Gov. Maura Healey talks with News Service reporters in the corner office Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023 in a wide-ranging interview reflecting on the first 11-plus months of her term. Photo by Sam Doran | State House News Service
Her first year in office is winding down, and Gov. Maura Healey is enthusiastic to point out where she thinks she has succeeded: signing into law a billion-dollar tax relief package, overseeing a hiring blitz at the MBTA and creating a standalone housing secretariat, to name a few.
Healey came into office with the MBTA in disarray, looming as a potential albatross for her administration.
The problems are still there, but the new leadership team Healey picked has sought to put plans in place to fix some of the most glaring issues. A series of rolling partial closures will disrupt riders throughout 2024 with a goal of lifting all of speed restrictions that currently slow down travel for riders and blanket more than a fifth of the subway system.
“Obviously, there’s going to be some pain points with all this because we’re going to have to shut down certain lines while we fix them, and then we’re going to work this problem,” Healey said during a wide-ranging interview with the State House News Service Wednesday. “We’re going to move through it and we’re going to look to get the contractors in place to make sure that we’re working through this as quickly as possible.”
As its leaders wrestle with restoring some semblance of reliable service, the MBTA continues to face financial uncertainty. Agency budget-writers project they will have an operating budget deficit of hundreds of millions of dollars in the next few years, and the T newly estimates it would cost $24.5 billion to achieve a state of good repair for all of its assets.
Healey and Transportation Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt have raised eyebrows in recent weeks with comments that suggest an interest in reopening debate on how the state funds transportation. Tibbits-Nutt said in November that “we want to bring in additional sources of revenue,” and Healey told WBUR last week that talks are already underway with the Legislature and unnamed stakeholders about “revenue for larger investments in infrastructure in the long term.”
While sitting down with the News Service, Healey said she is not planning to pursue any new taxes to fund MBTA investments.
“I’m not proposing that right now, no,” she said. “What I’m proposing is that we focus on and we work the plan that we’re working on right now.”
Healey pointed out that “we do have new revenue” coming in from the voter-approved surtax on high earners, which is designed to be earmarked just for education and transportation uses. The Department of Revenue estimated last week that the surtax will generate between $1.58 billion and $2.06 billion in revenue this fiscal year, significantly more than the $1 billion allocated in the state budget.
Asked if the MBTA has access to enough resources to achieve a state of good repair, Healey replied, “I believe so.”
“Certainly in the first instance, and then the instance of accomplishing what we need to do right now, which is to make the system safe and reliable and running on time and at speeds that people are actually going to use the T,” she continued.
