In a July 6 e-mail to Transportation Secretary James A. Aloisi Jr., Grabauskas detailed a plan to delay a fare increase until January 2011, writing that that there would probably be enough new state sales tax revenue and federal stimulus money to “spare our customers, many of whom are poor and transit dependent, a fare increase for an additional year, during the worst economic climate in 80 years.’’
Aloisi wrote back the same day and advocated a more immediate fare increase, for January 2010.
“Thanks Dan,’’ Aloisi wrote. “My reaction is that there are too many ‘ifs’ or other risks in the scenario you outline – too many things have to go right . . . My objective here is to set the MBTA on a much stronger financial footing, and moving forward on the fare increase now seems to me to be the best and most certain way to accomplish that for the next three fiscal years.’’
And so now Aloisi grants the big reprieve from a fare increase?
Are you kidding me?
This is nuts. I cannot imagine how Aloisi can spin his way out of this one, but he better start explaining. I mean, even as manipulation, this is really, really low quality.
(And as Outraged Lib says, it wasn't even necessary as a precipitating factor for Grabauskas' ouster — that would be the bad service, and to my mind, the NTSB's incredulous reaction to the way we've been doing things here.)
…you just wind up with more bodies.
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p>Here’s the problem: If the MBTA had come out and said, the sales tax hike took care of the immediate problem, but we still need a small hike to start to a)ratchet down our debt load, or b)tackle the $2 billion in deferred maintenance, it may have been OK. People still would have groused, but I don’t neccesarily think asking for a small fare hike every couple of years is a terrible thing. (Prices on commodities always go up. Anyone checked their cable bill recently? Or tried to buy some food?)
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p>But the Patrick Administration has this terrific ability to turn a molehill into a mountain. It’s like they can’t not play political games. The hallmark of this administration won’t be the 5 pages of legislative accomplishments but the ham-handed way they’ve handled almost everything.
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p>And when will they learn that Emails are forever?!?!
Especially when you hose the guy you sent them to.
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p>Aloisi has to go. Patrick has to say he wasn’t told about this exchange, which means he only looks like a fool instead of a liar.
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p>I’ve been taking the T for over a decade now. When I started a Zone 9 pass was 100 dollars. Now a zone 8 pass (they nixed the zone 9) is 250 dollars. That’s an average increase of what I pay of about 10 percent per year. It’s even greater if you factor in the previous price of a zone 8. That’s not a small fare hike.
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p>Not always. Sometimes they go down. Ref petroleum for an example. Housing prices and milk are other examples.
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Fewer than 10 years ago my round trip cost from my house to the stores a 1.5 miles down the street was $1.00. Now it’s $3.40.
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p>Mean time cars are about $3500 less than they were last week if you turn in a P.O.S. Go figure.
The truth is the cost of running the commuter rail system is significantly higher than that of operating the Red/Blue/Green/Orange line. As the commuter rail system expanded in recent years, the MBTA has shifted more of the actual cost onto the riders.
I’ve always liked Grabauskas and he was in an incredibly difficult job. I think too many people have an unthinking anti-T mentality — where anecdotal evidence, some real failures, and long-term labor and economic stuff beyond easy fixes pile up into this belief that T management is always venal and stupid. So no one wanted to stand up for him, even though the guy sticking the knife in was a proven self-dealer and operator.
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p>I wonder whether Deval is one of those leaders who is not built to do the Machiavellian stuff, so when he finds he has to do it, he goes overboard or gives too much power to his capos.
time to clean shop. They both should be fired. After this latest email revelation from Aloisi (who seems to be behind a lot of these email revelations), I wish I could burn his stint from memory. It’s stuff like this that could cost Patrick his job.