The fact of the matter is that no one, not drivers and not transit riders, has ever paid enough for transportation - that goes back to fare restrictions on private transit companies driving them out of business all the way back in the 1930s. The system is crumbling because of it, and somehow the public has to be shocked into actually altering their mindset instead of simply blaming the "incompetent" agencies.
Agreed. This Commonwealth, and by that I mean the citizenry in its entirety, has spent decades digging itself into a deep hole on transportation. The deep dysfunctions of our government and agencies are a reflection of this, more than a cause (though there is a degree of chicken / egg feedback loop to it).
While I am open to the argument that a hard Olympics deadline might give us the collective kick in the ass needed to focus our collective minds, I am fairly pessimistic. I'm willing to have my mind changed, but I'm pessimistic. These epic failures during snowstorms are probably a better prod to getting our act together than any Olympics will be. I mean that in the sense of how historic preservationists often need a good heartbreaking demolition to really gain some political traction (i.e., destruction of Penn Station in NYC back in the day).
Most of the skeptics I've heard from in recent days have been fully cognizant of the fact that the Olympics we're bidding on will be in the summer. It's not blizzards the skeptics I hear from worry about. It's far deeper than just a blizzard or two, or the details of the Olympics bid as they evolve. It's the sense that we've let things slip so radically that we need root and branch reform. And the sense that the transit upgrades "already in the pipeline" being relied on by the Olympics bid will never even come close. And really, think about what the bid committee is saying: “we don’t need to really do anything different on transit spending, because the stuff already in the pipeline will get us prepared.” They’re saying the Commonwealth is already on the path to have an Olympics-worthy transit system by 2024, we just need to be sure we stick to the pipeline of work and really get it done by 2024. I sure as hell don’t believe that’s a sufficient pipeline of work to get us where we need to be for the sake of a good transit system (with or without the Olympics).
So my skepticism, and what I’ve heard from others even before these storms, is “what about an Olympics deadline will really make our deep-seated dysfunctions disappear?” Will we REALLY be so adverse to embarrassment on a world stage that we’ll sort ourselves out? Especially since the “sorting out” gets into really deep structural political conflicts between metro-Boston and the rest of the state. Those conflicts have been glaringly obvious for decades, and we annually fail to fix them for our own selves. So we’re going to fix them for the Olympics? Really?
If the answer were provably “yes” I would be happy to pay my share of taxes on $5B of Olympics overruns on white elephants, they’d be worth every penny if they really prompted us to do the deep sorting out we need and do the catching up on capital improvements and matching revenues to operating expenses.
