus, commuter rail, ferry and Green Line service

At the recent T board meeting, it was made clear that this round of service cuts and hikes does not address anything beyond this year and next year's budget gaps.

So if you want the T to be on better financial footing going forward past 2013, you should contact your legislators.

Well, it helped the T limp along through FY11 and sorta through FY12. The budget deficits, however, have grown (and will continue to do so until about FY16 or 17 due to peaking debt payments) to the point where the ~$160,000,000 yearly appropriation (which the sale tax increase funds) just softens the blow. In short, that money just keeps the deficits in the rather large range instead of the wicked large.

The projected revenue from the increase didn't pan out.

gets a decent wage! This is the problem, people like you saying well he didn't go to college and drives a BUS and he gets paid more. Wahhh. You go drive a bus or fix a train.

Outraged Rider, I am going to assume you are being laughably over the top and satirical. Modern trains and buses are rather complex machines. There are - gasp! - actually a far cry from the simple wooden boxes on wheels of yesteryear. To properly maintain them you need technical training (i.e. knowing how to read specs, basics of how the various systems work, et cetera). You can't just go down to Skid Row and ask some bums, "Hey, how many of you guys know how to fix a solid-state rectifier? Great, you all are hired!" ITT Tech and other vocational programs may not be as glamourous as Harvard and MIT, but you mustn't discount them as offering an inferior grade of education. If you received specialized training in a particular skill(s), you should be compensated accordingly. Not $100/hr, but certainly not for $8.50/hr.

As for operating the vehicles themselves, that too requires training and skill. If driving a bus or train is so easy, then why don't they just hire sixth-graders to be operators. Or trained seals? After all, you just push a button and it magically goes, right?

That said, if there are employees who could care less about doing their jobs then find them and fire them. Plain and simple. Same goes for any of their superiors who allow it to happen under their watch. They (and anyone else for that matter) must do work to earn their wage/salary. But don't go assuming that mechanics and operators (or service sector workers either) are just mindless dolts who can hardly write their name and are content with their station in life. Hell, what's next? Would you go on to suggest that we just round up all of these folks who "consciously failed to better themselves" and run them off a cliff? That would make the rest of our lives so much better and simpler, I'm sure.

I will make the argument on how and why higher education is not something readily attainable for all people at another time.

P.S.

By the way, one of the principal causes of the MBTA's chronic deficits (which of course, leads to fare increases/service cuts) is spiking debt payments. They will continue to spike until at least FY16. Over the past twelve years the annual debt service payments have amounted to approximately 30-40% of the MBTA budget. If you want to go after some greedy, lecherous folks who just sit around waiting for the moolah to roll in, then might I suggest you grab your pitchfork and torch and go after the banks holding the debt first?