It’s been more than two months since the legislature let the previous MBTA board lapse, over a month since Gov. Charlie Baker signed a bill into law giving him the authority to appoint a new one and three weeks since the 176 towns and cities served by the T agreed that Quincy Mayor Tom Koch should represent them on the new body. 

Yet the state is still without a new governing body for its transportation backbone. With summer vacations over, Baker must make appointing a new MBTA board a top priority. The agency’s ability to attack several pressing issues with alacrity depend on it. 

The first MBTA board, Baker’s brainchild after 2015’s “snowmageddon,” worked wonders over the last five years. Its dedicated members spent many long hours in meetings and out helping the agency rebuild itself and reform its finances after that disastrous winter made it impossible to ignore just how broken the T was. It also led the agency in some welcome new directions, like the recent explosion in bus-only lanes and its late 2019 commitment to electrifying and transforming the commuter rail lines into a frequent and reliable network that can support the region as we try to wean ourselves off gasoline and beat sclerotic traffic. 

Because of that board, many in the business world felt they could trust the T again. Just before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, former House Speaker Robert DeLeo skillfully assembled a coalition of these normally tax-averse stakeholders to back more funding for the agency because they knew it would finally be well-spent creating an infrastructure to sustain the state’s future. 

And the transparency the board’s frequent – sometimes too frequent – meetings brought to the agency, the average Bay Stater, too, could trust that the T had a good set of hands at the controls. Even with regular delays, derailments and other problems, they could see that competent agency staff were striving to improve things and build a better system. 

But with a slate of pressing issues on its plate right now and looming in the months and years to come, the T cannot afford to be without an active and competent oversight board. 

Anyone who tried to drive anywhere in Greater Boston last week got a rude reminder of how bad traffic can be if the T does not remake its fare structures, particularly on the commuter rail, as Rick Dimino outlined in last week’s issue of Banker & Tradesman. But given the T’s history of slow-walking many vital reforms, it will clearly take prodding from an active and competent board to make change. And as this summer repeatedly reminded us, climate change is getting worse, faster. Any delay in building a less car-dependent future is time we cannot afford to lose. 

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New T Board Should Be Top Priority

by Banker & Tradesman time to read: 2 min
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