Calling for action to “stop the pain and suffering,” the parents of a Boston University professor who died when he fell through a broken MBTA station staircase made an emotional call Monday for strengthening safety oversight of the under-fire transit agency.
The eastern Massachusetts commuter rail network and its hundreds of thousands of riders would no longer be the responsibility of the MBTA under safety and management reforms targeted by the House’s transportation chief.
.After studying the crisis at the MBTA for months, top lawmakers concluded the legislature should rethink the Department of Public Utilities’ role as the state agency responsible for overseeing MBTA safety and floated a few other ideas that do not yet appear to have much traction across both branches.
On the same day that one head of the state legislature’s Transportation Committee said decision-makers have no choice but to “do something dramatic” to fix the MBTA, two leading transit advocates criticized his suggestion that the transit agency be folded into the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.
With a vote possible in the House next week on a transportation revenue bill, the details of such a package remain in development and its possible components include measures dealing with the gas tax and ride-share fees.
With Gov. Charlie Baker considers traditional borrowing sources to meet the state’s transportation infrastructure needs, one prominent House Democrat is calling himself a “zealot” for additional financial resources and sees a higher gas tax as an option that can’t be ignored.
