Maybe the T can use some of that stimulus money to finish Ashmont station

I think this came up before a few months ago, and the short version was that it looks like using the money to keep fares down would be somehow impermissible because it wouldn't directly stimulate the economy by putting new money in the hands of people, it would merely let T users keep more of the money they already have.

My question would be less about the fare hike (I assume that's going to be shoved down our craws no matter what), and more about using this for non-capital projects that still would infuse the money into the local economy via wages. Like maybe hire some mechanics to take care of the gigantic deferred maintenance backlog if we could do that. I know maintaining things before they break is antithetical to the MBTA way of doing things, but I feel like taking those sorts of crazy risks with this money.