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Thursday, March 8, 2012

How Would You Save The MBTA?




Unless you have been living under a rock for the past few weeks, you know that the MBTA is facing a deficit that's totaling around $161 million. Two scenarios filled with service cuts, including many Somerville bus lines, and fare hikes are being shopped at meetings held throughout the state and are not being well received as you can imagine. The one here in Somerville brought out everyone from Union organizers to caped crusaders to elected officials with suggestions ranging from defaulting on the debt to MBTA executives taking a pay cut.

The Metropolitan Area Planning Council just unveiled a clever way for online users to lessen the MBTA debt by selecting their own scenarios on an interactive website.FixTheT.MAPC.Org was launched today and features several different ways that the MBTA can shift cost to other organizations, such as having the State Police oversee the Transit Police, to save money. In the previously mentioned case, the MBTA would save $36 million alone with that change.  

So, what are some of your ideas to decrease the MBTA deficit? Comment your ideas and scenarios below!

1 comment:

E J De Young said...

The MBTA should consider a partnership with local hotels to give free passes to tourist. In return the hotels would pay a fee to the MBTA. This would be a great advertising promotion for the hotels and a good sourse of revenue for the MBTA.