Earlier this summer I moved to the Boston area and began to search for local sustainably minded organizations and investigate the local sustainability issues. As I did so, I quickly ran into one issue in particular that seems to be on everyone's mind: the MBTA.
For anyone not living in Massachusetts, the MBTA stands for Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which is the entity responsible for operating all commuter and mass transit services in the greater Boston metropolitan area, including local buses, ferries, subway lines, and commuter rail lines. According to the MBTA website (and the 2010 US Census), the MBTA services a territory with a population of 4,817,014 in a state with a population of 6,547,629 (i.e. nearly 75% of the population of Massachusetts). Though most often used in reference specifically to the subway system, the MBTA is commonly known as simply as the T.
The Issue
Unfortunately, from what I can surmise based on my discussions with people and searching through recent news articles, the MBTA is deeply in debt. So far in debt in fact that according to a BostInno article by Denise Provost, "Payment of interest on its debt eats up over 30 percent of MBTA’s entire budget."
According to an online Boston Magazine article, the total debt (at least as of February 2012) is $5.2 billion, which is attributable to three sources:
- $1.85 billion - debt from MBTA improvement projects since 2000
- $1.65 billion - debt from MBTA improvement projects prior to 2000
- $1.7 billion - debt from the 'Big Dig' project
In 2000, the state legislature restructured the MBTA, requiring it to annually balance its budget under a so-called "Forward Funding" scheme. As part of the scheme, the MBTA was required to payback debts that the state had previously incurred due to MBTA maintenance and improvement projects. The scheme also required the MBTA to take on debt related to the environmental mitigation projects related to the Big Dig.
The Big Dig is the unofficial name of a now infamous highway project in Boston that was designed to re-route I-90 and I-93 through underground tunnels as they passed through downtown Boston. As part of the environmental mitigation for the massive amount of environmental disturbance that the Big Dig would cause, the state legislature agreed to implement several upgrades to the T system. The highway construction of the Big Dig took nearly a decade longer than expected and the actual cost was billions of dollars over-budget.
For an extensive overview of how the MBTA got so far into debt, see the 2009 MBTA Advisory Board report (pdf).
The Proposed Solution
The default response to this issue by the MBTA has been to raise fares and/or cut back on services: the two aspects of its budget over which the Advisory Board has control. Of course, both of these responses discourage T ridership by making mass transit trips more expensive and less convenient. Simultaneously, this makes other forms of commuting such as driving relatively more attractive, and it puts an additional burden on those most reliant on the T as their only means of transportation.
I have found many other potential solutions floating around on the internet, including absurd suggestions like selling liquor on subway cars to more serious suggestions. For example, the 2009 MBTA Advisory Board report recommended that the state simply take back the debt from the MBTA and put it back on the state budget. Also, one proposal currently on the table would require selling the naming rights to the busiest stations, but it would only make $147 million dollars over 8 years (less than one fifth of the annual budget deficit - note not the whole annual budget, just the deficit).
However, I cannot find any suggestions (at least none with any significant description) that include: (1) effectively addressing the debt itself (rather than merely shuffling it around), (2) improving the overall commuter experience, and (3) increasing MBTA revenues without unfairly burdening individual riders through constantly increasing fares. Thus, I would like to propose a solution that may ruffle a lot of feathers but should fulfill all three of these criteria and be relatively straight forward to implement.
The proposed solution is this: a Parking Space Tax.
Now, Republicans and Libertarians please hear me out before stonewalling the very notion of a tax. I could have very easily tried to call it a 'service fee' or something else, but I shall call it what it is. The Parking Space Tax (or hereafter PST) will have some features and stipulations that I will describe in a later post. However, in the next post, I will explain my reasoning behind a policy connecting parking and mass transit.
Also, while you are waiting for the next post in the series, you can take a look at a related Boston Globe article that was published as I was editing this series. The article is actually based on a similar premise but has a limited focus: downtown parking garages.
Sincerely,
Sean Diamond
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