Why should I care?
Taken for a ride

Next year the MBTA is raising its fares—again. So will riders be getting anything more for their money?

Amanda Patterson and Jonathan Schwab
03/15/2006

Riders of Boston’s MBTA let out a collective groan last month when The Boston Globe reported on next year’s fare increase; according to the paper, charges were projected to rise to $1.55 for the train and $1.15 for the bus. (Up from $1.25 and .90 respectively.)

But not so fast, says the T’s Joe Pesaturo—he says The Boston Globe took its figures from a recent estimate that a 25 percent fare increase is needed to keep all of the trains and buses running next year, and not from any official pronouncement on fares. “We cautioned them not to just take the existing fare and multiply by .25, but sure enough they went ahead and did it,” Pesaturo said. “But that’s just not right. We are still in the process of working out those details.”

Many factors will go into establishing the 2007 rates. Unfortunately for T riders, improving service isn’t one of them. Top on the list is paying down the agency’s staggering $8.1 billion debt, at the same time as maintaining the current level of service. “If you look around the country most major transit agencies have raised fares and cut service,” notes Pesaturo.

The train might not come any sooner, or be less crowded, but there is a least one slight silver lining: proposed new bus-to-train transfers. The Riders Oversight Committee (ROC)—an advisory committee made up of members of the public, transportation advocacy groups, and MBTA staff members—made a formal proposal last week to restructure fares so that riders can transfer from buses to trains and pay only the difference in price. Transfer from trains to buses would be free. The committee also proposed a uniform fare rate for the whole system instead of the current spreadsheet’s worth of variable fares and exit fees.

Sadly, fare restructuring has a price too. The new fares, which would level the playing field, would be $1.75 for the train and $1.25 for the bus, said Carey Russell of The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), a member of the ROC.

But lest you get your knickers knotted prematurely, the T has plans to sell Charlie Cards, pre-paid cards with a discounted price, that would buy a certain number of rides. With the proposed 25 percent discount, subway rides would cost $1.30 and buses 95 cents—or just about what they do now.

It would still be possible to ride without a card. In fact, Russell says, the ROC is counting on riders who don’t buy them to subsidize those who do. She also says some of the expense will be recouped by increased parking rates at MBTA lots. The proposal needs to be reviewed and approved by the MBTA’s Board of Directors, but Pesaturo says that they take the proposal “very seriously.” And the fare increase will not be determined until fare restructuring is in place.

“The fare structure will be the foundation on which the fare increase is built,” Pesaturo says.

A Skeptical Ridership

So will riders accept paying more for the T? Lee Matsueda of the T Rider’s Union, a transportation advocacy group based in Roxbury, says that the group’s members are concerned. “This is going to hit us hard,” he says. “The union has actively been working against the fare increase.” Matsueda says members’ reactions have ranged from resignation to frustration in the face of the third fare increase in five years—with no improvement in service for Roxbury and Dorchester. “People would pay a little bit more if there was something they got back in return,” he says.

Riders from other neighborhoods are similarly skeptical. Cara King of Newton would pay less under the new plan. It sounds like a good deal for her, she says, but is concerned that people who ride short distances would be paying more. “It would be worth it if they used [the money] to fix it and clean it up. They should make more of it handicap-accessible,” King says.

King's neighbor in Newton, Katherine Murphy, however, isn’t bothered by the idea of paying more to ride the train. “Even with fare increases, compared to other cities, we are on the low end. I don’t think it’s unfair to increase it,” she says. Alexis Overocker, an Emerson College student, says she’ll pay the higher fare because she doesn’t have a choice. She says that having a T pass softens the blow. “If I was paying per ride, the 30 cents would probably affect me more, because I use the T a lot,” she says.

Echoing the sentiments of riders, the Conservation Law Foundation’s Russell is disappointed that the T is only holding the line on existing service. “We would like to see real service improvements,” she says. The CLF is currently suing the MBTA to force the agency to build new subway and commuter rail lines it agreed to more than a decade ago to compensate for traffic congestion and pollution caused by the Big Dig. “It doesn’t make sense to be asking the T riders to pay more when [the MBTA] is not yet living up to its promises,” Russell says.

To be fair, the T has had a streak of bad luck since its funding structure was changed five years ago. Then state government stopped paying its bills and instead gave the agency 20 per cent of Massachusetts’ 5 cent sales tax, along with money from a fee levied on the 175 cities and towns served by the MBTA. Based on the tax revenue generated in the years before “Forward Funding,” as it is called, the MBTA should have been fine.

But it wasn’t fine, says Paul Regan of the MBTA advisory board. The recession that started early in the decade decimated consumer spending, leaving the T to swallow its operating costs and all improvement expenses. As of now, 35 percent of all revenue generated by the T goes to pay its debt, leaving the agency to tighten its belt wherever possible.

“The economy went soft,” Regan says. “You can’t look at it and say they mismanaged this or that. They just got killed. It was supposed to be funded at a level that was much higher. It’s a pretty lean organization at this point and nobody wants to see a fare increase, but I don’t know where else that money is going to come from.”

Even so, Jeremy Marin of the Sierra Club is concerned that raising rates will lead to lower ridership—and therefore less revenue. “We are concerned that this will lead to a downward spiral,” Marin says. He would like to see the government kick more into the pot to bail out the T’s runaway train. “The state and the federal government are not putting in enough to maintain a quality system.”

A year ago, Governor Romney laid out a plan that, in part, promised to fund all T expansion projects so that the struggling MBTA could focus on maintaining and repairing the existing system. There is no sign of that money, and Marin is justifiably concerned that the promise lacks legislative muscle.

“The governor has said they are going to pay for all sorts of things for the MBTA, but he is leaving in a couple of months. I have not heard from any one that there is going to be any legislation enacted that would support the governor’s proposal.”

Out in the street, T riders are realistic. The only big change coming soon is a fare increase. The question is, will it still be worth it to ride the T? Brighton resident Steve Morrison hits the nail on the head. “I don’t think the issue is the fare structure,” Morrison says. “It’s how well they use the fare. I just hope they use the extra to serve the public.”

Amanda Patterson can be reached at apatterson@theoysteronline.com

Jonathan Schwab can be reached at jschwab@theoysteronline.com

03/15/2006   |   Permalink