I support the project and share Jim's frustration. Notwithstanding that, I have a couple of issues.
First, there's no acknowledgement here of what the arguments against building the connector before 2030 might be. I don't know what they are or if they're reasonable, but Poftak should be given the opportunity to explain himself, hopefully before the FMCB this afternoon (the Monday morning publication of this piece was of course no accident). You can't rail against "the guardians of the status quo" without identifying why anyone would guard the status quo. Steve Poftak wants a successful MBTA as much as any of us.
Poftak has never been granted the leeway to speak his mind before, so expecting the genuine article now isn't realistic. The T General Manager position is now an agent of the Transpo Secretary and little more. Ever since Bev Scott's resignation signaled the end of that position's independence, and after the brief Luis Ramirez appointment telegraphed considerable degree of outright contempt for expertise qualifications in the role, it hasn't mattered who of the fast-rotating cast of figureheads has occupied the position. It exists only as a PR point person and delegation of whatever secondary decision-making authority Pollack sees fit to delegate at a given moment. The GM is never allowed to lead with an independent thought anymore. Massachusetts was simply able to break the job's independence much more quietly than New York, where Cuomo is just a little too far over-the-top at personally assuming the reins and the pushback by the Andy Byfords got to the level of street fight before it was subdued. The T has been where the MTA is now going for 5 years now in terms of top-down stranglehold.
So for Poftak to be the first of the usual suspects to drop news means he's overwhelmingly likely to be doing someone else's bidding. Let's not forget that his resume prominently features a stint at--where else--Pioneer Institute before he entered the Baker Admin.'s revolving door from the private sector. Nobody is going off-script or taking a risk here. Sec. Pollack concern-trolled Red-Blue relentlessly on her boss' behalf before their handpicked tank-a-palooza cost metrics got torn to shreds by the fact-checkers. The Administration's contempt for this one did not suddenly change out of them being shamed over their funny math. There was always going to be a new round of concern-trolling dropped, picking some new angle to do it. And if Pollack was the one who came off looking over-prominently bad last time, it was likely going to be someone else next time taking the lead playing canary in a coalmine with the public. Poftak being the one to come out as the face of that policy statement (when he is rarely if ever the face of any other big-picture decision of pronouncement) fits that mold, and an umpteenth stab at "...because we can't walk and chew gum at the same time" is a predictably well-hewn meme to lead with on this new take. If there's a fierce public and political backlash again, someone lower than the Secretary takes the drubbing this time, they go dark again, and take the goalposts home for retooling once more before trying again.
I don't see a single thing tactically inconsistent here about how anyone is operating. The Administration has been resolute about what types of projects it lends its support to and which ones it consistently tries to shank with fuzzy math and moving goalposts. They are nothing if not completely consistent about that, and where sustained public advocacy has chastened them for being too obvious about their aims they've usually been more likely to temporarily table the issue (whether or not that concedes temp momentum to the advocates) then come back later with a subtler angle to telegraph their opposition rather than actually modify their original core stance. NSRL has been multiple bites at that apple: tanking action so over-the-top it defies credulity, a very public chastening of the moving goalposts, a response of re-analysis followed by a prolonged quiet period to get the issue off the front pages, then an inevitable pivot to new opposition angle that expresses rote sentiment but is purposefully coated in more abstraction to keep the tit-for-tat exchanges with the advocates more obtuse. The same thing is happening here. And the same thing is for damn sure going to happen with RUR and commuter rail electrification before this term is up, because Requests for Information don't have to be acted on and they are too consistent at not letting top-down resistance die without exhausting their pivots.
This is two long games colliding: the advocacy's, and the Administration's. The only thing you can really say for sure is that nothing is likely to get outright decided before the end of this term, and if Baker is as sick of this job as the vibe he's giving off he won't be seeking a third term at all so--regardless of who from which party wins the next election--governance by thinktank shuck-and-jive tactics probably isn't going to be the next flavor of the month post-'22. Now, that next flavor could be equally bad depending on who's cadre of hangers-on we're foisted with, but it definitely won't be a continuation of this. If for no other reason than after 6 years the revolving door is well past the Pioneer 'D'-team in diminishing returns with ample amount of built-up contempt all around every corner Beacon Hill for that particular brand of do-nothing hackery.
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