
The first brand-new Red Line train produced by CRCC for the MBTA arrives at the Charles/MGH station in February 2022. Photo by Jack Cao | CC BY-SA 4.0
Gov. Maura Healey says she’ll lean heavily on higher-than-expected returns from the state Millionaires Tax to keep the MBTA from going broke in the coming fiscal year, while setting three-quarters of a billion dollars aside for capital investments like bridges and rail lines.
Healey, Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll and other top state officials traveled to Worcester Tuesday to make the announcement.
The money will total around $8 billion over the next 10 years, Healey’s office said.
“We’re going to invest billions of dollars to deliver better roads, less traffic, safer bridges and a transit system that works in every region. We’ll close the MBTA’s budget gap, improving service and upgrading stations, and we’ll move forward on regional projects like West-East Rail. And we’ll do this all without raising taxes,” Healey said in a statement that also thanked the panel of business leaders and transit experts she convened last year to help find a solution to the state’s transportation finance woes.
MBTA officials said they were likely to face a roughly $700 million budget deficit in the next fiscal year beginning July 1. The shortfall is driven by years of underperforming sales tax revenue, a portion of which goes to the T by law, and partly by lower subway and bus ridership driven by a fall-off in the number of downtown commuters after the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition, the T has hired hundreds of new bus drivers, maintenance workers and train operators in the last two years in response to a scathing federal safety investigation and pressure from riders to provide reliable service. Years of disinvestment under Republican and Democratic governors had led to serious decay across the MBTA’s infrastructure and shortages of key personnel across the system.
MBTA budget cuts, transit advocate have warned, would hurt working-class and middle-class commuters. it would also jeopardize efforts to cut traffic and carbon emissions by getting drivers to switch to public transit, they said.
“Our administration knows the role a safe, reliable and efficient transportation system plays in the future of Massachusetts and this plan represents a gigantic step forward,” Driscoll said in a statement.
The Healey plan rests on three pillars.
First, she proposed to direct $857 million in Millionaires Tax funding in excess of the state’s predicted $1 billion 2024 haul towards public transit in her fiscal year 2026 budget. The state collected $1.3 billion more in funding from this income surtax in the last fiscal year than predicted.
Next, she would send $756 million from Millionaires Tax receipts over the next 10 years towards the Commonwealth Transportation Fund, to help pay for rail and road infrastructure.
Lastly, Healey said her budget proposal would close the MBTA’s operating budget shortfall in its next fiscal year.
Other components of the plan would see big increases in local aid for road and bridge repair.
The result, Healey’s office said, would be $1.4 billion in new MBTA trains for the Red and Orange lines and infrastructure upgrades, $2.5 billion for road and bridge repairs statewide, closing the funding gap for the Allston I-90 Multimodal Project and track construction work for West-East Rail between Boston and Springfield.