A group of Salem State College students was scheduled to take the train to Boston yesterday to meet with Senate Majority Leader Fred Berry, D-Peabody, then return to Salem and present a petition to local Democratic Rep. John Keenan in support of public transit.
The demonstration came one day after an independent report detailed serious safety concerns involving some portions of the MBTA's rail and bus system. Former John Hancock chairman David D'Alessandro's investiation on behalf of the Patrick administration detailed $543 million worth of "safety-critical" repair and maintenance projects still undone due to lack of funding.
According to a release from the SSC chapter of MASSPIRG, sponsor of Thursday's demonstration, "Public transit needs more funding in order to improve the current system."
But the fact is there will never be enough money to improve service and make needed repairs in a system crippled by union work rules that are among the most restrictive of any in the nation, and salaries and benefits that rank among the most generous.
That's what people like Patrick, Berry, Keenan and others on Beacon Hill must fix before they contemplate any increase in taxes or fares to address the problems outlined in D'Alessandro's report. Sadly, many of the most-needed reforms were scuttled as legislators caved to union pressure in the days leading up to passage earlier this year of a bill combining the state's highway and public transit functions in a new Department of Transportation.
Indeed, the new five-member board that oversees the new agency includes at least one unabashed union advocate (Janice Loux, president of UNITE HERE! Local 26).
Senate Minority Leader Bradley H. Jones Jr., R-North Reading, termed the appointments a missed opportunity, adding, "In order for the overhaul to the transportation system to reach its true cost-saving potential, it will take new leadership and bold implementation, not more of the same."
Gov. Patrick was bold enough to ride the Red Line Wednesday right through those tunnels described by D'Alessandro as most in danger of failing. And he's smart enough to sense there's no appetite for increased taxes of any kind, or more fare and/or toll hikes, to fund the repairs his consultant is advocating.
The absolute first priority must be to change the labyrinth of personnel policies, contractual work rules and past practices that make managing the T an exercise in frustration; and putting a lid on the salary, health insurance and pension costs that soak up virtually every extra dollar — including the $275 million yielded by this summer's sales-tax increase — the transit agency receives.
Until those at the Statehouse muster the courage to take on the unions and run the MBTA more like a business and less like a public charity, the system — like some of those Red Line trains — will keep lurching from one crisis to the next.
