Don’t make Sen. Steven Baddour angry. You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry. “It’s going to get a lot uglier. The Legislature is going to get a lot more aggressive,” said Baddour.
Now the Methuen Democrat isn’t exactly the Incredible Hulk. But the Senate chairman of the Joint Committee on Transportation made it crystal clear to Transportation Secretary Bernard Cohen at Tuesday’s hearing, that he’s had quite enough, thank you, of the Patrick administration’s ducking and weaving on MassTrans.
For those who had given the idea up for dead, MassTrans is the Patrick administration’s much-needed and long-delayed reform proposal that includes bringing the most of the state’s transportation agencies under one roof. The specifics, or rather the lack of them, got renewed attention at the hearing.
Cohen was in trouble even before he sat down. Unsuccessful in finding out anything about MassTrans through usual channels, Baddour and the House co-chairman Joseph Wagner, a Chicopee Democrat, finally resorted to a formal request to the Executive Office of Transportation for all documents relating to MassTrans. They got thousands of pages of material. On the night before the hearing.
Baddour wasn’t amused. “All the documents we received last night have been sitting on someone’s desk for a long time,” he said.
What the Patrick administration has managed to do on Beacon Hill quite remarkable.
It’s been more than a year since a draft MassTrans working paper started circulating in Executive Office of Transportation. Instead, rather than deliver on a comprehensive transportation reform package (or come up with a few good reasons why they don’t have one), the administration has managed to rile up lawmakers to the point where the Legislature might just carry through on a threat to fiddle with the controversial Massachusetts Turnpike Authority toll increase plan.
That is, unless the administration finally comes up a framework that includes not just the turnpike authority, but the MBTA and MassHighway, as well as Massport.
Cohen made matters worse by calling the turnpike toll increase the “only first step” in Gov. Deval Patrick’s transportation plan. “If we had a comprehensive plan months ago, we wouldn’t have this problem,” argued Baddour. “I hate to have the bailout of the Turnpike on the backs of the taxpayers.”
Sen. Karen Spilka, a member of the “mad as hell and not going to take toll increases anymore” MetroWest legislative caucus, was even more blunt.
“A phase one plan will not work,” the Ashland Democrat said.
Under this withering fire, Cohen had even less to say about MassTrans than usual. “We are trying to be smart about the complexities,” he said, hinting that there are still legal, political, and financial issues holding up the plan.
As the Patrick administration transportation policies continue to implode, lawmakers aren’t any closer to guessing what MassTrans is than they were a few months ago. Or last January, when the governor mentioned a “concept” called MassTrans in his 2008 State of the State Address.