No wonder it's such a s***ty system.
Related: The Big Pit
That's how deep it was.
"Add interest, and Big Dig cost expected to top $24b" by Eric Moskowitz | Globe Staff, July 11, 2012
As construction wound down on the Big Dig nearly a decade ago, officials disclosed that the cost of the highway megaproject had escalated to nearly $15 billion. Now, for the first time publicly, state administrators have tallied the full cost of the work — principal and interest, plus legally obligated transit commitments — and it is some $10 billion higher.
The highway-tunnel work cost $14.5 billion, with the state using $7 billion in federal aid and borrowing the rest. Add interest, and the total figure shouldered by state and federal taxes and tolls will be $21 billion by the time the final bond is paid off in 2038, Dana Levenson, chief financial officer for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, told a legislative committee Tuesday....
Representative David P. Linsky, committee chairman and a Natick Democrat. “We’re paying over $100 million a year in Big Dig debt service, and that is obviously $100 million that we can’t spend on other transportation needs.”
It gets worse (keep reading).
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The numbers largely confirm the accounting of a 2008 Globe review of hundreds of pages of state documents.
But even that figure does not quite cover it....
Meaning it is EVEN MORE, Massachusetts taxpayers.
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Related: Internet sales tax could help solve state’s transportation mess
He has to be kidding.
SJC rules state can use Mass Pike tolls for Big Dig
As they proved with foreclosure fraud, they favor large institutions and agencies over us.
Credit payments coming to some T lots
That's what got them into this mess.
Also see: Massachusetts Democrats Keep Making the Same Mistakes
The Ultimate Cost of the Big Pit
Oh, yeah, a woman was killed in there.
"MBTA mechanics keep old subway cars rolling" by Eric Moskowitz | Globe Staff, July 08, 2012
Record ridership and they are still in debt?
The Orange Line employs 120 cars, built in the late ’70s and early ’80s and designed to run 25 years — if they had a midlife overhaul to refurbish or replace major components.
They never did.
A nearly $500 million order of 152 modern cars, to replace and expand the fleet, is likely five to 10 years off, part of a $4 billion repair/replacement backlog of vehicle, station, track, signal, and power needs for a system that moves 1.3 million riders each weekday.
That's why they break down in winter and summer.
Related: One If By Land, Two if By Sea....
Boston Globe Blind Spot
Taking the T Home
Tucking You In on the T
Their is no guarantee they will get you there.
The T has fallen behind because its revenues, mostly from the state sales tax and fares, have not kept pace with soaring expenses.
Yup, 20 cents of every dollar of the state sales tax goes to banks for debt service, with another $100 million guaranteed when they raised the sales tax to prevent service cuts that we got anyway.
Nearly every fare dollar goes to pay off debt, much of it to cover politically popular expansion approved on Beacon Hill without a dedicated financing plan. Costs such as electricity, fuel, and employee health insurance have outstripped inflation.
At the same time, ridership has escalated, driven by gas prices and the growing popularity of living and working near train and subway stations.
That means more people crowding platforms to await older trains and subways, more likely to break down and cause delays — and in need of more short-term repair spending to compensate for deferred long-term investment....
I'm glad I never make it into the city anymore.
“I’m using an antique to repair an antique.”
I'm reading one.
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What a great feel-good story, huh? You can think of that while you are literally steaming in more ways than one waiting on the platform for the ride home.
Related:
$2 billion in aid for Massachusetts transit projects
Selling the names of T stations cheapens the public realm
What are ya' blind, Boston Globe?
At least the T is hiring:
"Transit police reorganize, add top positions" by Eric Moskowitz | Globe Staff, July 05, 2012
The Transit Police has added three supervisors to its uppermost ranks, a move the chief said will enable better management of a department with growing responsibilities. It also nearly doubles the number collecting six-figure base salaries at the same time riders of the financially strapped MBTA are facing a fare increase....
I'm getting off at the next stop.
Maria Haberfeld, a professor of police science at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the Transit Police structure appears top-heavy for a department of its size....
In Massachusetts?
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I'm sure this will help the debt and maintenance situation:
"The crash of an MBTA bus into a parked movie trailer caused spectacular damage to one of the jewels of the T fleet: a $915,000 gas-electric hybrid, 60 feet long, articulated in the middle, and purchased in 2010 with federal stimulus funds."
Yeah, I'm sure am glad Hollywood is around.
Related: MBTA approves $150m of upgrades to commuter rail
Also see:
The Ride users feel sharpest sting from T hikes
Quincy Center T parking lot is closed indefinitely
Suspect in Ashmont T station stabbing arrested
Riders get stabbed in the back, too.
Next Day Update: MBTA to double number of security cameras
Yeah, they ALWAYS SEEM TO HAVE MONEY for TYRANNY, don't they?
