Don’t Gut The MBTA During The Pandemic. Front-Line Workers Need It

For decades, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has suffered from a chronic lack of investment. The bottom fell out during the record-breaking winter storms of 2015. Since then, the MBTA has carried out layoffs, service cuts, fare hikes and misguided privatization and “public-private partnership” schemes that have not solved our region’s transit problems. We have seen train derailments and other safety failures during that time.

COVID-19 has only made the situation worse as fare revenues have dropped. Now, in the midst of a pandemic, the T’s own leadership is threatening to derail the system by enacting a series of hastily considered budget and service cuts.

MBTA management and the T’s Fiscal Management and Control Board (FMCB) are planning massive service cuts — totaling up to $150 million — that would slow the state’s economic recovery, increase vehicle traffic and pollution, and reduce access to the system for riders throughout the system, including those who depend on it for survival.

Read the full article at WBUR Cognoscenti.

Photo © WBUR