There is not much these days to recommend the Boston area’s subways, buses, trolleys, and commuter-rail trains. Mired in delays and even derailments, the system collectively known as the T seems incapable of a long stint of steady service.
Why is that? Several reasons. Taken tougher, they explain the challenges the T and its governing agency, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, face.
Its age. The T is the oldest subway system in the Western Hemisphere, something Boston-area residents sometimes point to with pride. But that age means that adjustments—including new routes and the infrastructure required—are that much more difficult to execute because it usually means designing them for already-built-up areas.
Younger systems in regions newer to mass transit often don’t have this challenge. Cities such as Charlotte and Houston, say, just roll out light rail and a neighborhood grows up around it. Not here.
Its design. The powers that be that rolled out the original Boston subway system at the turn of the 19th century chose a hub-and-spoke design. That forever condemned riders to go in toward downtown if they wanted to go out from it.
What’s more, the original tunnels were narrow, and the tracks had especially sharp turns. This is unlike other mass transit systems, which tend to have straighter tracks heading into a regional core. These setups also hinder the use of longer trains.
Always with the debt. A 2009 report from the MBTA Advisory Board, an independent panel that represents the interests of the 175 cities and towns the agency services, famously declared that the modern MBTA “was born broke” in 2000.
Why? Because in repurposing the agency for the new century, the state transferred billions in debt from the state to the agency itself and tied a bulk of financing to a state sales tax, the revenue for which has fluctuated. The debt has remained—has ballooned, in fact—while revenue from the sales tax and elsewhere has generally had no chance of catching up with it.
The MBTA has a structural deficit of $36.5 million, and servicing its debt is expected to cost around $480 million in fiscal year 2019, a figure likely to grow.
Repairs backlog. Total fiscal year revenue for the MBTA is around $2 billion-plus as of the latter half of 2019. Impressive, right? Not really. There’s the debt load to service, and the agency faces a repairs backlog now measured in the several billions.
The MBTA itself estimates it needs about $10 billion for everything from better trains and buses to a more modern signaling system to upgraded culverts and tunnels. And that estimate itself is a placeholder—and it came about a month before a derailment along the Red Line highlighted just how dire the need for repairs remains.
And, no, fares—however much they’re hiked—are very unlikely to cover this repairs backlog or the debt servicing. The MBTA projects that fares in fiscal year 2019 will account for $664.7 million of its $2.033 billion revenue.
Old equipment. The Red Line train that derailed in June 2019, came into service in 1969. That tells you something about the equipment the MBTA is dealing with. What’s more, there are dozens of such aged trains in the agency’s fleet, despite the pending addition of hundreds of more modern ones.
Meanwhile, the T’s signaling system, particularly along its older subway lines, is antiquated and often causes delays. That, too, is changing—but also slowly.
Lack of political will. Governor Charlie Baker, who has ultimate authority over the MBTA and the T, made it clear during his 2018 reelection campaign that he’s not “a point-to-point person” transportation-wise and therefore sees little use in taking the T.
That might be true by dint of his office—the governor, as Baker pointed out, rarely goes back and forth from the same place twice—but it highlighted how detached much of the state leadership is from the day-to-day reality of the T. They just don’t take it.
Plus, there is little political fallout from such indifference. Massachusetts pols have traditionally not been punished in the voting booth for neglecting or glossing over the T’s challenges. That might be due to the fact that, like most state elected officials, most state residents don’t rely on MBTA services—the agency’s average weekday ridership is 1.22 million in a state with nearly 7 million residents.
The most vociferous critics of the T’s performance of late have been local officials, especially in Boston, but they have little to zero say on the MBTA. So any major proposals for fresh funds—a higher gas tax, more tolls for motorists, congestion pricing in downtown—are basically always DOA, despite the possible appearance of widespread support.
Contrast Massachusetts with New York, where Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio have tripped over each other in recent years to propose fixes to Gotham’s ailing mass transit. The share of ridership in proportion to the state’s population is much higher in New York.
Population growth. Speaking of population, the Boston region is closing in on 5 million residents amid a booming economy. And, while it’s impossible to say how many newcomers are riding the T regularly, the population surge (more than 300,000 additional residents since 2010) has surely contributed to the burden of the regional mass transit system.
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