By Alan Burke
MARBLEHEAD — This might be an actual case of throwing the bus under the bus.
State Rep. Lori Ehrlich, D-Marblehead, brings grim tidings to the town. While she and others have labored to save Marblehead's bus routes, the number of trips have been reduced.
What's more, Ehrlich makes clear why transportation in general has become a major problem, impacting the state budget. Noting that she's now won a place on the Legislature's Transportation Committee, she winced at what an inside look at the financial shape of the Turnpike Authority revealed.
"You know how you lift up a log and you wish you didn't see that?" she said, adding that the authority's bond rating is verging on "junk status."
Meanwhile, the authority has voted to authorize a 100 percent toll hike to pay its bills, raising the price for driving through the harbor tunnels to $7 and potentially costing an average commuter nearly $2,000 per year.
"I am not pleased with this vote," Ehrlich told the selectmen last week. "We expressed our stern displeasure," she said, referencing an earlier meeting in Lynn with the authority's board, a meeting that included some Marblehead selectmen. "We're very unhappy with it."
Instead, she expressed qualified support for raising the gas tax. A proposed 19-cent-per-gallon boost would cost the average driver less than $100 per year, she said. Gov. Deval Patrick has dangled the gas tax as an alternative to the huge toll increase.
"Extortion and blackmail," Selectman Jim Nye said.
"On balance," Ehrlich said, "for most people the gas tax would be a more equitable way. ... If we do have a gas tax I would like to see our tolls reduced or eliminated."
The governor appoints the Turnpike board, Ehrlich said, but "we as the Legislature can actually legislate what the Turnpike (Authority) should do."
Transportation costs are only one element in the state's budget shortfall. The MBTA is another, and it leads directly to the curtailment of bus routes starting on March 21. "We were heard," Ehrlich told the selectmen. "This is better than what was originally proposed."
A skeptical Selectman Bill Woodfin asked Town Administrator Tony Sasso to ask the MBTA if the town's assessment — the money Marblehead is required to send for the support of the MBTA — will now be reduced along with the service.
"Do I send that to the governor?" Sasso asked.
"CC him," Woodfin said, indicating that Patrick should get a copy.
Ironically, the MBTA's woes have been complicated by the fact that ridership is increasing steadily, especially in Lynn, all in the face of higher costs for motorists and, perhaps, more support for "greener," less polluting forms of transport.
