On Boston MBTA board seat, fears of déjà-vu
Lost in last-minute negotiations last year, board composition changes on the block again
IN THE LAND of late budgets and last-minute negotiations, even having both legislative chambers and the governor on board isn’t a guarantee that a provision makes it through to the other side. For the second year in a row, Boston representation on the MBTA board hangs in the balance.
“We’ve been here before,” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said on WBUR’s “Radio Boston” as the budget cleared the state House and Senate this week.
In it, a change to the MBTA board of directors would include new posts: one person appointed by the mayor of Boston and one municipal official representing the MBTA service area. The seven-member board is mostly composed of gubernatorial appointees, with no direct input from Boston, the state’s largest city, which depends heavily on a functioning T.
“Transportation access is make or break for our city, in every single neighborhood, as we’re looking to grow and bring new industries there and make sure that people are connected to everything that they need in their daily lives,” Wu said. “So our goal is to be a city that’s the best place in the country for families. We have to have a direct say in how our transportation system is operating.”
“Our residents and workers are suffering under the ongoing failures of the MBTA,” he wrote in a Medium post. “We deserve better and Boston deserves to have a role in the future of the MBTA. Right now we don’t even have a seat on the Board. We’ve been waiting too long for the train and for a better system, and we can’t wait any longer.”
Boston would, in fact, have longer to wait. After multiple tilts at the windmill, similar language made it through the House and Senate last year, charting its way to then-Gov. Baker’s desk.
He sent the legislation back with an amendment – the board could include a City of Boston employee with transportation operations experience, selected by the governor from a list of three people submitted by the mayor of Boston. Municipalities, he concluded, were already served by the current board composition.
“I appreciate the desire of municipalities that rely on the MBTA to be involved in its management and, under the current structure, municipalities do have a seat on the board via the appointee from the MBTA’s Advisory Board,” Baker said in a letter to lawmakers at the time. “Nevertheless, Boston is the center of the MBTA as well as the largest city and economic hub in the Commonwealth, and I think there is great value in including Boston in the ongoing management of the MBTA.”
The governor’s change was accepted by the House but got lost in the shuffle in the Senate as the hours ticked down on late-night negotiating on the final day of session. It never made it back to the governor’s desk.
“That’s where things kind of unraveled a little bit,” Wu told “Radio Boston” host Tiziana Dearing. “So I’m not going to count any of those final steps as a given. I’m incredibly grateful to the House for initiating this in their budget, the Senate for agreeing to it in the negotiations and again, fingers crossed, in this last stretch.”
The MassINC Polling Group asked voters in late 2022 about possible changes to the MBTA board. Statewide, 83 percent of voters supported giving Boston and other surrounding communities seats on the MBTA board, and 62 percent also supported asking these communities to contribute more to the T’s budget.
“Gov. Healey supports adding a Boston seat on the MBTA Board,” spokesperson Karissa Hand said on Tuesday. “Our administration is reviewing the budget.”