Tuesday’s fourth and final oversight hearing on transportation finance dysfunction in the Bay State didn’t really offer up anything new. Yet five of the members of the Transportation Finance Commission testifying before the Joint Committee on Transportation didn’t have to.
You see, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (2007 to be exact) the commission laid out all that needed to be said and done in a comprehensive (the word du jour for Massachusetts transportation wonks) two-volume report. “The commission was exceptional in their clarity and their ability to raise the issues,” said Steven Baddour, the Senate chairman.
So why drag invite them in? Stephen Silveira, the commission chairman; Alan Macdonald, executive director of the Massachusetts Business Roundtable; John Pourbaix Jr, executive director of Construction Industries of Massachusetts; Michael Widmer, the president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation; and Christopher Vincze, CEO of TRC Solutions, came to Beacon Hill to “stand by” the commission’s findings.
To liven things up, they threw in some bad news. The numbers “are worse,” said Silveira. (The commission had already identified billions in debt and deferred maintenance.) How much worse, you ask? The system has “gotten significantly worse more rapidly than we thought.” said Widmer.
Happy New Year!
That meant another call for a gas tax increase. Wearing his Massachusetts Transportation Foundation hat, Widmer called for a minimum 20 cent increase, indexed to inflation, (up from the commission’s modest 11.5 cent, indexed to inflation proposal) to pay for regional projects, to forestall pending toll increases and to provide some relief to the MBTA.
That led to another retreat from the gas tax. “A gas tax increase is not inevitable,” said Baddour, adding “We are not doing a gas tax until we fix the [transportation] fundamentals.”
At best, Massachusetts has made progress in the right direction, but we can’t check off any of the boxes, said Silveira as he and his crew patiently led the committee through an update of the unchecked boxes next to commission’s 28 recommendations.
No doubt in attempt to keep things interesting, Sen. Thomas McGee, the Lynn Democrat, asked what happens if nothing is done to address current transportation issues.
Here’s the preview of coming attractions:
• The longer the state waits, the bigger the $20 billion backlog of deferred maintenance gets.
• If you don’t take care of maintenance issues, bad things happen.
• There is no money to maintain the $22 billion Central Artery (where bad things have already have happened).
• In 18 to 24 months, the MBTA may be legally bankrupt (as opposed to the “functional” bankruptcy the agency finds itself in now).
There are “too many commissions whose reports are sitting on desks collecting dust rather than action,” concluded Baddour before he gavelled out the hearing.
Enough said.
