Beacon Hill’s MBTA fix: Let them ride the T
By 
Nonplussed by the plight of the poor, a French aristocrat once said “let them eat cake.” With hundreds of thousands of people struggling during the MBTA’s winter crisis, Massachusetts legislative leaders have come up with similar rejoinder:
Let them ride the T.
Senate President Stan Rosenberg, the Amherst Democrat, is receptive to greater investment in the MBTA, but he seems uncertain about how to bring that about, given the public’s reluctance to embrace higher fares and/or taxes. In the meantime, he says, the T will roll on once the storms cease and the snow melts.
“The first thing that’s going to happen is it’s going to stop snowing and the sun is going to come out and we’re going to go back to where we were a few months ago,” Rosenberg said at a Tuesday media availability. “Which is not where we want to be, but it’s going to be a functioning system.”
There are several factors undergirding legislative inertia about the T. Last November’s gas tax indexing repeal is Exhibit A for House Speaker Robert DeLeo, who has pledged no new taxes. Massachusetts voters have spoken: they do not want to see gas taxes indexed to inflation even if those taxes go into a transportation lockbox to pay for much needed maintenance.
The organizations that have proposed fixes currently have little political mojo. Both DeLeo and Sen. Thomas McGee, the Lynn Democrat who co-chairs the Transportation Committee, have thrown cold water on the Pioneer Institute’s audacious proposal to put the MBTA into receivership. Having the Boston Herald, The Patriot Ledger, and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette editorial boards adding to a slowly growing takeover chorus helps Pioneer’s case. But their plan would need some serious backing from Bay State business leaders, among others, before the solons of Beacon Hill will sit up and take notice.
Absorbing some portion of the T’s massive debt is another way forward. But that proposal has been floated at various junctures over the past decade and has never gotten any serious traction on Beacon Hill.
However, the biggest obstacle to dealing head-on with the MBTA crisis is not Beacon Hill’s “reform before revenue” mindset. It is the expansion reflex that has solidified into a ‘you got yours, now we get ours’ paradigm.
The South Coast commuter rail project continues to inch forward, despite concerns that have been magnified by the T’s current woes that the $2 billion expansion project may be ill-advised and unaffordable.
The 2014 transportation bond bill, which contains state lawmakers’ latest wish list of rail projects, not only includes the controversial Fall River/New Bedford-to-Boston plan, but two western Massachusetts projects, a Springfield-to-Worcester rail link and a Pittsfield-to-New York City line.
Bringing the MBTA up to modern standards requires billions, money that other regions of the state aren’t willing to give up to divert to Big Dig Boston. Again.
In other words, let them ride the T.
–GABRIELLE GURLEY
BEACON HILL
Senate President Stanley Rosenberg is staking out a different path on the MBTA from Gov. Charlie Baker and House Speaker Robert DeLeo, CommonWealth reports.
The Herald reports that Baker and his staff are moving behind the scenes to take control of the T, including prodding current MassDOT board members to let the governor select a new general manager to replace outgoing T honcho Beverly Scott.
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
A local developer is looking to put a crematorium and cemetery on 38 acres of land he owns in Brockton, which, like many communities, is running out of burial lots.
Two city lawyers fired by new Fall River Mayor Sam Sutter a week after he took office sent notice they are looking to sue the city for violating their contracts, which call for a 90-day notice for termination or a buyout.
A taxpayers group in Westport claims it has uncovered evidence that hundreds of high-end properties in the town have been underassessed, a claim town officials dispute.
WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL
A court rules against President Obama on immigration, but he vows to fight on in the courts and in Congress, the Los Angeles Times reports.
A Texas judge rules the state’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, Time reports.
ELECTIONS
Hillary Clinton invited Sen. Elizabeth Warren to a private meeting without aides in December at the former secretary of state’s Washington home to cultivate a relationship with the woman favored by many in the party’s left wing.
Maria Giesta, a longtime aide and former chief of staff to now-retired congressman Barney Frank, announced she plans to run for mayor in New Bedford.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
Former state treasurer Steve Grossman will take the helm at the Boston nonprofit Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, which aims to help city businesses grow.
EDUCATION
Boston College is facing a state and federal inquiry over its possible violation of accessibility laws. It’s the only college in the state and one of only 23 nationally facing such scrutiny, according to the US Department of Education.
HEALTH CARE
Partners HealthCare has agreed to end its pursuit of South Shore Hospital to avoid an antitrust suit. It is also putting the acquisition of two North Shore hospitals owned by Hallmark Health on pause,CommonWealth reports.
President Obama said at least 11.4 million people either bought private insurance or renewed their coverage under the Affordable Care Act during the open enrollment period which ended Sunday.
The abrupt closure by Boston officials of the bridge to Long Island has been a nightmare for two addiction treatment programs, both of which have been denied claims they filed on insurance policies meant to protect them against “business interruption.”
Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch has hired an outside counsel to try to take back the property of the Quincy Medical Center, which was closed by Steward Health Care at the end of last year.
TRANSPORTATION
Not surprisingly, given the problems of late, a new poll indicates the percentage of Boston residents who think the MBTA is in poor condition has jumped from 11 percent in January to 39 percent in February, WBUR reports.
Commuters are losing faith in the transit system, the Lynn Item reports. Canceled trains and long delays leave many commuters feeling helpless, the Salem News reports.
Worcester’s airport is slated for $30 million in improvements, the Telegram & Gazette reports.
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
Officials from Kinder Morgan, a company trying to build a new natural gas pipeline into the region, held an information meeting with residents of Andover, the Eagle-Tribune reports.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Jurors were shown surveillance video that captured Aaron Hernandez dismantling his cell phone hours after the former Patriots player is alleged by prosecutors to have killed 27-year-old Odin Lloyd.