(The following article by Mac Daniel was posted on the Boston Globe website on May 18.)
BOSTON — A real estate group called on the state yesterday to relieve the MBTA from paying $200 million annually for interest on bonds as a way to revitalize the transit agency, create new opportunities for development around transit stops, and fend off a proposed fare increase in January.
The Boston District Council of the Urban Land Institute, whose report was funded by the Boston Foundation, said the findings were a call to save the T, which has the highest debt burden of any transit agency in the nation. Much of that debit is on bonds guaranteed by the Commonwealth and issued before the Legislature in 2000 changed the T’s funding formula and made it fully responsible for its debt payments.
”The issue is really one of simply going back to what had been the state’s position when those bonds were issued,” said spokeswoman Stephanie Pollack. ”The state is certainly in a better position to afford the interest payments than the T is.”
A spokesman for the state’s Executive Office of Transportation said the state had not reviewed the report. ”I know that the T has gone through a process of belt tightening and looking to provide the best service for patrons while maximizing safe and efficient travel,” said Jon Carlisle.
The report came the same day a coalition of lawmakers as well as construction and environmental officials issued a plan to impose new user fees and earmark existing taxes to fund more than $2 billion in public transportation expansion projects — a proposal state officials largely dismissed as unworkable.
The proposal to create a Massachusetts Transit Fund is designed to set aside enough money to expand commuter rail service to Springfield, New Bedford, and Fall River; add more service on the Worcester and Fitchburg lines; and run the Blue Line to Lynn.
The coalition proposes new fees on hotels and motels, sightseeing tours, rental cars, commercial airline tickets, commuter rail parking, and ferry rides in areas served by expanded public transit. It also calls for repaying $2.2 billion in bonds by dedicating a portion of the 21-cent-per-gallon state gas tax, automobile sales tax, and $15 million in Registry of Motor Vehicles fees no longer needed by the Big Dig.