…and that’s the whole point, isn’t it?
Wealthy employers (and our governor) can’t be bothered with mass transit and all the rest that are everyday problems for hoi polloi. Mass transit is for those people who were not successful enough to afford other means of travel. If there is a problem with mass transit, it is their problem, no one else’s. Of course, the good governor and our elected officials will do all they can for those people but in the end, those people need to make arrangements, allow more time for commuting, perhaps change their schedule, maybe pick up a gig job to pay for added costs of more efficient transportation.
But what if it was different? What if, as an employer, I was on the hook, so to speak, for any additional commuting time accrued by my employees who live, by all normal standards, thirty minutes away but because of poorly maintained trains, frozen tracks, or other such manageable problems, now take forty five minutes to commute? That’s an extra thirty minutes a day, two and a half hours each week. What if I, as their employer must now either pay them time and a half in overtime for the extra time they now must give up because of a poor mass transit system, or do I instead pay them forty hours of labor even though they are only laboring for me for thirty seven and a half hours?
What if I suffered instead of them?
My hunch is that if this were the case, the Greater Boston Area would have World Class Mass Transit, not to mention a highway and transportation infrastructure that was the envy of the planet.
To those who say that such a policy is not practicable, not traceable, not possible, let me simply remind you that in an age with GPS, AI, and virtually all of us carrying a device, this is completely doable.
The only thing we lack at this time is the collective voice to make it so.
Let’s start now.
And here I was thinking MASS transit was for everyone, rather than just “those people”
If our state truly believed it we would be raising taxes on the wealthiest incomes to fund free buses and a better T instead of raising the fares while the service falls apart. This is a huge tax increase on the poor, the disabled, immigrants, and senior citizens.
Sadly, those are the key demos taking public transit. Whether teaching in Roxbury or Revere, I always see “those people” on the bus and few folks my age or income. We have an app that can deliver a point to point pickup definitely quicker than the T and almost as cheaply. Why bother with the T if you don’t have to?
Honestly the second time I missed my first period class I started taking an Uber from home on days when my wife had the car. spending $10-$15 more was worth it to be on time and sleep in an extra hour. Kenmore to Revere high is 20 minutes tops via car and 60-90 minutes depending on the freakin buses and blue line transfers. When I lived in Salem it could take up to two hours to get into Boston on days I opted for the bus to Wonderland over the commuter rail.
Thanks to high housing costs we’re moving to a suburb in a month and a half and I already got a second car for my summer job and next year. You want me to take the T it has to work, and opting out is a luxury the middle class is increasingly able to do. Which turns the T into another program we can kill by a thousand cuts and refuse to pay taxes to fix. I honestly don’t see it getting any better unless Kendall Square and the Seaport step up like New Balance did and pay to fix it.
These things are linked too. You’d think Cambridge, Somerville, and Brookline could pitch in a little more of their property taxes to fix their lines. Those are the only affluent areas really on the mass transit portion of the T anymore.
I also don’t want to throw down half a million dollars for a condo I have to delead in Everett, Revere, Eastie, or Chelsea just to be transit adjacent on behalf of the climate. Malden and Medford will be totally out of my price range by the time I get my savings in order.
I want a big dog, a yard, and access to open space so I’ll probably end up buying somewhere up 93, 128, or 95. Hallowing out the urban middle class has policy ramifications up and down the line from schooling to transit to healthcare. Something a whole lot of self professed liberals in this state did little to nothing to stop.