Lawmakers look for answers to T crisis

There may be no quick or easy legislative fix to the service problems plaguing the MBTA, according to top House and Senate Democrats, who said Tuesday that they’re eyeing a more deliberative process despite the growing appetite for action.

Senate President Stanley Rosenberg and House Speaker Robert DeLeo said fixing problems at the MBTA and on its commuter rail system that have been exposed by severe winter weather will require a thorough examination of what ails the system.

Though many transportation officials and lawmakers are in agreement that transit system maintenance has been underfunded for decades, the next steps beyond restoring full service to the MBTA remain a question mark.

"The first thing that's going to happen is it's going to stop snowing and the sun is going to come out and we're going to go back to where we were a few months ago, which is not where we want to be but it's going to be a functioning system," Rosenberg told reporters during a sit-down meeting in his office.

Rosenberg admitted, "We don't have a plan for what we actually want to get done and we don't know how much of it could be done with the next round of management efficiencies and improvements," but he said one thing was clear: "We can't afford to be in this situation again next winter."

DeLeo, who met later in the day with Gov. Charlie Baker, Rosenberg and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, said before the House acts it needs to better understand what has gone wrong.

"The first major question that we have to find out is: What are the exact issues that are to be addressed at the T?" he said.

Though DeLeo has yet to appoint members to committees for the 2015 session, DeLeo said last session's chairman of the Post Audit and Oversight Committee Rep. David Linsky has expressed interest in hosting a hearing.

Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Thomas McGee said he would also like to move forward quickly with oversight hearings.

"The reality is that we've underfunded transportation in Massachusetts and in this country for at least 20-plus years, or longer," said McGee, who led a 2013 push for passage of a transportation funding law.

Commuter rail still on modified schedule

The T’s commuter rail lines, three of which touch Central Massachusetts, will continue to operate on a modified weekday schedule through Friday, the system’s web site said. But there will be significant delays and several canceled trips.

Meanwhile, on the system’s Green Line, limited service was restored beyond Kenmore Square in Boston to the “C” branch out to Cleveland Circle and the “D” branch to Riverside Station in Newton.

‘Too premature’ to talk receivership

Both DeLeo and McGee downplayed the idea of putting the MBTA into receivership, an option put forward by the Pioneer Institute and others given the MBTA's roughly $9 billion in debt and more than $3 billion in deferred maintenance.

"I think it's much too premature to talk about receivership," DeLeo said, calling it "one of the last things we would want to do."

McGee, a Lynn Democrat, also used the word "premature." McGee said lawmakers have merged the board of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and the MBTA, and placed the governor's transportation secretary on the board to improve oversight.

But the system is in a "substantial crisis," McGee acknowledged. "People are frustrated but the weather has put a tough road block in the way of everything we want to do."

Rosenberg, an Amherst Democrat, said the struggles of the MBTA were due to a combination of mismanagement and underfunding, but grew philosophical when asked what could be done in the near-term to address service reliability and transportation financing.

"In the end, this is de Tocqueville writ large," Rosenberg said, referencing the French political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville. "In the 1800s he came here, he traveled America, he went back and wrote this book 'Democracy in America' and he said, 'I see in the American people the potential to vote themselves more benefits than they'll pay for.' Well that's the America we're living in."

Revisiting the last time the Legislature debated transportation funding and voted in 2013 for a $600 million package of tax hikes - smaller than requested by then-Gov. Deval Patrick - Rosenberg said lawmakers had to balance the needs in the system with what the public would be willing to pay.

"Was it a wasted opportunity? It was a badly timed discussion in the sense that we knew what we needed to do but the public wasn't ready to hear what we needed to do and what needed to happen and what their part in it was," he said.
Rosenberg went on to say that the task of building a modern public transportation system, as well as investing in education, energy and health care, will require a "shift in the paradigm" that has led to a concentration of wealth in the bank accounts of top earners.
"At that point hopefully people will be willing to reinvest in the public services that they're asking for," Rosenberg said.
Some lawmakers, however, may be hoping for action sooner.
Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr said fixing the MBTA's operation has been "predominating conversation" among members of the Senate, and he called it a policy question that must be tackled early this session.
"It's something that people rely on every day in their daily lives and we ask them to rely on it and it's now somewhat unreliable," Tarr said. "And that's an incredible problem for people trying to get in and out of the city to be able to work. It is not only an economic problems, it's a problem with their quality of life."
Sen. Kenneth Donnelly, an Arlington Democrat, said residents in his district have been flooding his office with emails.
"I've never received so many emails. In the six years I've been here, this is the most," Donnelly said, describing one message from a woman who works in the biotechnology sector and came to Massachusetts for a work-life balance that would allow her to give up her car, but is now reconsidering the move.
Though Donnelly said the impact of the MBTA service disruptions have been particularly acute in Arlington where residents depend on the Red Line and bus service to get to work, businesses in Burlington and Lexington have also called to tell him their employees are struggling to get to work in restaurants in and around the Burlington Mall.
Tarr, a Gloucester Republican, said "sporadic" commuter rail service to the North Shore has been a "serious issue."
"We're hearing a lot of complaints about communication, about people standing on the platform and waiting for a train that doesn't come and being notified that it's not going to come hours after the fact so it's been incredibly disruptive," Tarr said.
House Majority Leader Rep. Ronald Mariano, of Quincy, said the public transit system has "let us down completely."
But, he added, "no one should be surprised at this," and he pointed to the closing of the parking garage above Quincy Center that was closed down in a sudden manner in 2012 due to safety concerns.
"We watched the Quincy parking garage be closed down because it's unsafe, because no one paid attention to the maintenance," he said.
Mariano said lawmakers have attempted to fund the MBTA, through the sales tax and indexing future gas tax increases to inflation, an initiative that was rejected by voters. "Rather than just throwing money at this we need to take a harder look at what's going on there," Mariano said.
Asked about whether the MBTA should be put in receivership, Mariano said, "I just think there's a systemic problem that has to be rooted out and fixed. I don't know if receivership does it. It may. I wouldn't discount it."
Donnelly called the questions of improving the T a "bipartisan issue" and said he's been encouraged by the messaging from Gov. Charlie Baker and the new administration, and Rosenberg said Baker and Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack deserve some "running room."
While Donnelly said all options, including new funding, must be on the table, Tarr said he would be hesitant to discuss new funding right away.
"There are real questions about the money that hasn't been saved over the last five or 10 years, so I think before we have the confidence to be able to invest more we have to be satisfied that things have been done correctly to get to this point," Tarr said. "The last thing, I think, any of us want to do is pour money into a broken system and watch more of it be wasted. We've got to find ways to move forward, but I think we are far past the point of trying to assign blame. We've got to find solutions, and we can figure out who to blame afterward."
Rep. Paul Tucker, a Salem Democrat, said his city turned about 30 two-way streets into one-way streets and Mayor Kim Driscoll received assistance from the National Guard, who he said had done "a lot of great work." He said the constant snow has been "difficult" for business.
 
"They've had a lot of business offerings downtown. Restaurants and the retail shops were offering deals to have the people come downtown, and I think they've had a fair degree of success," Tucker said.
 
"Somerville's an extremely dense city and there's nowhere to put the snow. The city is trying to cart as much out as they can and trying to really concentrate on the main streets," said Rep. Christine Barber, a Somerville Democrat.

Somerville closed schools all of last week to give the city a chance to remove snow from school roofs. Tucker said that as Salem considers how to make up snow days "everything is going to be on the table."

(Andy Metzger and Gintautas Dumcius contributed reporting.)