The MBTA has announced they’re proposing to hike fares again in the near future. Today, there was a woman handing out leaflets and explaining to people why they should fight the fare increase. I only heard part of her discussions, but she basically had two points: 1) Her minimum wage job hasn’t given her a pay raise since the last fare increase so she can’t afford a hike in T fares, and 2) the MBTA employees make too much money.
I intentionally stayed away from her conversations because I knew I’d get myself in trouble. First of all, this girl couldn’t have been more than 18 or so.
If you’ve been at the same job for two years without a pay increase and you’re making minimum wage, it’s time for you to move on and get a better job. If you’re not stupid, people will hire you. If you’re not lazy, they will promote you and/or increase your pay rate. Conclusion: This girl is lazy and/or stupid.
Second, this girl wants the T employees to take a pay cut so she doesn’t have to pay a higher fare. MBTA employees are unionized employees of a government authority. If there is one truth in life, it’s that union workers in a government agency/authority don’t take pay cuts. Ever.
Here is the sad truth: The MBTA will get their money. It will either come in the form of a fare increase, from taxes, or a combination of the two. If the T isn’t permitted to hike fares, they will claim to be broke and threaten to start cutting services. The legislature will start to make noise about the T needing to cut costs. Then the T will publish a “proposed” new schedule that will drastically cut service to some of the places where transit service is the most needed, causing a huge public outcry, and the legislature will give them the money. It’s a big game of chicken. And the T will win because nobody will want to cut service to Dorchester and Roxbury.
Here is my question: If the T gets more money from me (whether via taxes or increased fares) what’s in it for me? Will service improve? Will trains and buses run on time?
But the T does need to cut some costs. Here is a way to cut some serious costs over time: standardization. Right now, the red, blue, and orange lines all run on the same type of track. However, none of the cars are compatible with the other lines because nothing is standardized. All three lines use a third rail, but for reasons I don’t understand, the rails are somehow different for each line. Why can’t they do a capital improvement project over 20 years to standardize equipment and tracks? This would allow them to consolidate several maintenance facilities and parts inventories. Fewer parts would be needed, and fewer workers would be needed. Will this ever happen? I doubt it. Sadly, the T could learn something from US Airways about the benefits of standardizing the fleet.
If the T needs to increase revenue, there is another way to do this without raising fares, and that’s to get more people to ride the system. That’s going to require making the system safe and reliable.
The T also needs to get a better grip on its capacity planning. Today, I was on the blue line outbound, and after stopping at Maverick, the car was almost completely empty. That means more people are getting on at Maverick and then the cars are running at lower capacity from Airport to Wonderland. Wouldn’t it make sense to have some cars just do a Airport-Maverick-Aquarium-State-Gov’t Center run and then loop back around using the Orient Heights rail yard to turn around? I’m not a master at transit planning, but I bet that would relieve some of the stress on the system.
But what do I know? I’m just a lowly T passenger.