A Letter To The T

[bobquasit]

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is planning to hike fares yet again, raising the price from $1 for a subway ride up to $1.25. This is a remarkably bad idea, of course. There's a short window of time for people to give feedback; the MBTA may well pull a Bush and simply ignore the feedback, but at least if a lot of people get on record opposing it they may think twice. Or who knows, maybe there'll be a lawsuit.

Anyway, I sent the following email today. Oh, the email address is fareproposal@mbta.com . If you use the T, why don't you write in too?

Subject: Fare Increase Proposal
Sirs,

The proposed MBTA/Commuter Rail fare increase is unfair, unjustified, and extremely ill-conceived. I ride the Franklin Line on my daily commute, and the service on that line has been extremely poor. Throughout the summer the air conditioning has been out almost every day on at least one or more cars; at times the heat has been so extreme as to pose a physical threat to the passengers.

At the same time insufficient cars have been put in service, with the result that the aisles are so crowded that it is at times impossible to move through them. The conductors aren't even able to collect fares. This level of crowding is clearly a safety hazard.

Furthermore, parking at the Franklin/Dean College stop has become a joke. The lot is often completely full by 6:30AM, which makes a dependable commute very dubious. This is particularly irritating in the light of the doubling of the cost of parking at T lots.

$145 per month for a Zone 6 pass is already an extremely high price to pay for the service received. An increase on the level proposed will be a severe and unfair burden on commuter rail passengers in an already difficult economy. The effect can only be to drive more and more riders to private automobiles, increasing pollution and traffic congestion throughout the area.

Fewer riders will, of course, result in lower revenue for the MBTA, leading to a vicious circle which can only end in closing or completely privatizing many commuter rail lines.

I urge you not to increase fares at this time.

Peter Maranci
(617) xxx-xxxx
peter@maranci.net

Incidentally, I used my work phone number (in the 617 area code), because I suspect that they'll be more likely to simply toss an email from a Rhode Island resident - despite the fact that I am a customer, and ride the commuter rail every day.

That Franklin/Dean College thing really sucks, by the way; in the last week it seems as if a lot more people have been taking the commuter rail, because the lot never used to fill up so early. Thanks to the extremely inconvenient schedule I have to make it to the station in time for the 6:36 train; if there's no parking I have to drive like mad to the last station on the line, Forge Park (where there's tons of parking), and take the 7AM train. Which gets me into work late, of course.

Comments

[charibdis.livejournal.com]

Why are they hiking the fares? Is it because the people running the T are being greedy? Is it because less tax money is being given to public transportation? Is it because more people are riding the T now?

It strikes me that the things you are complaining about the T could be fixed if they had adequate funding (assuming they don't now, which they may). I ride the bus every day and over the past couple of years I've noticed that the shocks and brakes and lights on the buses all seeme to be deteriorating horribly and not getting replaced when they should. I wish the T would spend more money on repairs and maintenance. I'm not sure they need to charge us money to do that, or that charging us more money will result in better maintenance, but it might.

The link didn't give any explanation as to why the fares needed to go up.

You make a good point that fare increases may well cause less people to ride the T. Still, if they expanded service to cover more hours or run with more frequentcy or cover more areas better then we might see more people riding it.