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T advocates should expect little sympathy from western Mass. legislators
By adamg on Fri, 03/02/2012 - 12:56pm
A college student from western Massachusetts wrote to state Sen. Stan Rosenberg, D-Amherst, asking he join efforts to help the MBTA stave off fare hikes and service cuts by doing something about Big Dig-related debt the state put on the T. Rosenberg replied:
This issue is much more complicated than most T riders are being led to believe. I hope that when I am back to work full time about a month from now that you and I may have a chance to discuss this issue. I would like to share the perspective of those who represent the millions of people in the state who do not use and receive no direct benefit from the T although they contribute significantly to funding that system even as they pay virtually the full cost for their own transportation or rely upon a woefully under funded system public transportation system which T supporters refuse to support time and time again. We fight for crumbs and are denied them even as the T gets huge policy initiatives and funding approved.
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Comments
Well
I don't think that anyone who drives a car actually "pay virtually the full cost for their own transportation" because roads/highways are highly subsidized by the government. Also, what funding has the T had approved? Maybe he is referring to the $160 mil given to the T in 2009 to avoid fare hikes and service cuts - but I can't think of any big instance outside of that when the T was given any funding besides 20% of the sales tax.
If the western half of the
If the western half of the state feels that it is subsidizing the eastern half, I suggest we cut the state into two. Then we can find out who is actually subsidizing who.
Has anyone ever run across an economic study....
... of state money collected -- and returned -- to the various parts of Massachusetts?
Good question
Very good
Economic effect on his district?
According to this chart, which details 2011 state aid and tax levy by town, Boston alone received 8.75% of the total state aid and accounted for 12.5% of the tax income. Rosenberg's district received 2% of the state aid and accounted for 2% of the tax income. I'm no economics major, but Rosenbergs district is just breaking even while Boston looks somewhat profitable...wonder how a downturn in the metro west economy would ripple out the boonies in Hampden/Franklin county.
http://www.mass.gov/dor/docs/dls/mdmstuf/municipal...
Thanks
I've been hunting for this spreadsheet. The maze of state websites is driving me up a wall. Also many links are dead (in this spreadsheet too).
Yay UHub commenters.
"Virtually the full cost of their own transportation"
Really? So none of my tax dollars go to maintaining the roads and highways in western Mass, even though I never drive on them?
I guess I can almost sympathize with non-T riders whose taxes fund the T, because it's just like how like my T pass is going to get jacked up 40% so I can help pay down the debt on the Big Dig roads, which I also never drive on.
Your T pass increase in not
Your T pass increase in not going to pay for the debt on Big Dig roads, it is going to pay for the debt on transit projects that were mandated mitigation for the Big Dig per a CLF lawsuit.
Incorrect
There was no lawsuit that foisted these projects onto the Big Dig rolls. They were a requirement of federal statutes on clean air and water to compensate for the concomitant increase in car capacity that the Big Dig was responsible for. The MBTA plans were designed as part of the Big Dig roster of changes as a whole from the start. Some of that work was even accomplished during the Big Dig construction work.
Then, after the Big Dig's highway and bridge work was completed but its cost had not been fully covered by the state, the debt remaining was attributed to the "MBTA work" that had been started (but not finished), as if it wasn't just debt incurred by the project as a whole. The state then said it was done working on the Big Dig (as a whole). It gave that debt to the MBTA and said it could easily pay it off from its new always growing funding paradigm anyways and the state called it a day.
The CLF lawsuit came next when the MBTA, by itself, saddled with massive debt payments, dragged its feet on completing the remaining projects that were promised as part of the Big Dig to mitigate the increased pollution. Neither the projects nor the debt were incurred due to the CLF lawsuit as your statement claims.
CLF threatened to sue to stop
CLF threatened to sue to stop the Big Dig before it started if transit mitigation was not in the package
Fair enough
I was being a bit strict about "lawsuit".
The fact remains that MBTA
The fact remains that MBTA bond money did not pay for highway construction, but for transit required by highway construction. Fred Salvucci wanted to get it started before he left and Weld came in, and signed off on the transit to make sure the highway construction wouldn't be stopped by CLF.
CLF had a very big role in
CLF had a very big role in the transit commitments being required for EPA approval of the Big Dig.
Here is a quote from a 1994 Boston Globe article about the then rising Big Dig costs:
"The largest mitigation deal of them all was an agreement with the Conservation Law Foundation, a nonprofit environmental group, wherein the state committed itself to a string of improvements to the MBTA system that are projected to cost $3.6 billion by the time of their scheduled completion in the year 2010. The $3.6 billion expense, which is not part of the $7.7 billion artery/tunnel project, will be shared between the state and federal governments in a ratio not yet determined."
http://www.boston.com/news/traffic/bigdig/articles...
At that time, the state backed up all MBTA debt, so there wasn't thought to be any difference between state debt and MBTA debt when it came to the local non-federal share of a transit project. With forward funding, all transit debt (not just from Big Dig mitigation projects) became the MBTA's responsibility.
That is the cost of the Big Dig
If the state did not want to spend money on improving the transit system, then they would not be allowed to build the Big Dig, by law.
These improvements were not intended to become a burden on the MBTA. It's a slimy trick played by the state legislature to force transit riders to pay for an expansion that was legally mandated to be paid for as part of the highway project.
Suppose we went out for drinks and I claimed that I would buy them for you as compensation for something else. Then later I forced you to pay me back for the cost of the drinks. That would be morally the same as what the state has done with transit projects and the Big Dig.
I can actually see the
I can actually see the western part of the states side of the story, they get no benefit from either the big dig, or the mbta. But they do pay for roads in fuel tax and don't forget excise tax (many of us just paid our annual tax bill - if you have a new car it can hurt).
I drive most days but occasionally take the T, but do feel some sympathy for those outside the mtba range, having grown up in a town with no public transportation.
If you think
The economic prosperity of metro Boston has no effect on the rest of the state....
This is the same argument that NH like to use. The same NH folk that live on the border, work in MA, then bash and laugh at us for how backwards we here in MA really are. That's if they're not relying on MA tourists.
People are not their own islands. Hell, we're freaking called the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Losing the MBTA is not just bad for Boston, bad bad for western MA, even if they don't use it regularly. It's going to hurt the state economy, and that is going to hurt them.
mbta not a priority
I work for a construction company that does bridge work for the state.let me tell you that anything that needs to be fixed outside of rte 495 gets neglected like a redheaded stepchild.while we are making bike lanes and extending curbing in eastern ma they are closing bridges and putting bandaids on gashes that need stitches.there are alot of things this state should have as priority before pulling the t out of a hole they dug themselves.
The hole the state dug
...is called the Big Dig, and it wasn't due to the T, but due to highway lobbyists wanting more and more money.
Anyway, the data shows that western MA gets road subsidies wildly out of proportion to population. If they're not using it properly, that's their fault.
and it wasn't due to the T,
In which bizarro world did this happen? The Big Dig was due to Ted Kennedy and Tip O'Neil and Joe Moakley and the rest of the democrats representing Massachusetts in Washington.
This bizarro world we live in
Fred Salvucci describes in an interview how the idea for the Big Dig came about:
Sure, it helped that some heavy hitting Congressional folks wanted to steer Federal money to the state. But who do you think they were doing it on behalf of? The highway lobby, of course.
I don't know whether it matters if they're Democrats or Republicans. To claim that Republicans would have stopped the highway lobby is frankly absurd. Most red states are the biggest recipients of Road Socialism in the country, and if you try to stop them from sucking the rest of us dry, they scream and yell bloody murder. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
If you want responsible spending on transportation, there's hardly any friends in Washington for you.
Small Detail
The elevated structure was not built to any modern safety specification, was already decades old, and was starting to rot out all along its length, as any structure encountering that much road salt in a maritime location would!
It had to be rebuilt anyway - and fairly soon. If not for the Big Dig, then what? A highway version of the North and South station problem?
There were other possibilities
The classic example, of course, is what San Francisco did when the Embarcadero Freeway was critically damaged by the Loma Prieta earthquake: knock it down and don't rebuild it. Through traffic between the peninsula and Marin county was re-routed to 19th Avenue. The newly accessible waterfront flourished. SF had much fewer options than we did; they are much more geographically restricted.
Now I realize that taking an example from other cities is verboten in Boston (NIH, etc) but we could also just look at something we did do ourselves: build at-grade. Look at the 'Green-scar' as it exists today. There are 6 lanes of traffic surrounding a pitiful median strip. Honestly, it would have been worth saving $20-odd billion just putting the highway at-grade, and it probably wouldn't have been too much different than what the current situation is like. We could add back in the Ted Williams tunnel and the Zakim bridge and still be doing pretty well, plus get much of the traffic-unsnarling benefit.
The 'fundamental law of highway congestion' as first observed in the 60s is that traffic grows to the available capacity no matter how much you try to build. We should have taken that lesson to heart and saved ourselves a lot of time and money. Routing high-speed interstate traffic through the historic heart of Boston, leaving behind nothing but exhaust fumes, is not worth $20 billion -- but that's largely the only benefit the Big Dig has over cheaper alternatives.
Interesting Mix here
On one hand you tout the "get rid of it", although there is no alternate like there is for Storrow Drive.
On the other hand you act as if an "at grade" solution would have in any way been preferable - it wouldn't be. That's 1950s thinking right there - cut off the city from its waterfront and neighborhoods with a car sewer.
Make up your mind already!
You must not work downtown. Or have to get downtown or to the south from the North if these are what you think is possible. They weren't - people did look at them. Boston lack redundancy for traffic arteries like SFO does.
Ok: Get rid of it!
I would prefer "to get rid of it." But I realize that people will reject that solution out of hand (like you just did). I think that the importance of having an interstate highway passing through the heart of the city is massively overstated. After all, this city did manage to survive many hundreds of years prior to the construction of the Central Artery.
The at-grade solution, while not "pretty" would work. And it would have given us many many billions of dollars to play with in terms of mitigation. Some of this is hindsight. The true costs of the project, although known, were hidden from the public as long as possible, and the Big Dig looked like a better value proposition when it 'only' cost $6 billion.
But supposing that we did know it would cost $22 billion in the end, I think the at-grade solution would have been the preferred one.
SF (not SFO you mean) doesn't have much in the way of traffic redundancies either. Remember, the Golden Gate bridge is hemmed in by Golden Gate Park and the Presidio. 19th Avenue is far from perfect. It's a traffic sewer. But it's manageable. It doesn't make the Sunset feel any more cut off from the city. Actually, it's a lot like one of the big avenues in NYC. And it's a heck of a lot cheaper than the Big Dig.
You're right that although I work in the city, I don't work downtown. And I've chosen to live within reasonable walking distance of work if for some reason I want to skip using the MBTA. What I don't get is how that is relevant to the Big Dig. If you work downtown and you commute there, then taking the Big Dig to your job implies that you need parking downtown too. But we've already learned the hard way that building massive parking lots and highways in downtown areas just leads to the death of cities. That's why we don't do that anymore.
The best option is a properly functioning public transit system (something we are unaccustomed to). Now the perverse part of the Big Dig, if you read the rest of that Salvucci interview, you'll learn that it was actually supported by the anti-highway movement in Boston. The Big Dig was supposed to be the highway project to end all highway projects -- and thereafter energy would be focused on improving public transit. But since then, the Big Dig consumed pretty much all resources and motivation there was, and now we're struggling trying to get the state to uphold a commitment on the Green Line extension. Bleh.
Try this experiment
Call realtors who handle rentals in your area and tell them you are looking for a new place that is big enough for yourself, a theoretical partner, and said theoretical partner's two small children.
Make a note of the communities you get steered to, and how you would get to work from there ... if anybody ever calls you back.
Your life choices are not possible for all people. Workplaces fold and lay people off, lives change, there is fairly rampant discrimination against families with children who wish to rent, etc. We ended up buying a home in a convenient location in order to balance the extreme rental market at the time, the simple fact that people often won't rent to families with small kids, and the need to be within a reasonable distance of potential jobs in Boston, Cambridge, and all the way out to Rt. 128 and down to Braintree. That's how you stay employed in the modern economy. With the expected demise of the express buses that use the central artery, we carpool with another couple and a single using the central artery HOV lane - one car to park, but 4-5 people - when we don't bike.
Well I agree that the rental
Well I agree that the rental market is perverse here, and it's tougher for families that rent. I still think I could find something within biking distance, or near the MBTA, though.
One of the reasons why it is so perverse is because the city has torn up many areas for the purpose of building highways and parking lots. That's stopped, but new residential development has been anemic, in large part because of incredible amounts of political resistance to the idea. That needs to change.
Surface option for Central Artery replacement
would not have been to build a surface-level freeway, but simply to build the existing surface streets that now bound the Greenway, without any freeway at all, above, below, or otherwise.
This is what San Francisco did, and perhaps it's what Boston should have done as well.
I'm not to privy on the San
I'm not to privy on the San Fransisco incident, but here's a couple of quick points I can make:
1. I don't think they designate surface streets as interstate highways.
2. One of the points of going underground was to cut pollution.
3. Surface road as it is now is packed... plus I-93 traffic? I suspect that would have been detrimental to Boston's functionability.
The surface road
Much, perhaps most of the traffic on the surface road is fed onto it by the Artery. All those ugly ramps are designed to feed the cars on to the surface road. Why have that happen in multiple locations? Why not instead have it happen at South Bay (where cars might also be fed on to alternatives like Berkeley St., Mass Ave., Melnea Cass, etc.) or North Station (with cars fed on to Storrow, Atlantic, Congress St., etc.). Depending on their ultimate destination, cars might not need to end up on the surface road at all. It might in fact lead to less congestion.
That said, I think some form of highway continuity was necessary, as I mention in my response to Mathew's post. Just the same, I don't think it would be a nightmare to go with Ron's idea.
Surface roads
19th Avenue is designated as SR-1, Van Ness is US-101. True, not interstates, but does it matter? US-101 is the main highway on the Peninsula.
Forms of point 3 are often used to argue in favor of widening roads. Here's the problem: if you build it, they will come. Traffic tends to fill capacity until congestion returns. The Big Dig has so much capacity that it's pushed the congestion out to the chokepoints on the edge of the city, for now.
If the state somehow gets the opportunity to widen those outlying commuting routes, then the Central Artery will become just as clogged as the bad old days.
At some point, the people in the city need to ask themselves: "Do we want to keep on widening roads and expanding parking lots? Or is it destroying our quality of life and the city itself?"
This did happen once already, which is why we have a moratorium on new highways and parking.
There's only one known way to reduce congestion: adjusting tolls to meet demand, a.k.a. de-congestion pricing. Although it's a free market solution, it meets resistance from people in this country who otherwise claim to be against socialism. When it comes to roads, they like free riding and don't mind waiting in queues, apparently.
Regarding the Embarcadero
It isn't a good example, but not because it's from a different city. The Embarcadero was always an incomplete freeway, a freeway to nowhere, if you will. Most traffic running between South Bay and Marin already switched to surface streets when passing through the city. That was not remotely the case for the Central Artery.
I do agree with you, though, regarding a surface solution. What we have now is essentially two highways, one that didn't cost much but maintains the scar, the other that cost a lot, and because of the former, does nothing to heal the wound. I'll be honest and say that the Pike trench between the Back Bay and South End is less desruptive of urban flow than the Greenway. A trench like that with parcels designed for air rights development might ultimately have been better. But I have to say again, getting rid of the highway altogether would not have worked for Boston.
Embarcadero
was intended to run though the city, connecting downtown to the Golden Gate bridge. That part was stopped earlier by community opposition, and the city of San Francisco seems to get by just fine with people using surface streets to reach that bridge.
Haven't written to local pols, but will def. write to this idiot
I'd be curious to hear what local transit initiatives he thinks are not being funded.
Spreading ignorance to constituents that the big bad T in the big bad city somehow punishes western Mass is inexcusable. North Central and western Mass are rife with ghost towns and cities (hello Springfield) whose tax bases and non-retail jobs have completely vanished, largely due to decades of autocentric planning.
You want me to subsidize that by taxing the wages I make in the city?
The T is an economic engine. Western Mass is an economic drain.
There, my draft is written. Time to clean it up a bit and send it to Rosenberg.
There are 15 regional transit
There are 15 regional transit authorities in Mass, the PVTA that covers Sprngfield and Amherst is the second largest after the MBTA. I'm sure PVTA would like to replace more of their aging buses faster and would probably like to improve the frequency of some of their routes if they had more funding from the state.
Their has been a proposal for money years to rebuild the old Amtrak station in Springfield into a full intermodal center, but funding has been an issue. They probably would like some money for that. Maybe some more Amtrak service between Springfield and boston beyond the once a day Lake Shore Limited.
It should be noted...
A good bit of the funding of the PVTA also comes from UMass-Amherst and the other 4 schools in the Five College Area.
Outrageous
Only the Amherst/Northampton area would keep electing such a foolish, narrow-minded individual. He cannot see the forest through the trees!
Speaking of money pits
One of the few large employers in his district include the University of Massachusetts, which I gain nothing from in return for my tax dollars, despite the fact that I went there for a year!
See, two can play at this "but what have you done for me lately?" game. Or, we can realize that we're all on this planet together and need to behave as civilized members of a society.
(And honestly, could he be any more condescending? Does he always assume his constituents are idiots who never do any research on a topic before reaching out to him?)
Good conservative thinking
Good conservative thinking there. People who provide the "economic engine" deserve gov't services (like the T)... those who are an "economic drag" well they should just shut-up and put-up with less.
He's winning trust by telling the truth?
Direct from Stan Rosenberg's website - "The best way to wins someone's trust is to tell the truth: clearly, forcefully, directly."
Breitbart School of Truth
Just make shit up and tell it clearly, forcefully, and directly.
Source for Sen. Rosenbergs response?
It seems weird to me to not link to it (or explain why, e.g. email to student).
It was in e-mail
Neither Rosenberg nor the student was the source, but beyond that, unfortunately I can't say (was given a copy on condition I not).
Dear Mr. Rosenberg,
The MBTA would love to hand-me-down to you its gently used buses to help replace your older fleet...but it's too busy using them because it doesn't have any other choice as it heads for a messy bankruptcy. Fix the MBTA's funding situation since it's the 800-lb gorilla in your midst and maybe the ONE POINT THREE MILLION of us using the MBTA EVERY DAY will be able to focus on helping you solve your problems next. Did you know that the 4 western counties in the state combined don't even add up to two-thirds of the total number of riders on the MBTA system every day?
If instead you think the solution is to make the 800-lb gorilla eat crumbs now as some sort of justice for how you see your own situation, then I worry that you are incapable of foreseeing just how much damage a starving 800-lb gorilla can do to us all.
Scale, dude. Look into it.
The population of Mass is
The population of Mass is about 6.5 million... so I say that most people in Mass don't ride the T..... and your number refers to passenger trips... so the number of people riding the T is closer to 650,000... about 10% of the population.
And...
And every one of the 750,000 people living west of Worcester don't drive every day either. You can nitpick all you want, but the problem of scale still exists between the MBTA problem and the transportation problems in Western MA.
Furthermore, the MBTA is pretty close to capacity every day (especially particular segments of it) at whatever number you think is appropriate for ridership. If you were to expand the system's capacity and reach, I think you'd find even more people using it. Meanwhile, we can completely repave all of the roads of Western MA, but I don't think their population will double because of it or anything. It's not like the roads are the reason nobody is holding back from flocking to Western MA.
Who Paid to Rebuild Route 2?
The Deerfield River took out several miles of it after Hurricane Irene. The raging torrents also damaged several bridges and many miles of state roadways that his ilk use to get around (but didn't pay for ...)
I suppose they took up a collection in Western MA only to pay for all these repairs?
HAHAHAHAHAHAAH!
Mr. Rosenberg needs to find a clue - and find it as fast as he can drive his stupid arse into town. There are alot more of us who ride the T than there are of his constituents and we might get pissed off enough to make sure any and every dollar for Western Massachusetts extreme road subsidies gets quashed as a lesson in what "paying the entire cost of one's own transit" REALLY means!
Let's charge them all back for this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/massdot/sets/72157627...
There are alot more of us who
There are alot more of us who ride the T than there are of his constituents and we might get pissed off enough to make sure any and every dollar for Western Massachusetts extreme road subsidies gets quashed as a lesson in what "paying the entire cost of one's own transit" REALLY means!
WOW, we've had class warfare, now we have urban/rural warfare.
Time to make the popcorn!
sounds a bit harsh imho.
Rosenberg Started It
I'm just detailing the logical conclusion of his red-state worthy "i'm sooooo victimized" bullshit. If he wants to play that game, and the people who elect him want to play that game, well then - GAME ON!
If they can't acknowledge how subsidized they are by the Boston area economy and can't think past their entitlement to the logical consequences of their phony whining, we'll play that "you pay for your own" game to its conclusion and see who really stands to lose once and for all.
Been looking at Ch90 road subsidies
Per capita FY2012:
Average $65.89
Median $38.55
Boston $23.33
Cambridge $24.45
Northampton $35.97
Somerville $14.78
Top 5:
Monroe $560.77
Hawley $538.92
Mount Washington $429.08
Rowe $375.69
Sandisfield $365.62
Bottom 5:
Somerville $14.78
Revere $15.31
Everett $15.64
Malden $15.76
Winthrop $16.04
rural/urban divide
This has always been a feature of American politics. It's why we have proportional representation in the House but not in the Senate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Compromise
Shut The Front Door.
Amount of money towns in his district have spent on the MBTA: $0.
That's because each town and city that gets MBTA service, PAYS FOR IT. Not completely, of course, but Boston will pay about $77,760,210 to the MBTA in FY2012.
In total, a town like Northhampton, where The Douchebag's offices are, will be assessed about $3M in FY2012 for services the state provides. Boston: $166.5M Boston receives $379M. Northampton: $13.8M
So, Northampton receives 4.6x as much money from the state government as it is billed. Boston: about 2.2x.
Next up, let's look at spending per capita. Boston is 617,000 people, roughly. Northampton: 28,000, roughly. Both are rounded down slightly and from the 2010 census. Keep in mind that Boston has an ACTUAL population that is about another quarter million from September to May-ish, but let's ignore that for now, shall we?
So, NoHo: $10.8M in spending / 28,000 = $385/person.
Boston: $212M / 617,000 = $343/person.
Pittsfield? Heh. Ready? 44,000 people. 45.3M received, 3.6M spent (a ratio of 12.5:1, blowing NoHo out of the water.) 41.7M net spending by the state, for $947/person in spending. Three times Boston, almost.
So, at least as far as the money that changes hands between state and local government? Bostonians are a bargain.
Cost of traveling to/from Boston to/from Natick, 17.6 miles (roughly): $2.70, or 15 cents a mile.
Cost of traveling to/from I-91 to/from Natick, 72 miles: $2.40, or THREE cents a mile. ONE FIFTH the cost.
Amount of money state has spent on internet infrastructure inside 495: $0.
Amount of money state has spent on internet infrastructure in Western and Central MA (but not the cape)? $40 Million.
For those of you who are interested in seeing per-town aide, look no further:
http://www.mass.gov/dor/local-officials/municipal-...
I've been unable to find any tax data per town/city yet, for some reason.
Tax revenues by town
http://www.mass.gov/dor/docs/dls/mdmstuf/municipal...
44% of the total income of
44% of the total income of residents of Suffolk County comes from Gov't transfer payments (Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, SSI etc). Why not count all gov't transfer payments in your numbers.
Citations Please
Interesting - it would be nice to know where you found that information. It doesn't sound anywhere near correct unless something dramatic changed between the 2000 census and the present day.
I hope that when I am back to
Holy fucking shit. Talk about tone-deaf. In other words, when I and my colleagues in pork get off our asses and start "governing" again?
Cripes
THANK YOU!!!
All debates aside, all I really read was "can't get off my ass to argue with you. not at work."
wtf!?!?
See my comment below
.
Not all as it seems
It appears that the senator may be referencing the fact that he has been away from Boston due to recovery from chemotherapy for squamous cell carcinoma (non-melanoma skin cancer).
Edit: Initially, I piled on with the previous commenter by joking about needing Easter off too at first until I found the above linked story from 2 weeks ago talking about how his illness is keeping him at home.
nasty.
This is a pretty nasty exchange here. PVTA is actually talking about raising its fares as well (although not as much as MBTA I don't think). The PVTA has a great deal set up with the Universities out there (as mentioned above) which can really serve as a sort of model for what is being proposed for the MBTA (as personified by super heroine, UPass Lady!).
The public transportation issues that have been brought to light by all these public meetings, especially the needs of seniors, the poor, disabled and students are not endemic to the MBTA service area. In fact if you live out in the Berkshires and are poor or on a fixed income, you really are SOL. If you can't afford a car you're screwed. As the population gets older this problem is only going to get worse.
We don't have an MBTA crisis on our hands. We have a MassDOT crisis. MassHighway is just as (if not more) screwed than the MBTA (imagine paying your monthly electric bill with your credit card while taking out a third mortgage to get part of the roof replaced). We're all in the good ship Massachusetts and the folks in steerage may drown first, but we're all going down together. Writ large it's the same thing with Massachusetts and the big rectangular states out west that keep electing dickheads. You can even bust it out globally if you want to get all hands across the world about it. But at the very least we should be able to see things connected at the state level ferchrissakes.
Agreed
The problem is, we have a Senate President who forgets that tax money and not oil company money pays her salary when she says regrettably stupid things about how a couple of nickels on a gallon of gas to help our state's economy will hurt too much when the oil companies are claiming an unchallenged additional dollar of profits.
And we have the Senator, above, who forgets that his constituents didn't exactly pay for the full cost of replacing Route 2 and building the roads they drive on ... or anything even remotely close to that.
They are the ones who are being nasty and divisive - this is just an example of how they will get their bull muffins thrown back at them if they keep up the stupid. Kaz's Starving 800lb Gorilla as it were.
politics! politics!
Politics! Politics!
Actually I doubt any of our State legislators are getting much pay outs from the oil industry. The thing that motivates them is fear of the Herald-clutching Howie Carr-budgies descending in a reeking flock to spew out talking points by rote of "HACKS! HACKS!" and providing ammo for our anemic state GOP. Generations of repulsive graft and nepotism have given any nitwit with the gumption to go for it the platform they need to try and grab the gold ring. Any Senator or Rep along the 495 corridor has to be shitting their pants anytime the conversation gets near something like [voice of god]"GAS TAX."[/voice of god]
Actually looking at the situation and proposing solutions that might involve raising revenue from somewhere (which it has to, because squeeze all you want there's just not enough savings left in the MBTA to cover the hole), and they go running for cover. Lt. Gov Murray talked of having an "adult conversation" (preferably not on a cell phone while driving) but unfortunately there are no adults in the room. And Kaz's post down below with this Senator's quote from Boston magazine makes him look to be quite forgetful or a schmuck.
That we do
They got rid of the TPA, but it was only merged into MADOT.
I remember reading that after paying the toll workers, the TPA was only adding 8 million a year to the state coffers. I'm unsure if that was before or after road repairs.
Here's an idea. Get rid of them! It's the 21st century for petes sake!
Toll the turnpike in Boston, and possibly raise it to come in line with congestion charges. The technology is already there to snap license plates for fines, so instead send bills with sur-taxes to those without transponders (This is one very smart thing they do in TX). Have a transponder? You get a lower rate since no paper billing is required. West of Newton, get rid of them completely until you hit the NY border. No more workers, no pensions, pure revenue, and less slowdown.
The same fast-pass-through Tolls need to go up on 91/93 and 95 along NH too. NH commuters are getting it easy compared to MA residents, then flaunting it in public. Hell, their asshole reps want to put up warnings they're entering MA. Fine, we're charging you to use our roads since you are most likely fill up in NH.
This is town politics, but my hometown of Sterling MA was given millions to build a public works facility. Meanwhile the roads in Sterling are at their wost conditions that I can remember since my childhood. The woods of some have reclaimed about a foot on either side from 20 years of neglect and improper repair. Meanwhile the town build a new facility, complete with a pool table lounge room. This is for a town department of 5-10 ppl tops.
They didn't need that. They need to pave the damn roads, patch them every spring, and cut back brush.
I hate tolls and gas taxes
Id rather see them raise the registry fee for vehicles or licenses. If you charged another 100 bucks for a registration on mass cars and trucks, that gives you about 530 million bucks. This way you know when the fee needs to be paid, and you don't have to worry as much if you need your car to drive longer on toll roads, or you don't have to worry about high gas taxes AND prices.
Registration Fee
While I'm not likely to be keeping the Oregon plate on the car I have in Oregon much longer (it was my father's car and my aunt is using it), the renewal fee includes a levy to fund the reconstruction of the Sellwood Bridge over the Willamette River.
This fee is tacked on to registrations in an area on either side of the bridge, and came about because the bridge is kind of an "extra", if historic and convenient bridge that isn't eligible for funding from federal funds or for much in state funds.
I have no problems paying it, but I think it would be a good idea if they could do the same to fund MA roadways - a levy if they insist on rehabbing Storrow Drive, for example. Or a rebuilding fund for highways that serve rural populations that comes directly from their registrations.
What an ass
Says the guy that needs and gets public funding for the PVTA AND millions from 413 taxpayers to pave and keep up the thousands of miles of road in western MA. Not to mention that UMASS (and 4 other colleges) are basically the direct and indirect employers of everything north of Chicopee.
This kind of thinking is just ludicrous. Without Metro Boston, western MA looks more like Northern Maine and NH, and less like it does today.
Time to step up Senator. This is your problem. Or maybe we should cut off all the "pork" going back to your community.
Subtext?
From this article last year in Boston magazine:
So, you helped design a funding system that you knew to be inadequate and assign a debt transfer you knew to be too large to pay off, and now you are unwilling to fix the problem you personally had a hand in creating unless MBTA users are willing to consider what's in it for your constituents? As opposed to putting in place a system that would actually be sustainable from the start so that MBTA users could afford to focus on how to help you out sooner?
Well then. Aren't you a peach. You knowingly created this mess. This mess has grown to potentially threaten thousands of people's livelihoods. And now you want us to care about your victimization?
Rosenberg is like a car dealer who sells you a lemon knowing damn well it's going to break down and when you come back and demand he fix the car he sold you, he says "Sorry, I can't afford to hire a mechanic to fix your car unless you buy ME a car too, then we can talk."
That's an awful lot of subtext that isn't exactly clear from his e-mail where he plays naive about just how we got in this situation given that he wants more sympathy for his own constituents' transportation problems...
We should print up a bill
1. Tally up the full cost of post-Irene rebuilding
2. Send it to his office and ask him to pay for it personally
3. break it down in terms of the cost per constituent that his constituents would have paid if they had to pay for it and not the entire state
His attitude stinks - and it needs some readjustment.
Rosenberg says "I would like
Rosenberg says "I would like to share the perspective of those who represent the millions of people in the state who do not use and receive no direct benefit from the T although they contribute significantly to funding that system even as they pay virtually the full cost for their own transportation or rely upon a woefully under funded system public transportation system which T supporters refuse to support time and time again. " However, what about all the people that don't drive and are paying for the roads via their taxes? Hmm!? -Mea www.hertrainstories.blogspot.com