MBTA fare hike: too bad, so sad
By 
When it comes to the MBTA, squeaky wheels don’t get the grease. The Boston Globe reports that the MassDOT board of directors plans to increase fares Wednesday despite reams of complaints collected from commuters about the hike.
Though the MBTA is obligated to hold public meetings to hear T riders out, the system’s mammoth debt issues mean the board will likely vote the hike through nonetheless.
Boston.com’s attempt to stoke up outrage about the increase does not change the facts: The MBTA will cycle through public meetings, rider protests, and fare increases for the foreseeable future.
They devised this response to the transit system’s woes as part of the 2013 transportation finance package: “The authority shall not increase fares at intervals of less than 24 months or at an annual rate greater than 5 per cent.”
Unwilling to drum up significant revenues elsewhere, legislators decided the burden must pass to riders in the form of small, predictable fare increases. Small increases, so the reasoning goes, are better than less frequent but hefty hikes.
As transportation officials noted in 2012, “MassDOT could enact a series of modest, regular increases to transportation fares, fees, and tolls to keep pace with the cost of inflation. MBTA fares could increase 5% every two years beginning in FY 2015…”
Which is exactly what the MBTA is doing.
MBTA officials go to great pains to point out that the authority has little choice in the matter, publishing loads of data explaining why fares have to go up.
MBTA rider complaints about fare increases have never had much of an effect. In 2012, fares jumped 23 percent in order to plug a $160 million deficit despite a tremendous public outcry.
Students and people who rely on The Ride, the T’s paratransit service, have been the only groups that have succeeded in persuading the MBTA to reduce their fares, and only then by a modest amount.
–GABRIELLE GURLEY
BEACON HILL
The Legislature is one the verge of revamping the state’s elections laws as a conference committee approved a compromise measure that would allow early voting in elections and let 16- and 17-year-olds pre-register to vote.
More money is being eyed for charter school reimbursements to cities and towns, the State House News Service reports.
The Senate passes legislation expanding access to substance abuse treatment, the State House News Service reports.
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
Lynn Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy, pushing for a big increase in her $82,500 salary, says her pay places her 446th among city workers, the Item reports.
A $2.75 million Proposition 2 ½ override passes in Ipswich, the Salem News reports.
The Odd Fellows Home in Worcester is being torn down, but not before much of the historic old wood used to build the structure is rescued, the Telegram & Gazette reports.
Somerville aldermen worry that Partners Healthcare‘s impending move to Assembly Square will dampen the neighborhood’s tax rolls, which are needed to repay infrastructure bonds.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
More controversy over the death penalty: Attorneys for a mentally disabled man scheduled to be executed in Texas find that the state withheld evidence of the man’s IQ tests.
ELECTIONS
Forget Barack Obama and Elizabeth Warren: A real socialist, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, may actually run for president.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
A Salem businessman is seeking to open a business selling guns by appointment, the Salem News reports.
Federal mortgage lenders and investors back off post-housing bust promises to tighten lending standards.
EDUCATION
The Justice Department reached an agreement with Sallie Mae in which the education loan giant will pay $100 million in penalties and restitution to settle charges it engaged in “unfair and deceptive” loan practices including overcharging military members on interest and filing default actions against active members.
A Williams College student from Boston says she was assaulted on campus and she, not her alleged assailant, had to leave school, WBUR reports.
Greater Boston takes a look at the clash between religion and academic freedom in the wake of the furor over the canceled Black Mass at Harvard.
A school finance law is approved in Kansas that is expected to funnel more money to schools while eliminating mandatory due process hearings required before an experienced teacher can be fired, the Witchita Eagle reports.
Preschool works for kids, if they actually go to preschool, that is.
HEALTH CARE
National Review takes a deeper look at the results of a study that attributes a decline in the number of preventable deaths to Romneycare in Massachusetts and concludes Medicaid could never accomplish the same thing.
TRANSPORTATION
Four people were injured when an MBTA bus in Randolph veered off the road and crashed into a utility pole.
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
Dog flu turns up in Massachusetts.
The state has announced a new incentive program for solar farms if they are built on contaminated land and additional energy credits if the power that is produced is used to help clean-up the toxins.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
A woman described by a federal prosecutor as the girlfriend of Sen. Mark Montigny received the highest score in a job interview for a Probation job in 2008 even though one of the interviewers said she was “woefully inadequate as far as her qualifications,” CommonWealth reports.
A Probation employee testifies he gave two, cash donations of $100 to Rep. Thomas Petrolati through his superiors at the agency, but state law bars cash donations above $50 and the contributions themselves don’t show up in Petrolati’s campaign finance documents, CommonWealth reports.
The state’s highest court overturned a Norton man’s conviction of attempted rape of a child, saying Michael Buswell did not come close enough to having sex with the fictional 13-year-old girl who was created online by the Plymouth County sheriff department.
MEDIA
A Harry Potter spinoff is slated for a 2016 release, Time reports.