MBTA

The House budget is scheduled to be released on Wednesday, but a sneak-preview released Tuesday morning suggests the chamber’s leaders want to pour $738 million into the MBTA and the regional transit authorities — $281 million from the state’s general fund and $457 million from money collected from a 4 percent surcharge on income above $1 million.

The amendment by Tibbits-Nutt was unusual in that she publicly overruled T staff, who had argued against including premium service in the discount, and did so without any debate over the extra cost.

The MBTA board voted on Thursday to waive $90.6 million in penalties and possibly nearly $40 million more if the cars are delivered on the new timetable. The T also agreed to pay CRRC, the world’s largest rail car manufacturer, $148 million to cover unexpected cost increases brought about by the pandemic and hefty tariffs on the cars imposed by the US government.

The report anticipates extending the SL3 bus to Sullivan Square would be achievable in a relatively short time frame because the existing SL3 fleet has the ability to serve the extension.

Eng is focused on service improvement, aggressively ramping up hiring and moving to eliminate slow zones on all of the subway lines by the end of this year.

Delorto said most of the measures would be implemented in the MBTA’s core subway and bus service area or, alternatively, the T’s entire service area. The implication was that some of the revenue-raising measures would not apply outside the MBTA service area.

“I’m not going to comment on hypotheticals until I see things,” Healey said, referring to the task force report. “But what I’ll say is that I think as governor I have not been afraid to take this head-on and this administration is not going to be about kicking the can down the road, which frankly is what happened for far too long – years, decades.”

The three free buses are the 23, 28, and 29 routes, which run through parts of Dorchester, Mattapan, and Roxbury. City officials say half of the riders on the routes are low income and ridership overall is high. The officials said Route 28 ridership is at 102 percent of pre-COVID levels, while the Route 23 is at 94 percent and the Route 29 is at 64 percent.

BOSTON MAYOR Michelle Wu is a fan of doing away with fares on the MBTA, but over the last month she has been outmaneuvered by Gov. Maura Healey who favors charging low-income riders a half-priced fare.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu called the proposed commuter rail fare cuts “low-hanging fruit that is there to get more people onto reliable public transportation, ease congestion, and help the flow of traffic as we continue to fix the larger system.”

Nearly four months after the reopening of the Sumner Tunnel, the MBTA is still waiting to be reimbursed by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation for its efforts to mitigate the traffic impact caused by the two-month closure.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s appointee to the MBTA board of directors pushed back against a transit authority presentation on Wednesday that steered the agency toward launching a half-price fare for low-income passengers instead of the free fare concept favored by the mayor.