Time To Look At A Metropolitan Transportation System

Today is the day we no longer need to imagine the observation made by policymakers in the recent debates on transportation revenue – if you don’t think the MBTA is important to riders and non-riders alike, consider the Boston metropolitan area without it. Today, despite well plowed roads and reasonable weather, the region is at a standstill because the T has cancelled rail service due to the unprecedented storms.

One principal that provided the underpinning of the 2009 Transportation Reform Law is that we should govern our statewide transportation system in a manner that mirrors how we finance it. In that way, lawmakers hoped to align authority with responsibility. But, while what has resulted is better then what preceded it, more needs to be done to address fundamental inequities that remain a part of our system. More specifically, we need to more closely examine how people use the system in the same way we considered how best to finance and govern it.