General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

[bigeman312]

Someone needs to do a study that folks will trust that suggests what good transit SHOULD cost, but there are a huge number of variables. Even if you know what the agency cost is, people can still pay in any number of ways (e.g., fares, sales tax, special taxing districts, parking fees, gas tax, surcharges on plane tickets, Federal Income Tax), all of which they tend to account separately. Places that have top-notch transit tend to either be privatized (e.g., Tokyo, Hong Kong) or have *ahem* other sources of revenue (e.g., Dubai and China).

THIS. A study that shows "quality" transit covering x square miles, serving y people, will cost z dollars per month would be an amazing starting point for transit planning in a region.

My ideal is inspired by the 1099-HC form that MA has tacked on to tax returns. Just have a checkbox form that people fill out with their taxes to acquire a monthly pass, where they fall into 3-5 income buckets. That form can have a Rider ID code on it for each MA resident that's tied to your payment account. The Commonwealth knows how much I make each year - it's just a matter of bringing that information into the process properly.

RI and NH could add the form as well, or there could be an online system for non-residents with some other form of verification. People already have to provide proof-of-income to receive discounts - why should the burden only fall on them?

My critique is that this is an extra, unnecessary step (as opposed to just using dedicated tax revenue that is already paid disproportionately by higher-income people (which is a good thing)). It also discourages higher income people from using transit. Moving away from user-based revenue will allow mass transit to become a better economic decision for all potential users: "you're already paying for it, might as well use it!" Of course, the rebuttal to this rationale is that people shouldn't pay for a service they aren't using. To this, I would reply that everyone in the region benefits from good transit.

 

[Arlington]

The real sad point of this hike is that it comes at a time when the competition--driving (gasoline) has never been cheaper.

AT LEAST people in favor of fiscal responsibility could impose whatever tax on gas is necessary to fully fund the accelerated bridge repair program because that's what driving ACTUALLY costs.

Building bridges and then not telling people how much it costs to keep them up is as dishonest a practice as awarding pensions and not telling people how much it costs to fund them.

But in this case, we've "exposed" the T's costs and imposed them on riders, but hidden driving's costs and given it a price advantage vs transit.

 

[West]

The polity has its head in its ass because the public does.

To clarify, I understand the word "polity" to include the entire public, including those too lazy to vote. Not meaning to launch a semantics argument, just that I was trying to say the same thing as you were about how widely to spread the blame. And I'm within the polity, too, I get my share of the blame.

[Aside: Even if someone does provide it, transit is such a magnet for whining that the people using it never see it as good. This applies to London and Paris as much as DC or NY.]

Well, I'm not sure about that in some cases. I've got in-laws in Germany, many of whom really like their transit. I lived in Tokyo and there is VERY little whining about their transit, they travel a lot and they know they've got a world class system and they know Tokyo would die in ten milliseconds without it.

And my understanding is that only parts of the Tokyo system are privatized, not all of it. Regardless of whether the private or publicly owned parts, their operating budget breaks even. Government capital finances expansions. I haven't kept close tabs on transit political developments since the mid-90s so I might be out of date.

It has long been my absurd, impossible dream to hand the MBTA to the Japanese, lock stock and barrel. This would include full and complete control over the MA budget insofar as transportation tax/spend policy goes, and what the hell, we might as well hand them the highways, too (but we'd ruthlessly prevent them from laying hands on our coastlines or rivers or parks). We'd be paying more in taxes but those of us with brains would be ecstatic with the results on the T (highway improvements would be less dramatic). Neva gonna hoppen, but when I dream of what the T could be, the dreams are filtered through the Tokyo memories. I try to avoid doing this, it's terrible for my health.

 

[Equilibria]

The real sad point of this hike is that it comes at a time when the competition--driving (gasoline) has never been cheaper.

AT LEAST people in favor of fiscal responsibility could impose whatever tax on gas is necessary to fully fund the accelerated bridge repair program because that's what driving ACTUALLY costs.

Building bridges and then not telling people how much it costs to keep them up is as dishonest a practice as awarding pensions and not telling people how much it costs to fund them.

But in this case, we've "exposed" the T's costs and imposed them on riders, but hidden driving's costs and given it a price advantage vs transit.

I'd disagree pretty strongly, actually. We have absolutely not "exposed the T's costs and placed them on riders". The T's costs remain obfuscated, and riders pay far, far less of them than drivers do. If I own a car, I know how much my gas and maintenance cost, and I pay those. Beyond that, the public costs of roads (including the ABP) are enumerated clearly in the CIP, which is available online for anyone to read. It's summed up in the Globe. There's no unionized operators and pensions to worry about - it's all right there. Now, do we know exactly where all of them money comes from to pay for each of those things? Not quite, but MassDOT is required to get there soon by publishing a Transportation Asset Management Plan (TAMP) that has a Financial Plan as one of its chapters.

If I wanted to do an assessment of what good roads and bridges cost, I can do it, and I can distribute that cost out to drivers in various ways. It is not possible to do this with transit, and the MBTA has no TAMP requirement.

By the way, we also did not "get to vote on fees for drivers". While the ballot question defeated indexing the gas tax, it had nothing to do with raising it - that increase was passed by the legislature, and without a gallery full of angry screaming drivers. We debate fare increases far, far more than gas tax increases. Of course, they also happen more often.

 

[datadyne007]

To clarify, my key frustration with the increase is a mix of what is being said above. I'm frustrated that there's no larger scheme to address the budget and instead they are just raising fees for the users who are suffering on a broken system under the guise of "we need money."

Most of us would be a lot more receptive to a *MODEST* fare increase if the T/Beacon Hill would show us that they really care about solving this by introducing a plan to rid the T of the Big Dig debt burden or broader tax increases across the board in addition to the fare increases, but they don't. They don't care about fixing the problem or making everyone pay their fair share. They're trying to pinch a few extra pennies from riders, claim victory, and then stick their fingers back in their ears ignoring the larger issue at hand. Show us a plan that you're serious and we'll gladly pay more. Right now, by the T's logic, fares should probably be $100/ride because they are solely focusing on this method for raising "revenue." Revenue should be coming from many sources and not just users.

 

[Arlington]

Iriders pay far, far less of them than drivers do.

I'd love it if you could provide a sources and uses chart. In general, according to Brookings, drivers tolls, excise, tag fees, and gas taxes only amount to 60% of road budgets--the rest comes from property taxes and general revenues (the cities and towns rely heavily on property tax, for example). I'd like to know:

Total driver fees collected in MA
- Tolls
- Gas Tax
- Tag fees & Excise

Total cost of roads = Total Road Spending + Total uncovered depreciation

Total Subsidy to Drivers =
- Non-Driver (Property & Income) taxes spent
- Depreciation costs not accounted and demanded from drivers

I'm not saying that the subsidy needs to be bigger/smaller changed, but if we're going to have a transparency and users-pay as themes, transparency in depreciation and asking drivers (particularly the fast and heavy vehicles) to pay for it would be good policy (particularly given gas prices half of what they were, we can afford a 25c tax for accelerated bridge repair)

And yeah, we have construction unions that you can complain about when you're building. The driver's solution when s/he doesn't want to take note of this in the road modes is to ignore depreciation/replacement as a cost and so "not see" much of the union workforce. But it is there (and I, for one, don't make it a centerpiece of my modal comparisons for this reason).

 

[whighlander]

I'll whigh-splain you.

---------------------------

whigh --- Huh? A 9% increase in transportation costs matters to many people. You know math well enough to know that the compound effect of these fare increases is much more of a factor than one single increase. Rather, the trend is the problem. If fares increase 9% once every two years, a decade later you are looking at a 54% increase, and a 137% increase over twenty years. Don't trivialize the fare raises by simply taking one, small data point that detracts from the overall reality.

Maybe if I put this in context of driving, you will get it: Imagine gas prices increase 1% per week. Well, next week you are paying $2.09/gallon instead of $2.07. Not a big deal. Sure, just buy a different drink at Starbucks or whatever. But, in a year you are paying $3.47/gallon and in two years you are paying $5.83/gallon. None of these weeks had a major change in gas prices. But to boil the issue down to that single data point is either ignorance or purposefully disingenuous.

The fact remains, these fare increases are well out-pacing inflation, and they are taking their toll. The cost is making mass transit a less competitive option. That is bad for our city, that is bad for the environment, that is even bad for drivers. Everyone loses when our mass transit is non-competitive.

Biggeman --- Common -- once again -- there are far more violent intrusions into our wallets and bank accounts than raising the fare on the T by $0.15 per ride

Sorry == Like statistics -- percentages are useful measures up to a point -- But you need to have a baseline for comparison

Here's the relevant comparison for most T riders [not counting the CR as too many variables are involved]

You live in an inner Boston Suburb -- say Lexington for example, and you work in DTX or Financial District, or Kendall, or Seaport, or Longwood area -- all reachable by the T in 2 or 3 seat rides

Option 1) All T -- a) walk to Mass Ave and wait for the bus on Mass Ave., b) ride to Alewife c) get on the Red Line and then either walk or 1 more T ride to your place of employment -- total cost 1 monthly pass no car no parking --- for the purpose of the example we'll cost it out as if you paid with a Charlie Card -- $4.20 per day + shoe leather

Option 2) Hybrid -- drive to Alewife and park [$7 per day] then use your T pass as above -- total cost 1 monthly pass, parking at Alewife and car operations -- $11.20 per day + tires + gasoline + insurance

Option 3) -- All Car -- drive to as near as you can, park and walk to where you work -- cost of parking + cost of operation of your car in heavy traffic -- $20 per day for parking [early bird monthly] + heavy car wear and tear and shoe leather + possibly early retirement for insanity

Unless the increase in T fares increases significantly -- you are unlikely to start driving

 

[Matthew]

Fare-setting, like gas tax-setting, is a political process. It has little to do with the cost of providing the service, and more to do with what the agency thinks they can get away with charging. The negotiation process plays out: officials propose an increase, the public gets angry and/or provides feedback, and then the politicians try to figure out if they can still get re-elected after raising the price. If they think they can, it goes up, if not, then it doesn't.

 

[Equilibria]

I'd love it if you could provide a sources and uses chart. In general, according to Brookings, drivers tolls, excise, tag fees, and gas taxes only amount to 60% of road budgets--the rest comes from property taxes and general revenues (the cities and towns rely heavily on property tax, for example).

Sure. Here goes:

MBTA Operating Expense = $1.57B per year.
MBTA Debt Service = $0.45B per year.
http://www.mbta.com/uploadedfiles/About_the_T/Financials/FY16PreliminaryBudget31115.pdf

MBTA Capital Expense = $0.4B per year from the State, another ~$0.1B from the Feds for GLX = $0.5B per year.
https://www.massdot.state.ma.us/Portals/0/docs/infoCenter/docs_materials/CIP_FY16.pdf

Total MBTA Expense = $2.5B per year or so.
Total Riders in 2014 = 1.3 million
http://www.mbta.com/uploadedfiles/documents/2014 BLUEBOOK 14th Edition.pdf

Total MBTA expense per rider = $1,923
Cost of 12 link passes beginning in July: $1,014

Excluding sales tax, each T rider gets a subsidy of $900 or so per year.

_______________________________________

Now, let's look at drivers. This is calculated differently.

Total annual budget for MassDOT Highway Division (including operations) = $1.65B
https://www.massdot.state.ma.us/Portals/0/docs/infoCenter/docs_materials/CIP_FY16.pdf

Total annual gas tax revenue for MA (paid only by drivers) = $0.237B
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=401

Total annual toll revenue for MA (paid only by drivers) = $0.2B

Total Chapter 90 funds for municipal road projects (the Commonwealth basically pays for municipal road projects in most places, not property tax) = $0.2B. To account for the cities and towns that do self-fund roads, let's double it. = $0.4B.

Total revenue from fees and sales (i.e., Motor Vehicle Registration, Fines, etc.) = I don't know, but I know NH makes $0.115M per year on them and is 25% the size of MA, so I'm going to say $0.45M

So, the net annual subsidized cost of facilities for cars in MA is:

$1.65 - $0.237 - $0.2 - $0.45 + $0.4 = $1.163B per year

Number of MA registered vehicles = 3.86M
http://www.slideshare.net/ibmelanie/mass37-melanie2

So, subsidy to drivers = $300 per year.

Total cost to own a car in MA = $2,169
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/auto/car-ownership-costs-by-state.aspx

_______________________________________

$900 for T riders (or 90% of their annual cost), $300 for drivers (or 15% of their annual cost).

Now, we aren't counting outside taxes, but there are more non-T riders paying sales tax (and the taxes that support the annual top-up funding the MBTA receives from the General Fund) than there are non-drivers paying the taxes that support Chapter 90 and municipal spending.

You can say I left out "externalities", but you'd be arguing that the externalities of driving are twice the size of the base subsidy at $600 per year per driver. That's pretty steep.

 

[whighlander]

And this especially is spot on. The divergence of T constituencies is enormous. I can even see it just on the opposite sides of the D line commute every day. The folks riding outbound in the morning (and those trains are far from empty) are mostly workers at the many retail shops in the various Green Line oriented Newton town centers, or staff at Newton Wellesley Hospital, or they're heading out to one of the bus lines radiating from Riverside. I am generalizing to say this, but it is clearly true that the riders heading inbound in the morning are of higher average income. Just looking at what coats people are wearing in the winter makes this glaringly obvious.

And then of course there are the exceptions: some folks who ride in with me each day are clearly struggling. Not everyone in Newton is a high earner, there are pockets of low income folks tucked in the noisy apartments along route 9, commuting into town along with us finance types. And I'm sure a few frugal doctors commute out to the N-W hospital from Brookline. So making the fare structure fair couldn't even be done with a simple reverse commute fare differential (though the suggestions above about adjusting fares by demand times have merit).

There really are a ton of people for whom the T is the commute of last resort, and who are getting screwed financially along with getting screwed on service standards. And then there are folks like me for whom the T is an option, and a damned good one insofar as commute hassles are concerned (compared to driving / parking), and a good one financially. We're only getting screwed on service standards (and even that's not as terrible on the D any more, relative to the early aughts or the current Red Line).

I struggle with this all the time when trying to figure out how we get this polity to remove collective head from collective ass. Plenty of blame to Baker and DeLeo and so on, but they didn't fall out of the sky. This wild divergence between who uses the T and why and how it impacts their wallet is a part of it.

West -- you raise some valid points about the flows and the demographics -- I used to see it when I had to head to DC on a regular basis for down & back meetings -- I'd park at Alewife and take the first or so Red Line inbound -- nickname "the janitors express" -- most of my fellow riders at that hour spoke Spanish

Here's a suggestion which might sound as if it came from daBern or it could have been lifted from the pages of NR when WFB was still writing his column

Raise the parking rates at places like Alewife by $1.00 -- from $7.00 up to $8.00 per day. Give the suburbanites some solace -- do away with the stupid separate parking pay system -- put a Charlie-to-parking payment system in place -- ideally by just waving the Charlie on your way out -- computers can handle out all the accounting details

And while we're at it make the Charlie Open Sesame all the parking controlled by the Commonwealth and all its Alphabet Soup

Ok, we can stipulate that there are probably a handful of very entrepreneurial "salt of the earth" low income folks who drive from somewhere from their organic farm in rural Worcester County and park their very green and very frugal ancient Prius' at Alewife and then work 15 hours a day cleaning all the Uber condos at MT -- fine you find them -- and then we can give them a monthly stipend for the extra $20

 

[Matthew]

Err, I'm finding all sorts of questionable choices in those calculations.

For one thing, why would you assume there's 1.3 million riders? What's that from? It's certainly not total number of rides per year -- which is more like 300 million. Then you say that revenue is only the equivalent of 1.3 million monthly link passes purchased 12 times. That doesn't make any sense at all. Most rides are probably not with link passes -- not to mention commuter rail. Revenue is an easy figure to get from the blue book, not sure why you'd go with something else.

Now looking at your car numbers real quick: pretty sure that Chapter 90 does not cover a sizable portion of costs. Just common sense there; the Chapter 90 fund pot is always some very round, politically-determined number like $300 million, and the towns are always hankering for more. But putting that aside, the bigger issue is that you've equated registered vehicles with drivers. I don't think that's true. Not to mention out-of-state vehicles.

I sort of get what you're trying to do: look at per-user numbers. There's a bunch of subtle points I can think of right now that I don't have energy to resolve. For example: there can be more than one registered vehicle per driver. Or more than one driver per registered vehicle. What exactly are you trying to isolate here? What does it mean if you drive to work 3 days a week and ride the T 2 days a week. Are you counted as an "annual T rider" or as an "annual driver"?

BTW, externalities are pretty steep. Pollution is a biggie -- everything that we learn about the health hazards of exhaust fumes makes it even scarier and scarier. But don't forget injuries, deaths, blocked up roads, decrease in property values, lost opportunity cost (larger streets = less taxable land) and of course, all of those parking spaces required by zoning!

This seems to be a well-cited survey.

 

[whighlander]

I agree with everything posted in the last seven posts (including calling out my hyperbole, which was used for effect to show whigh that he was focusing on the wrong aspect of fare increases). This is the discussion that needs to take place in relation to fare increases!

... I believe the solution to this problem is to move away (as much as possible) from financing the MBTA through fare revenue.... Taxes are never popular, and this would be especially unpopular with those who live in the western part of the state. The solution to that, in my opinion, would be to move towards more regional funding, as opposed to statewide funding.

Biggeman -- ignoring everything but the last sentence you are onto a key point and one of my favorite axes to grind and grind.

Beginning a couple of decades ago and in many fora I began advocating the idea of Boston as the equivalent of a Greek City State circa Periclean Athens

a formally recognized Boston City-State recognizes the economic and cultural power of the Hub on a global scale and allocates to it tools to become a less authoritarian version of Singapore

Find the appropriate boundary [originally I suggested I-495] and incorporate formally all cities and towns into a Metro County -- call it Winthrop County or some other historic name

The key enabling transaction is that all the Alphabet soup contained within Withop County is to be absorbed into Winthrop County -- thus no more T, Massport, Parking Authority, Suffolk County Jail, Courts, etc.

Winthop County is granted taxing authority as permitted by US and Mass law and has an elected executive, an elected legislature, and based on my experience in Texas, an elected judiciary

All of the fringes of the counties which are mostly incorporated such as Middlesex and Norfolk would be retained as rump counties with their mostly minimal services as are in place today. Suffolk would cease to exist as it is whole contained.

Winthrop County Politics then becomes the focus of all the discussions about city versus suburb and exurb CR versus inner suburb subway can be settled at the ballot box

 

[whighlander]

Err, I'm finding all sorts of questionable choices in those calculations.

For one thing, why would you assume there's 1.3 million riders? What's that from? It's certainly not total number of rides per year -- which is more like 300 million. Then you say that revenue is only the equivalent of 1.3 million monthly link passes purchased 12 times. That doesn't make any sense at all. Most rides are probably not with link passes -- not to mention commuter rail. Revenue is an easy figure to get from the blue book, not sure why you'd go with something else.

Mathew -- Try dividing 300 by 300 you get 1 -- so 1 million daily riders, or actually 1/2 as many assuming they make round trips, is a pretty good guess at the level of usage of the T in all its many manifestations

If we make the reasonable demographic assumption that most suburban CR riders are not poor then the issue is pricing of the subway and bus rides which do disproportionately effect the poor

I suggested a couple of posts ago a practical solution of raising the rates by a substantial % for the parking garages and lots used by Subway Commuters from the suburbs -- case in point Alewife price is $7.00 then raise it to $8.00

To sweeten the pot for those paying, the process of getting into and out of the garage and paying for it can be streamlined and simplified with a vast reduction of superfluous pain and suffering

Finally, additional revenue can be squeezed out of the garages and lots through aggressive encouragement of development of the land and in somecases air rights over the garages

 

[Equilibria]

Err, I'm finding all sorts of questionable choices in those calculations.

For one thing, why would you assume there's 1.3 million riders? What's that from? It's certainly not total number of rides per year -- which is more like 300 million.

It's weekday unlinked rides, which is a pretty good approximation for riders.

Then you say that revenue is only the equivalent of 1.3 million monthly link passes purchased 12 times. That doesn't make any sense at all. Most rides are probably not with link passes -- not to mention commuter rail. Revenue is an easy figure to get from the blue book, not sure why you'd go with something else.

No. My revenue numbers come from the linked source, which is the MBTA FY16 estimated budget. All of them. My only use of the linked pass is to estimate the outlay per user. I admit that Commuter Rail riders pay significantly more, but people on subsidized passes pay significantly less.

Now looking at your car numbers real quick: pretty sure that Chapter 90 does not cover a sizable portion of costs. Just common sense there; the Chapter 90 fund pot is always some very round, politically-determined number like $300 million, and the towns are always hankering for more.

I doubled Chapter 90 to account for this, and the reason towns are always hankering for more is because that's the only way they fund their work. Towns choose what work to do to make their budget.

But putting that aside, the bigger issue is that you've equated registered vehicles with drivers. I don't think that's true. Not to mention out-of-state vehicles.

I think that's a safe assumption to make. Most vehicles are single-occupancy, particularly during commutes. Now, I could have looked at # of people who commute in SOVs, but I don't think it would have changed the numbers much. If anything, it would have made the subsidy smaller, because common sense says that more than 60% of MA residents commute in SOV, so I'm underestimating the driver count, and thereby overestimating the subsidy.

I sort of get what you're trying to do: look at per-user numbers. There's a bunch of subtle points I can think of right now that I don't have energy to resolve. For example: there can be more than one registered vehicle per driver. Or more than one driver per registered vehicle. What exactly are you trying to isolate here? What does it mean if you drive to work 3 days a week and ride the T 2 days a week. Are you counted as an "annual T rider" or as an "annual driver"?

I think these are generally issues that come out in the wash. It's a round calculation. Some of these issues will raise each subsidy, and some will lower them, but none apply to significant numbers of people.

BTW, externalities are pretty steep. Pollution is a biggie -- everything that we learn about the health hazards of exhaust fumes makes it even scarier and scarier. But don't forget injuries, deaths, blocked up roads, decrease in property values, lost opportunity cost (larger streets = less taxable land) and of course, all of those parking spaces required by zoning!

This seems to be a well-cited survey.

The survey is well-cited, and is also a kitchen sink approach - what can we blame cars for to justify additional fees?

Taking the higher-end estimate in the paper you linked of $0.022 per mile, and the 75mi/household found here:

http://willbrownsberger.com/wp-cont..._Reardon_Climate-Change-Committee-4_13_10.pdf

And an assumption of 1.5 drivers per household, we get 50mi/day = $400/year in pollution. Still $200 short of transit.

Congestion is not an externality - the costs are borne entirely by drivers. Traffic fatalities are a little bit of an externality, but again, the costs are borne mostly by drivers. Passing the costs of "US Oil Dependency" to drivers is just silly.

 

[Balerion]

Big news on the pension front:

.@bostonglobe won its lawsuit to obtain MBTA pension records. http://www.bostonglobe.com/business...BF6AGGMkXPJ34K9K7a6J/story.html?event=event25 …

https://twitter.com/TWallack/status/707649878734852096

 

[mass88]

I don't understand why this was such a hassle to get?

 

[West]

I don't understand why this was such a hassle to get?

1. This MBTA pension fund is a good old fashioned Massachusetts fiefdom, so all requests for information will be fought to the bitter end on the unassailable circular "logic" that it must remain forevermore a good old fashioned Massachusetts fiefdom.

2. MA public access laws are apparently fairly weak in comparison to other states, so while it would seem a no-brainer to a layperson that these records should be public, I've seen arguments by lawyers (can't find them now) that from a strictly legal standpoint it's not quite as much of a no-brainer as one might think it ought to be.

3. MA courts are absurdly back-logged across the board. Everything takes too long.

4. Possibly the most pressing reasons would be stuff that none of us could possibly know yet, because of point 1 being in place for so long. We'll see how long it takes for the Globe to actually extract the info, the foot-dragging will probably be epic. But eventually the forensic accountants can dig in, and no one should be surprised if we all learn that they fought the information request so hard because they knew it would lead to perp walks by multiple persons.

I see that Baker's reform plan did include an audit of the pension plan. I wonder if he wanted the Globe to win this or not? I haven't seen any reactions by him or DeLeo et al yet. I think it's all good news for anyone aside from the perps, if there actually are any. That includes the workers whose retirement funds may have been mismanaged for decades, and the taxpayers.

 

[West]

Two articles from Commonwealth Magazine on the pension board issue.

The pension board hired a forensic accounting group to do an independent review, which came back reporting a clean bill of health:

http://commonwealthmagazine.org/transportation/claims-on-t-retirement-fund-lack-merit/

Jack Sullivan argues we should think of that as an "independent" review, as it was commissioned and paid for by the reviewee, which does obviously lead to some questions of independence. Sullivan also pokes some specific holes in it:

http://commonwealthmagazine.org/transportation/all-aboard-the-transparency-train/

Sullivan projects that the pro-MBTA-pension board members of the legislature might no longer be able to hold the wolves at bay on this transparency issue, especially in light of the judge's ruling on the Globe's lawsuit. I hope he's right. Maybe there will turn out to be nothing amiss, but given that taxpayers provide support to this fund, we deserve to know for sure one way or the other. If it turns out to be a well run pension fund, then we get to celebrate something. Speaking as one cynic who suspects things are not on the up and up, I'd be happy to be proved wrong. But at this point, I would only accept being proved wrong, by someone truly independent.

 

[JohnAKeith]

Sorry if this was posted on a different thread; I didn't see it.

Article in Globe today about the GE stop in Lynn. Point seems to be to drive home that the stop is only open to GE employees (only 65 of whom board each weekday) but plenty of other information in there.

A developer is proposing to build a 1,250-unit housing complex on 65 acres of GE's old land. (A ground mitigation nightmare, no?)

The area is prime real estate for a mixed-use development - like, a huge development. It would be awesome if anything close to his proposal could be built.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/03/10/getrain/KYt0KvY1zo3dqbAfllO7oK/story.html

Of course, nothing's easy. Even though the stop is open to GE employees, to open it to the general public - even today - would require upgrades estimated to be as high as $20 million (the cost of New Balance's stop).

 

[JumboBuc]

^ There's been recent discussion (but no posts today) on this development and site over here in the "GE Gear Plant - Lynn" thread.