Under the MBTA’s new board, important transit plans are falling aside and public commitments are falling off-track. And vital zoning reforms and carbon emissions plans depend on the plans being abandoned.
MBTA overseers on Thursday approved a $157 million purchase of 160 diesel-electric hybrid buses, embracing the vehicles as a step along the way toward full electrification while irking transit advocates who want the agency to move away from any fossil fuel footprint.
Legislation creating a new MBTA oversight board will not reach Gov. Charlie Baker until at least two days before the existing board expires, but the governor is not sweating the timeline.
With slightly more than eight weeks until the MBTA’s board expires and no vote on its successor in the House budget plan, lawmakers still need to choose a plan and a vehicle for the future of the T management and oversight.
News of successful COVID-19 vaccines created a “light at the end of the tunnel” of pain the MBTA’s finances are currently in. But instead of helping us get there, Gov. Charlie Baker and MassDOT Secretary Stephanie Pollack are packing dynamite around the tunnel walls.
House and Senate leaders reached an agreement Thursday to keep the MBTA’s Fiscal and Management Control Board in place for another year.
Keolis Commuter Services, the French company that had fallen out of favor early in its contract, will continue to operate the Massachusetts commuter rail system until at least 2025 under a renegotiated contract approved by the MBTA Board on Monday.
With less than a month to go before the MBTA’s Fiscal Management and Control Board expires, the House and Senate can’t agree on the body that will replace it.
A group of transportation advocacy groups and an MBTA watchdog suggested Monday that the successor to the Fiscal and Management Control Board should be built as a larger, permanent panel that operates more independently of the Department of Transportation.
The MBTA’s board on Monday voted to back substantial investment in the commuter rail system, outlining support for electrifying the system and running more frequent service through the most dense corridors.
Their specific requests varied, but the roughly half-dozen mayors and state lawmakers who addressed the MBTA’s oversight board Monday all echoed a common theme: that expanding service and connectivity on the commuter rail will bring significant benefits for the riding public, regardless of costs.
The city delegation has long pushed for better connectivity between Boston and the North Shore, lamenting the congested highways and tunnels many residents endure to get to work.
Fallout from last week’s Red Line derailment can now include a new push to change the MBTA’s governance structure.
Solutions to the MBTA’s predicament are out there, but the state’s two highly capable transportation leaders, Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack and MBTA General Manager Steve Poftak, need Gov. Charlie Baker to empower them to take unconventional steps to enact them quickly.
Aiming to recoup tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue from unpaid fares, the MBTA and commuter rail operator Keolis plan to install fare gates at three Boston hub stations by the end of the year, officials said Monday.
Although the MBTA’s Fiscal and Management Control Board unanimously approved the authority’s $2.1 billion budget Monday, members renewed calls for new forms of transportation revenue after warnings from an outside review group about the T’s finances.
Rollout of new Orange Line trains has been delayed once again, officials said Monday, with public use now likely to begin during the summer to allow additional time for software testing.
Travel on the MBTA’s subway and commuter rail network will cost more starting July 1 after the authority’s oversight board approved a fare-hike plan Monday, securing tens of millions of dollars more in revenue every year that leaders say is necessary to continue service improvements and close a budget gap.
The rising cost of MBTA pensions has board members concerned about the long-term stability of the retirement program for an agency where ridership over the first three months of the budget year dipped nearly 2 percent.
The MBTA’s Fiscal and Management Control Board on Monday approved a $4 million contract for work to design a second commuter rail platform at Worcester’s Union Station.
