When roads and bridges need funding, we call it an appropriation. When the MBTA needs state funding, we call it a bailout.
House and Senate lawmakers have approved an MBTA bailout and a second bill to maintain the state’s roads and bridges.
Worse is the fact that the roads were “appropriated” $200 million, while the state forced on the MBTA deep service cuts and a 23% fare hike to get a measly $50 million.
If only the MBTA ran on four wheels and carried fewer than four people per vehicle, it would be rolling in the state’s dough.
/sigh
Cross-posted at RyansTake.net
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…that MBTA is a quasi-independent agency intended to be somewhat self-sufficient, whereas we don’t pay for roads directly for use except on the Mass Pike? I don’t mind an all of the above approach to transportation funding, but if 200 million is for roads and 50 million is for the T doesn’t that make it a 4/5 road bill rather than a 1/4 road bill that your title suggests?
Take for example a new station a town that wants a new T stop. Is it really ‘just’ a “T” project? Is it an urban renewal / economic development project? Is it roadway congestion mitigation project? Isn’t it all three?
Couldn’t it be all three? As such, the idea that the T should take on all the costs is stupid. Dollars from many different sources should go into such a project, including highway money.
They expect the T to be semi-self sufficient…… unfortunately, they haven’t given them the means to be so. So my point stands
BTW: a lot of the appropriations for roads and bridges is going directly to cities and towns, and one could make the argument that they’re just as ‘quasi-independent’ as the MBTA, if not more so. We don’t expect them to be able to self-fund, it’s probably not a good idea that we expect the MBTA to be able to do so, either.