In her most significant legislative action since taking office in January, Gov. Maura Healey on Wednesday signed into law her first annual state budget, including a slew of major policy changes.
The T is in crisis, and if the current board isn’t going to cooperatively push T leadership and serve as one of the public’s primary windows into the agency, new members must be found who will.
MBTA board chair Betsy Taylor recently suggested the T’s huge ridership drop is now a “new normal.” Maybe there’s a reason for that?
Transforming the organization will require new leadership, a new culture and new funding plans. Each of these changes can begin right now.
With a federal safety investigation underway, the legislature must first fix the MBTA’s operating budget deficit so safe operations can be funded without service cuts. Next, it must provide accountability where the current MBTA board has failed.
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.
A new board of directors is now in place at the MBTA, and we will soon learn if this means a new direction for public transit in this region. They should focus on implementing the FMCB’s ideas rather than any attempts to revisit the debates of the past few years.
Leaving many of its substantial short-term decisions to a later date, a new MBTA governing body took its first steps Wednesday toward reviving dedicated oversight of the agency and navigating the numerous pitfalls exacerbated by COVID-19.
The new MBTA board seems worryingly focused on the agency’s future operating budget as reason to delay action on established plans that would achieve important, long-term changes.
