by Veristek
sery2831 wrote:Lets keep this topic to how the money will relate to the MBTA. Not any other authority... please.Won't the Turnpike and the MBTA be merged? I hear about that a lot lately.
Railroad Forums
Moderators: sery2831, CRail
sery2831 wrote:Lets keep this topic to how the money will relate to the MBTA. Not any other authority... please.Won't the Turnpike and the MBTA be merged? I hear about that a lot lately.
Arborway wrote:Bernard Cohen and Dan Grabauskas were harbingers of the financial apocalypse last fall when I heard them deliver the (unsurprising) news to the Ridership Oversight Committee. Make no mistake about it, the situation is beyond critical. This isn't going to be a simple fare hike - the T is nearing a point where it simply cannot continue to function. Either the debt goes, or the trains (and everything else) stop running nearly as often as they do now every last bit of maintenance that can possibly be deferred will be, ridership collapses with the drop in service and hike in fares, and the T's income drops with the loss of passenger revenue.What kind of service cuts could we be looking at? No more weekend service? Abandoning branchlines like Stoughton and abandon Kingston and run to Plymouth instead (or vice versa)? Longer headways between subway trains? Suspension or dissolution of bus routes?
Forget about expansion. The T needs to prove to the Feds it can afford to run a new line before it can get funding to help build one. If things go the way they are going now, the idea that it could do such a thing is fairly ridiculous.
If you want infrastructure you have to pay for it. It's not fun, but taxpayers need to realize the "Pfft. I don't use that specific thing" / "I don't feel like paying for that" mentality is setting them, and our local economy up for failure.
TheOperator wrote:Never happen. Too many people depend on it, and there's just too many variables as far as labor contracts and employee guarantees to make this a reality. Service cuts, maybe. Total eliminations on the weekend, not gonna happen.Can you provide details?