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T officials have gotten an earful, but what about state legislators?
By adamg on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 6:46am
The Outraged Liberal notes the large and growing turnouts at all those MBTA meetings:
Lawmakers really have no one to blame but themselves for this predicament. And the wiggle room is rapidly disappearing. At hearing after hearing the public is making itself heard loud and urgently.
A reasonable fare hike, judicious trimming of costs like salaries and a search for every available penny of non-fare revenue are part of the solution. But there needs to be an answer, once and for all, to the chronic problems that don't defy solutions, but just require political will.
The public hearings make clear this is not an issue going away anytime soon. As much as elected officials may wish that to happen.
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Comments
We're too busy planning a new
We're too busy planning a new generation of patronage and personal political fiefdoms with the anticipated casino revenue. Stop distracting us and go away you damn peasants!
Massachusetts Moron: It's the DEBT, stupid
Way to miss the entire point, "Outraged Liberal".
The problem isn't the salaries of a few people.
The problem isn't the fare.
The problem isn't cutting expenses in a system that already is running on a shoestring.
The problem isn't finding more non-fare revenue.
The problem isn't transportation secretaries "playing people like a fiddle".
THE PROBLEM IS: BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN DEBT FOR A HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION PROJECT THAT WAS FOISTED ONTO A MUNICIPAL-AREA PUBLIC TRANSIT SYSTEM BY OUR STATE LEGISLATORS. The interest alone of which is sucking enormous amounts of money out of the budget of the T - 30% of revenues.
February 13, 2009:
"The debt burden we carry is perhaps one of the highest in the industry. Total debt outstanding is over $5.2 billion. Annual principal and interest payments will consume almost 30% of revenues and will continue to grow without some type of relief. Left un-checked, the debt burden will limit our ability to provide the quality and quantity of service our customers want and expect."
http://www.mbta.com/about_the_mbta/news_events/?id...
HEY HOW ABOUT THAT. Three years ago to the day, everyone was warned what would happen.
Most of the T debt is not from the big dig
.
citation please?
citation please?
T debt is not from Big Dig cars
"About $1.8 billion of MBTA debt is from Big Dig transit improvements and projects (such as the Silver Line bus and Greenbush Commuter Rail Line) that the state was required to do to offset the increased air pollution from cars and trucks using the Big Dig."
And the T was given 20% of sales tax revenues statewide to help them pay it off.
So the T debt is not from the car side of the Big Dig, it's from the T part. It was T expansion mandated because of faith-based belief in global warming, taxes, and the power of public transit.
There is no "car side" of the
There is no "car side" of the big dig.
That's because there would BE no CAR SIDE paid for by the feds if it were not for the transit component of the big dig.
AGAIN - FROM THE FEDERAL PERMITTING AND FUNDING STANDPOINT THERE IS NO CAR SIDE.
Get it? No transit means no big dig.
ONE PROJECT funding all systems. NEVER intended to be dumped on the transit system.
Maybe we should get the Feds to just shut I-93 down since MA has been screwing around with bullshit like this for 20 years.
AGAIN - THERE IS NO CAR SIDE. One project, MA required to build ALL of it or NONE of it.
Understand?
The T bought it, the T should pay for it
If the T didn't want the debt, why did they buy the silver line and Greenbush Line? Nobody makes you cash the check.
Do you really expect us to believe that the Feds put a gun to the T's head and said you have to take this? When has the T ever turned down money for some dumb project?
Now you have to pay for it and you don't like that. Boo hoo.
No, the Commonwealth bought it.
And the Commonwealth bought it because they were required to in order to get federal money for the Big Dig.
Then the Commonwealth shifted the bill to the MBTA.
Law suits are the gun against the 'T's head
The 'T really did not have a choice, but read Swirly's comment again, and you'll see that the state itself had no choice. To re-phrase: without Greenbush, the SL, and GLX, there would have been no highway funding. The state had to mandate those extensions to get the tunnel built. The 'T most certainly did not buy it, and is in fact still trying to get out of these commitments.
Like we didn't have 12 Democratic Congressmen at the time?
Who are the Feds? Ted Kennedy mandated it? We have met the enemy and they are us
You people elect these dope congressmen who saddle YOU with this dumb project because of YOUR eco-hysteria! How on earth can you blame somebody else for this predicament?
Who's blaming what now?
The problem is not that these transit projects were taken on. You may think it is, but that's not what the rest of us care about. The debt taken on by the state to accomplish the Big Dig should not have been portioned out to separate agencies. This was a way for the then Republican governor to look tough on "Boston" government overruns in the MBTA to his core constituencies out west as well as score political points for "finishing payment for the Big Dig" which is how he sold it to the Democratic legislature. The public either wasn't sophisticated enough and/or willing to buy into the "MBTA bloated budget" argument and didn't appreciate how stupid the sales tax revenue projections were back in 2000.
But be assured it was the transfer of STATE debt to the MBTA that people have a problem with. Not the projects that the debt funded. Not the Federal Clean Air Requirements. Not any other boogeyman you want to throw up.
And another thing...!
As long as we're rehashing the Big Dig fiasco....yes it was a wonderful example of nasty-ass politics, and all our politicians were Democrats, but the contractors that really milked this thing for some major profit were not the kind that typically favor Democrats. Unions made a lot, contractors made a lot, unscrupulous cement contractors skimmed on generous contracts and used crapola concrete that we'll be paying for for the rest of eternity...there is plenty of blame to go around, but the bottom line is a LOT of Massachusetts residents made a living from this on both sides of the aisle.
I didn't hear too many people complaining about the paychecks they were receiving from this when it was going on. And now we're looking for any excuse to give out tax breaks and incentives to jump start the construction industry because it means JERBS! For union card carrying tradesmen that mostly vote Republican, for brie eating investment bankers, for the guy who drives the roach-coach to the construction sites and for the people who drive through the damned thing everyday to get to work - that project gets them through about a mile and half really quick so they can sit in traffic above Somerville or over in Dorchester. That's how our economy works.
Now if you want to put on a tinfoil hat and rant about the myth of climate change, go ahead, but don;t be dissin our economic system (that you is not you, Kaz - I'm replying one indent too far).
Revisionist or what?
The T didn't buy the Silver Line Phase 2 and Greenbush Line. The Big Dig project plans called for both of them as part of what it would take to be allowed to rework the highway. What part of that are you not getting?
The State House said "we want a bigger, buried highway". The Feds said "ok, you're going to smog up your air so what mitigates that"? The answer was "we reopen the Old Colony lines and we put a bus tunnel to the airport". The answer also included linking North and South Station and one or two other things...but THEY WERE TOO EXPENSIVE so they were stopped or pushed out much further!
Oh no, look, it's the MBTA turning down some dumb projects that they aren't going to ask the Feds for money to accomplish now!
How mealy mouthed can you be?
Celucci had a few problems. One was the fact that the bloated corpse of the Big Dig budget kept getting bigger as time went on and he had to show that it was "paid for". The second was the fact that the MBTA budget rose continuously and part of that may have been due to the fact that they were just another line item in the state's budget (I haven't seen a good study of how much of the MBTA budget in 1998 was patronage waste versus the rising cost of a functional transit system to know if this was a problem of reality or perception at the time).
He solved them both by telling the MBTA that it was only going to get whatever it received in fares and 20% of the sales tax which was predicted to keep going up and up and up based on a horribly unrealistic extrapolation. Then he took the remainder of the Big Dig costs and dumped them on the MBTA because "they should do their fair share of paying now that they have part of our revenue that we would have used to pay for it". It was financial flim-flam.
And so is your comment about the "car part" or "T part" of the Big Dig. They're one and the same. In order to put more cars on our roads, we have to compensate for the pollution by making it easier and better for more people to take the MBTA. Otherwise, we'd just kill ourselves with the smog. That's not "global warming" talk...that's Los Angeles, Beijing, and Houston leading by example before anyone was talking about climate change. It's all Big Dig project cost and has nothing to do with the MBTA except that the MBTA was a means to an ends at getting a sunken, larger highway approved.
Doesn't add up
"In order to put more cars on our roads, we have to compensate for the pollution by making it easier and better for more people to take the MBTA."
That's the part that obviously didn't add up. I mean would you fund another transit project based on that?
Do us all a big favor, EM
Instead of asking painfully naive questions of fellow commenters, why don't you go study up on how federal contracting packages are structured, linked, overseen, and budgeted.
The "Big Dig" included transit enhancements as traffic offsets as required by the Clean Air Act and Amendments of 1991. That means there is no "car side" and no "transit side". It means that they built one, and (as a Federal court has already maintained) they STILL have to build the other stuff. MA was already dope smacked for even trying to weasel out of the required transit obligations based on extreme budget overruns on the tunnel system.
You might look up the specifics of the Conservation Law Foundations successful lawsuit for further understanding of the situation.
Here is what really happened to the T and Big Dig
So you're saying that the Federal Government forced the T to take the money because otherwise the road wouldn't get built. Your view of politics, money and power is not believable.
Here is what really happened: Ted Kennedy and William Weld cooperated to bring a pile of money to Massachusetts. With it they would enrich contributors, contractors, builders, pay to enhance the property of adjacent developers and owners of skyscrapers. Along the way, they could pay off plenty of hardhats, as well as rich people on the boards little yap-groups like Conservation Law who got their buddies in Congress to stoke up eco-concerns for their piece of the pie, to the tune of funneling a couple billion to the T for a new building project they didn't need (see contractors and hardhats above.)
The relative richness of the payoffs to the car people and the T people show you the relative power. Not much, but not nothing.
Did it make any sense that more cars would run, and somehow more trains would run, but the money would come from ... some third source unrelated to the cars or the trains ... no, but hopefully things will just work themselves out, and if not, they have all moved on or been promoted or gone to the big house in the sky by the time the bill comes due.
One would think that the screaming-yourself-hoarse brigade would take this into consideration before attaching the next liberal cause to the next construction project via huge amounts of money.
Again ...
Please go and learn something about how federal government funding for such large omnibus projects works.
McNeil and Lehrer talk it over
And the federal government gets done on the Diane Rehm show! You know nothing.
My recollection was that
My recollection was that Patricia McGovern and Speaka Finneran were the primary boosters of MBTA forward funding, McGovern always referred to the MBTA's deficit bills to the state as a "budget buster".
MBTA bond money did not pay for highway construction, you can certainly say it partially paid for transit projects that were mandated by highway construction, but it did not pay for highway construction contracts. Most of those required transit projects were ones the MBTA back in 1990 was planning on doing anyway,and federal transit capital money did pay for a hefty percentage for several of those projects. Planning for Old Colony commuter rail restoration dated to the Dukakis days, planning for the Silver Line Waterfront (or Fan Piers Transitway as it was called back then) started several years before the 1990 agreement with CLF was signed or even thought of.
http://www.archive.org/details/southbostonpiers00mass
CLF certainly threw in the Arborway restoration on top of the MBTA's existing wish list, but that project has since been removed (the original agreement did leave room to replace projects with other ones that would reduce emissions by the same amount).
And also science-based concerns about emissions.
The new-improved I-93 means lots more traffic in the stretches just outside of town, i.e. Charlestown & points north, Southie and points south. These projects are meant to mitigate the increased emissions from that traffic by moving other traffic onto transit lines.
And yes, if my tax money is paying to make asthma rates higher in Malden, then maybe more of my tax money should be allocated to make them lower again.
~$2BN in remediation projects started it
That $2BN was thrown at the T two decades ago and it's been snowballing since.
The rest is from the expansion projects and 2+ decades of budget shortfalls, because the legislature demanded that the T be funded from a portion of sales tax revenues and fares. As opposed to all those highways and bridges, the T has to "earn its keep", while we spend $5BN/year on roads:
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart...
Because in America, it's socialist to fund public transit which is efficient. It's not socialism or government welfare to just piss into the wind 5 billion dollars a year of everyone's tax money to pay for pavement, right?
Back in 2007 MASSPIRG released a comprehensive report, and elected officials ignored it:
http://www.masspirg.org/sites/pirg/files/reports/M...
Five years later, nobody should be surprised in the slightest.
You can also read the MBTA Advisory Board report here:
http://mbta.com/uploadedfiles/Documents/Financials...
That's a few years old too, but those of you claiming that all of your fare money goes to the debt should note the pie chart a few pages in which shows that at the time, 25% of revenue went to paying interest on the debt. It's now more like 30-35%.
True but not true
I agree, the debt is directly MBTA debt, but...
1. The capital costs were mandated by the feds for the Big Dig to become a reality (see other posts for more on that)
2. The funding "reforms" passed after the fact put debt repayment squarely in the T's lap. Think about it. Then the Red Line was extended to Alewife and Braintree, when the Orange Line elevated was removed- these were not costs directly thrown on the T's budget. Thanks to the funding mechanisms used at the time, which honestly were inefficient, that debt was the Commonwealth's debt, paid in the same way highways and the like were paid- budget lines in the budget as a whole, not to be paid through the T's revenues.
You have to admit, if Greenbush, Silver Line, and Old Colony Lines were not the T's debt, we would not be discussing fare hikes and service cuts right now.
Annual principal and interest
What's the loan structure on that debt that makes that true? One of those crazy swap deals? Can't this be refinanced at a low fixed rate given the state's current high rating?
Debt restructuring
That's what they've been doing for the past few years. There has been a good deal of reform at the MBTA - but it's not entirely clear how much patronage or fat is left in there. But they have cut here and there and made the organization more efficient in some ways. But even in the good times they were deferring needed maintenance and those birds are coming home to roost at the same time that all the recent debt restructuring deals are pooping out on them as well.
The MBTA has its own bond making ability separate from the State, so to dump its debt on the State would affect the state's rating (or at least that's how I understand it, but I have been know to be ...shall we say, talking out my ass, so someone more knowledgeable can correct me) -- so that's why they don't dump the MBTA's debt load back onto the State. Now that seems a tad bit retahhhded to me, as the MBTA is part of the Commonwealth, right? Anyone shed some light on that...Kaz? Swirly? Bueller?
The T continues to spend
The T continues to spend hundreds of millions of dollars per year on capital projects. Of course some of this is necessary to keep the system running, and add important features like elevators in stations that don't already have them. But much of it is unnecessary gold plating.
I dare you.
Here is a link to the current 5-year Capital Investment Program for FY2012-2016 at the MBTA.
First: Name a CHAPTER or CHAPTERS (I'm not even going to ask for any specific projects) in "Section 2 -- By Category" that you think includes this "gold plating". The chapter(s) had better be at LEAST 50% of the total CIP planned expenditures since by your account "much" of it is unnecessary.
Second: Name the project on page 9 of the report that is currently not included in the CIP that would not be "gold plating" AND would fit within the cost of the "gold plating" project(s) that you identified above.
I dare you.
Two choices here:
1) Spend the money on "gold plating" (i.e. overbuilding) these capital projects or,
2) Be forced to give back the money you don't spend.
Given those options, which would YOU choose?
What is really needed is a third option: permit the T to take money they've allocated for capital projects but won't spend (due to lower bids, etc), and be able to divert it to other needs.
Supposedly
Every penny we pay in fares (and then some) goes to pay the Big Dig-releated debt dumped on the MBTA.
This truly is unbelievable. I
This truly is unbelievable. I saw a woman on the news last night say that she won't be able to afford to take the train to work because it will cost to much forcing her to potentially quit her job and end up on state assistance. It's a harsh reality but this is probably true for a lot of commuter rail users. :( Makes me stop and think. -Mea www.hertrainstories.blogspot.com
Welcome to the Detroit of the
Welcome to the Detroit of the 2010s!
Welcome to the Detroit of the
or Calcutta on the Charles. (I believe Marjory Claprood made that statement, but am not sure - any better recollections, please correct my attribution).
In a short and medium term, state leaders need to fix the structural deficit/debt of the MBTA. It's a critical part of our state's economy.
The "Welducci", Finneran, Mcgovern fix of the "budget busters" didn't work, so it's time for the Legislature to fix it.
Longer term, we need to look at how we build these projects which are core parts of our infrastructure. I recall hearing about expensive litigation between well-heeled citizen groups in Concord about protecting an ancient tree and a bridge that added millions to the project. I also recall the construction of the Old Colony line where the State essentially paid for the renovation and rehabilitation of Hingham's town center in exchange.
In both instances the environmental review part of the design and building process is hijacked which serves drive these project costs into the stratosphere.