Hey, there! Log in / Register
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.
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
Everyone Who Drives Into Boston Should Pay A Toll ...
... not just the North Shore and Western suburbs. If all drivers paid their fair share, there would be a much bigger revenue stream for transportation. It's an elephant in the room that the politicians are clearly ignoring.
Why should it cost $3.00 to cross the Mystic River, but crossing the Merrimack, Charles, or Neponset Rivers is completely free?
revenue
It will be interesting (as I said on FB also) what the pol's come up with new revenue. Cutting service and raising fares (which won't even make a dent in this) is really not the answer.
Someone mentioned the gas tax, which is another source too.
Like I said, it will be interesting to see what.. if anything is done.. or if Baker and Co will just act like they wanna fix something but in reality do what everyone else is done... kick the can down down the road further.
Higher gas tax is not the
Higher gas tax is not the answer, and neither is a toll on commuting into Boston (effectively a double tax on the commuter). Along the same lines why not increase income tax for people working in Boston? Revenue increases do not address the problem and only harm working people that have to commute to get to work.
The state needs to think about it overall transportation infrastructure from a high level. What does a modern infrastructure give back to the state? How does a modern infrastructure decrease costs and increase revenue across the board.
I would get behind a revenue increase if that meant there was a plan on how to bring Boston and the state into the future.
why?
I'm curious why you don't think so. The T is the alternative to driving and boils down to: "Don't want to pay the tolls and increased gas tax, ride the T". Maybe more people would be apt to ride the T if it didn't suck so much, but it can't suck so much if it's properly funded and runs well.
We should be pushing people toward the T, and if a gas tax does that and fixes the T at the same time, I don't see why it's such a bad idea.
Because it would be a state wide income tax increase.. and that won't go over well for areas that aren't served by the T. (i.e. Berkshire county)
I also think increasing income tax, if for Boston Metro workers, would just push jobs out of state or out of our region.
If commuting costs too much
If commuting costs too much for their employees companies will relocate. The tax base with shrivel and there will be a downward spiral.
Boston is only blessed with such a good economy because proximity to hospitals and higher ed which make industries want to cluster here. If the costs eventually outweigh the benefits businesses will leave and Boston will look like Baltimore, which was the long term trend the city was following prior to the tech/finance sector resurgence in the 1980s.
The state needs to look at what it prioritizes with funding. Why the Hell are we paying tens of thousands of able bodied people to NOT work when that money is needed to fix the system which GETS PEOPLE TO WORK? Infrastructure needs to take a priority over social programs. A job is the best anti-poverty program there is.
oh good
(removed.. I was wrong, see below)
You might want to check your math
After reading this nonpartisan article.
The question people tend not to ask is whether were are spending enough on infrastructure maintenance as we should. The answer, sadly, will not surprise you.
As for the Commonwealth, more than half of the budget goes to Health and Human Services. Yes, there is a lot of transfers from the feds there, but rising healthcare costs, both to state employees and MassHealth folk, has been squeezing the budget overall.
Okay
From a regular poster.. I'll re-neg this and remove it.
But okay. Point made.
But you had a point
I mean, the guy wrote:
There are plenty of places where helping the less fortunate and maintaining the road and rails both take place. And most places that do that also have standing armies.
well yeah
I stopped short of saying it was an apples vs oranges comparison.
(or more so, a typical rant against social services)
My point was instead of
My point was instead of paying capable people NOT to work -pay them to WORK fixing the roads and rails.
Welfare for persons other than the crippled or elderly used to be a JOBS BANK. You went to the welfare office and they assigned you day labor or a labor assignment similar to what Manpower/PSG/temp companies do today. People got paid to do public work, learned skills, and gained experience on the job which allowed them to move into permanent employment in the private sector.
you lost
You lost me (and your entire argument) at the use of the word "Crippled"
Try "Disabled". It's not 1930 anymore...
That's regardless
In Europe, they have government funded health care for all (which is the Commonwealth's biggest expense without universal coverage) and functioning rail systems. It is a doable idea.
Reform the welfare system? Sure, but that has nothing to do with the T's woes.
Gas Tax & Tolls Help
Moving people toward transit would be smart & effective. Our roads are very well funded by many sources while our public transit has always been chronically underfunded. By comparison roads are significantly ore expensive to maintain and are not efficient. We'll never be able to keep up with demand on roads as we see today. Adding lanes where possible rarely solves traffic issues and invites more drivers. It's a losing battle. We could get the T there if it were half as well funded. Get drivers off roads and onto transit = less congestion and wear on roads. More riders on T = a little more $ for them and more advocates for better funding.
I drive. I depend on my car for commuting. I don't like spending money on gas but I don't have another feasible option. I'd like one.
Transit more subsidized than roads
Some group that studies taxes looked at all the transit modes and calculated how much general taxes subsidized each one. Sorry, I forget which group it was but have posted the link on UHub previously. Anyway, road users get something like 60% subsidy and transit users 78%, as in gas taxes, tolls, vehicle fees etc. only covers 40% of roadway costs while transit fares covers 22% of actual costs. This is on average, nation-wide, your mileage may differ.
Studies have shown that the most effective way to make transit more appealing than driving is making parking scarce and expensive. New York, Boston, and Cambridge are doing their best at that and the results are more transit riders. After that, I think comes making roads more congested, and Boston and especially Cambridge have been working on that too.
Fossil Fuel is subsidized far more than transit Marrky...
to the tune of $37 BILLION dollars a year: http://priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/
You failed to mention that the majority of road funding comes from everyone that pays taxes, even those that don't drive cars.
Also, the money you spend on gas, tolls, vehicles fees. etc to move your private vehicle is of no consequence to the public. Those are the costs you pay to move your private vehicle vs. those of us that pay our fares to use public transit.
Transit’s Not Bleeding the Taxpayer Dry — Roads Are
Streetsblog explains: "Transit’s Not Bleeding the Taxpayer Dry — Roads Are"
Drivers directly pay for just 50.7%of the cost of the American road system.
Nationwide, transit fares cover 21% of costs. So the conclusion? Becuase of the total investment made in roads compared to transit.
Amen to that. Since my car
Amen to that. Since my car-free student days I've relocated to a neighborhood where I end up using my car way more than the T, but I'm one million per cent on board with increased gas taxes, tolls, and whatever else it takes to subsidize the public transportation system that made me fall in love with this city.
T passengers should not be on the hook for this. CARS SHOULD. Personal vehicles should always subsidize public transportation, never the other way around. I use my car as a convenience, it's not noble or even necessary. If the taxes started to overwhelm me, I'd give up my paid parking space and give up my car long before I'd give up the option of walking less than 10 minutes to a T stop. Even if I didn't enjoy a nearby T station personally, I recognize that it allows me things like early-morning Dunkin's and other service employees who need public transport to keep the city going.
The day will come when I can't drive my car anymore, or when my elderly mother needs to live with me, and then I'll be so glad we can both maintain our independence and humanity thanks to a public transit system that - for all its problems - is leagues beyond what is available in almost any other part of the country.
It's Disingenuous To Be Opposed To Tolls For All Drivers ...
... when some drivers are saddled with them — it's just not fair!
Please explain why some drivers must pay upwards of $70.00 per month for the privilege of driving into Boston, while most other drivers contribute absolutely nothing in tolls.
Speed
To me a fuel tax is the most fair -- it takes into account the weight of the vehicle and the amount of time it spends on the road which directly correlated with road wear and tear.
Electrically Fueled Vehicles Pay No Gas Tax ...
... but they occupy the same amount of space on streets and highways, contributing to congestion just as much as inefficient gas guzzlers — and by extension, also contribute to increased pollution.
The gas tax affects working-class people who are less likely to own the newest, most fuel efficient cars; more than it does wealthier individuals who can afford hybrids or other, brand new vehicles.
Tolls (where they exist) are higher for heavier and/or commercial vehicles; but all cars pay the same toll to utilize essentially the same amount of space on the highway — what could be fairer than that?
The Next Time You're Stopped In Heavy Traffic On The Expressway…
… ignoring commercial vehicles for the moment, take a look at all the other cars on the road — consider that each vehicle paid a wildly different amount in gas tax to occupy their place in the traffic jam.
Does that really make sense?
Yeah, kinda
Someone driving an old pickup truck which is heavy and gets 15 mile/gallon is doing a lot more damage then the guy in the old Honda civic. (Or dirt cheap little american sedan.) The guy driving the sports car is paying more but he is better equipped to afford it.
The gas tax is the closest thing we have to charging someone for the amount they drive. It's not an absolute and like all taxes there are winners and losers. But it's more representative of the wear on the road then tolls and excise taxes are.
I'd much rather a system by which the RMV bills you for the actual miles driven relative to the weight and cost of the car. Tolls would only paid by those out of state. Currently such a system isn't workable. Maybe some day.
Road wear is a quartic function of vehicle weight
Which means that the guy in the pickup truck is doing x^4 proportional damage to the streets relative to both the sports car, the civic, and some co-ed's shitty beater car, yes.
More importantly, it means that the trucker driving the 18-wheeler is doing about 9600 times more damage to the road than every other vehicle in this example combined, so huge industry driving these tractor trailers ought to be paying roughly 9600 times the amount of VMT tax that privately owned passenger cars are.
Set the base rate sufficiently low, say, 2 quintillionths of a cent ($0.000000000000000002) per mile, where it isn't worth bothering to collect from the typical vehicle owner dealing negligible damage to the road compared to the heaviest users.
Oh, driving a fully loaded truck weighing 80,000 lbs, are we? That'll be 80000 (to the fourth power) times the base rate, assessed per mile, to come to a grand total of $81.92 times however many miles that truck traveled between getting loaded and getting emptied. That sounds about right.
And the cost the trucking
And the cost the trucking company pays will be passed onto the consumer.
Just saying...
How about congestion fees? Cars, motorcycles, trucks, even cyclists driving into the city pay a congestion fee?
Which is only fair, really
The cost and the price should be related. You are saying that taxpayers should subsidize certain consumer and corporate choices here - please explain why you think this commercial enterprise deserves such a subsidy to suppress prices?
By Far, The Majority Of Vehicles In Traffic Are Cars, Not Trucks
The infrastructure costs to provide one mile of highway in the center of the city are vastly higher than one mile of highway in a rural area — yet cars pay the same amount in gas tax to travel one mile on either road.
Adopting mileage-based RMV fees would not change that inequity.
Border tolls
Let's put tolls on I-95 and I-93 just south of the NH border. If they're going to tax us when we drive north for recreation, they can pay to come to work in MA.
The answer is everything, right? Reduce work force inefficiency, increase funding, increase fares, all of it. We need to pay more for better performance with better equipment.
How much of the winter issues were the fault of Keolis vs. the legacy of the underfunding and maintenance backlog?
YES. Those highways are in
YES. Those highways are in terrible shape partially because of people running up north to avoid their civic duty; toll them to pay for the highways, rearrange highway funds into the T
They already pay to work in
They already pay to work in MA, paying MA income tax with no allowed deductions.
But I do agree that increased fares and gas tax increase is needed. But another poster brought up the issue of electric cars - how to charge them per mile?
Dupe
deleted
Merrimack?
Not really sure why you included the Merrimack. The Charles and Neponset Rivers are 0 miles from Boston; the Merrimack is 25 miles away.
Because It's A Gateway For Commuters Coming From New Hampshire
Already paying HUGE for parking
Boston is already around #2 in the country where taking public transit is much cheaper than driving and parking in the city. Now you want to put tolls on top of workers too? The city taxes parking and gets that revenue.
Now is the ideal time to add a couple pennies to the gas tax. Contrary to fear mongering, oil isn't running out and is more plentiful than ever! With falling prices, consumers won't feel an extra tax now, making it the easiest time to pass a tax increase. If an increase is much more than two cents, then our state gas tax will go from in the pack above the median to near the highest in the country and we don't need to be called Taxachusetts again. Bridges need fixing and road capacity increases are decades behind. Yeah, a gas tax is a user fee on using roads. Another is a toll.
The MBTA is still discovering all what it owns, so each addition means an asset that will need future maintenance, hence the backlog grows reflecting that.
Some Workers Already Do Pay Tolls — Why Shouldn't Everyone Pay?
Gas tax
Isn't the gas tax more oriented to infrastructure maintenance though? I'm all for raising that if we're going to start fixing bridges and roads, but it seems like we need an improved funding mechanism for the MBTA. If I'm in Springfield, why am I paying gas tax towards an eastern MA transit system.
1) Put a toll on I-93 north and south of the city and I-95
2) Use that money to repair the MBTA
3) Increase capacity in the MBTA so people who don't want to spend the money on tolls have a public transit alternative.
The Tobin shows that toll-less toll booths are feasible - this can easily be done.
We should start taxing
We should start taxing cyclists for all the bikepaths and bikelanes they're bulding, and maybe pedestrians for the use of the new paths and sidewalks, too.
No? Why not then?
Income Tax, Property Tax, Sales Tax ...
... I also pay the full amount of excise tax on my car, even though I very seldom drive it.
So, try again.
T Chief Administrator Brian
The situation with the MBTA's budget fascinates me, and I honestly wish I had more free time to research more about it.
My main question is, at what point does this endlessly increasing deficit reach critical mass (no pun intended), and put the MBTA so far behind that both fiscal and infrastructural improvements become virtually to impossible?
I know I'm beating a dead horseless carriage here, but Boston's crumbling and antiquated public transportation system is the only thing keeping the city from taking the next step to being a truly World Class city.
My main question is, at what
We're already seeing that. Costs are already higher than, and accelerating faster than, revenues, so the gap widens each year. At the end of this FY, they'll still need $7.6B for infrastructure improvements, plus $170M just to finish paying for this year's operating budget.
7.3 BILLION
7.3 Billion Dollars? Is that even accurate? For that kind of money we could build brand new monorails for each line. C'mon Boston..
Not one year
It's calculated on a variable but very long 20-25 year time frame that assumes no inflation and but adds some amount of extra spending every year to (eventually) draw the backlog down.
Revenue vehicles make up over
Revenue vehicles make up over 40% of the backlog:
http://www.mbta.com/uploadedfiles/About_the_T/Board_Meetings/SGRCapital0...
(page 15 and 16 of the linked PDF)
not really
Considering the GLX is gonna cost around 3b... you're not even in the ball park.
It's very accurate. I don't think this fiscal control board would fudge the numbers on this..
Also keep in mind that this isn't everything.. some commuter rail facilities and inventory have not been counted yet.
I think by the time they figure out new revenue and take any course of action, this number will balloon up to 10-12b .
Adorable!
And this being Massachusetts,
And this being Massachusetts, once the final-final-final number is calculated, and even if some extraordinary measure is taken to fund that exact amount, 5 years from now we'll get big-digged again (or is it "GLXed" now?) when they come back and tell us they underestimated their final-final-final number by 30%.
We may as well just say right now, by the time this is all done, $20B will be needed ...just to make the T functional.
First of all, no
You wouldn't want to build monorails for each line, because monorails basically don't work.
And second of all, let's do some math:
$7.3 billion dollars
5 million people in the MBTA service area (see p 110 here)
Spending over 10 years
7.3b/5m/10 = $146 per person per year = 40¢ per person per day.
A small cup of coffee at DDs is $1.60. So ¼ of a cup of coffee per day. WE CAN DO THIS.
What about cutting costs?
Not one single commentator has suggesting cutting costs. Baker has released much information about the bloated T, out of control pensions, relaxed PTO/Sick time policy which clearly gets abused or overpaid employees. Anyone who has worked in business know payroll and related costs can be anywhere from 15% to 40% of total operating expenses. That might be a good place to start in stead of the typical rhetoric of 'increase taxes' and "spend more."
don't hold your breath....
don't hold your breath....
Granted, getting rid of dead weight and clamping down on employee benefit abuse wouldn't help in the overall nightmare of a budget, but it would help as a pr effort.
Right now many people are tired of hearing the stories of employees ripping off benefits. My neighbor drove a bus and he would tell me how they pad the sick and overtime. They've got it down to a science. It never occurs to him that as a taxpayer, I'm speechless when he tells me these things.
Cleaning up their act would be a good pr move, if nothing else, and it may open more people up to an honest discussion about the sorry state affairs at the T.
Sure.
It can be a compromise. Cut some costs and raise the gas tax.
because
Because this 7.3b is NOT operating expenses.. it's deferred maintenance costs. 7.3b is to fix physical things wrong with the T (trains, rails, buses, etc), not 'burn rate' expenses.
well aware...
...its deferred maintenance as i am capable of reading. by costing costs you free up money to pay for the deferred maintenance. It is obviously more complicated than that but you can't just only raise taxes all the time as a solution to pay for things. Perhaps, Baker should hire you as the self-anointed "T expert" to resolve the situation...
Really
Maybe baker should hire you as his "clueless junebug", because you don't have much of a clue. It's far more complicated than you're making it sound. You make it sound like the T runs at a profit, and cutting costs will help with the deferred maintenance costs. Sorry I hate to tell to tell you, but the T runs always in the red. It never makes a profit (as do many transit agencies).
Sorry cutting staffing and benefits won't even make a small dent in this at all. Finding new sources of revenue, either taxes, gas tax, tolls, or something else, is what is going to have to be done. Why? because the T has been underfunded for decades, and this under-funding is what caused the 7.3b in backlog of maintenance.
I am not saying 'cost savings' won't be done to save some costs, but to think it's the 'end all, be all' to close a 7.3b gap is just a silly pipe dream to chase after.
Sorry to pop a hole in your "Anti T employee" rant you (and many people) seem to have which is what you were going for until I corrected you, then you tried to save grace with "I know how to read" because it's clear you don't and don't have a clue either.
Step down....
... off the soap box why don't you. You might fall and get hurt.
No
No soap box here.. just some 2" pumps.
Guess it's not going to get
Guess it's not going to get fixed then!
Targeted fees.
On the Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins, and the colleges and universities that benefit from the T. Especially the sports teams for all the times they get express trains.
Replace Expensive Highway Lanes
I move we stop building out interstate highway widths and instead contract them. Then, take the center two lanes of I-93 from NH and I-90 from Western MA, and I-95 from I-95 and MA-128 to I-93 in Braintree. Revamp these lanes to make high-speed, bi-directional rail lines.
Place smart stops along them.
For I-93, make terminus at N. Station, a stop at I-95 and I-93, a stop at I-495 and I-93, and a stop in Manchester, NH.
For I-90, make Terminus W. Station, a stop at I-95 and I-90, a stop at I-495 and I-90, and a stop at MA-146, US-20 and I-90.
Create major commuter stations at these locations.
While this will solve the problem for transit to and from the city, it will not solve the problems of transit in the city.
Small steps and better use of transportation funds. Reduction in carbon footprint. Less need to live or commute into the city to get the benefits of it.
What about tailing back on pay/benefits/retirement/pension?
I don't know what the figures on possible savings from this are, but perhaps someone else on the board does? I've been taking the T for around two decades and the level of service from employees is generally underwhelming. When I have discussions with T workers about their pay,bennies, etc. it seems like a sweet gig. Service industry work, but many make skilled labor wages. Retirement after 20 years and a pension? For bush league work?
Are my numbers off? I KNOW that the work output is poor (that's obvious) but maybe they don't make out quite as well as I think they do? Anyone know the skinny on this stuff?
My question back is
How much is the contribution of the T to the pension plan? Or is this something that the state covers?
11%
I cannot speak for the T, but I worked for some time at another Mass. public authority and my contribution was 11% of my pay every week (note - I did not have to pay into Social Security during that time, as people in a state pension system typically do not - I did, however, have to make contributions to Medicare). I also wish to point out that the pension system for the public authority for which I worked is fully funded thanks to prudent management (yet another reason why I favor the transfer of responsibilities to more public authorities as opposed to state agencies - at least until we can get back to some thing other than a hyper-partisan government - but I digress). I also wish to point out that I am not vested, and am therefore essentially ineligible for any kind of meaningful pension.
On a related note, I was shocked to discover that up until a couple of years ago, many (or most or all) New York state employees contributed 0% out of pocket to their pensions. In this respect I think that Mass. is in a much better position.
I had to be cautious on that one
I mentioned the 11% once for Boston and someone called me on it. The City is still making payments to make the pensions fully funded. Hence, I had to leave it as a true question.
If the T has a fully funded pension system, the rest of us can just be jealous and otherwise ignore it. Raiding pension funds is the worst thing to do.
My neighbor was able to
My neighbor was able to retire with pension in his 50's as a T employee. He actually did pretty well.
What about contracts
And dead horses.
Maybe Wisconsin or Kansas is more to your liking?
Open tolling - it's coming
Raising the gas tax makes absolutely zero sense and the "success" of open tolling on the Tobin should give you guys a glimpse into our open tolling future. I for one will not be surprised when the Commonwealth erects an open toll at the end of my driveway, thus collecting tax revenue every time I want to drive down the street. As consumers move to electric/hybrid/hydro technology gas tax revenues are going to decrease and the state will scramble to make it up anywhere they can. Screaming for a gas tax increase is a band aid, not a long term viable solution.
However, I'd rather see the state tackle tough issues like pension reform and fair tax of "non-profits" before they reach deeper into my wallet.
Ultimately, A GPS App Running In Every Vehicle — "Surge" Pricing
You would be precisely charged for the exact amount you use any publicly maintained way. This would provide a revenue stream so even local communities could keep their streets in good condition.
Similar to Uber's pricing model, tolls should increase as roadways reach their capacity to handle the traffic load. At "Bar Break Hour" you can still get a ride with Uber, but you'll have to pay more. However, if you plan your evening accordingly, you can avoid the higher charge.
By making a choice to modify your own behavior, the overall system becomes more efficient, and you reap the benefit by paying less. When enough people are willing to pay a lot more money to drive during rush hour, that would create the funds needed to add capacity — this concept can be applied to current open-road gantry technology right now!