Patriot Ledger
By Mary Whitfil
QUINCY – U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch bashed the MBTA on Monday for furloughing workers and continuing with service cuts despite receiving significant federal aid.
“We didn’t give a couple billion dollars to the MBTA so they could lay people off and cut services,” Lynch said Monday.
The congressman, who has represented Quincy for 20 years, was at city hall Monday with House Speaker Ronald Mariano and Mayor Thomas Koch to discuss the American Rescue Plan, a recently passed $1.9 trillion federal stimulus package.
The bill includes $30 billion for transit relief across the country. While T officials have said they won’t know their exact allotment for several weeks, Koch, the MBTA Advisory Board chairman, said Monday that the agency will get about $850 million.
The agency moved ahead with additional service cuts this weekend and Keolis Commuter Services, which runs the commuter rail, announced 40 new layoffs just days ago, Lynch said.
“The will of Congress is to get people back on the trains, back on the buses, back into the economy. Carefully, thoughtfully, hopefully vaccinated,” he said. “So this idea that the MBTA is going to lay people off or furlough them or cut bus routes or reduce train service is completely contrary to the will of Congress. We’re going to have to have a come-to-Jesus meeting. … This is not going to fly.”
The MBTA predicts a $1 billion budget shortfall over the next five or more years as it recovers from drastically reduced ridership brought on by the pandemic. Not including money it will get from the American Rescue Plan, the MBTA has already received $1.1 billion in aid from two federal relief bills since the start of the pandemic and local advocates say there is no justification for continued furloughs and service cuts
A report released in December by the union-backed coalition Public Transit Public Good estimated that the MBTA’s major service cuts meant 800 jobs eliminated. The MBTA did not give an estimated job loss created by the cuts in response to a request from The Patriot Ledger.
In January, the agency instituted “a temporary, one day per month, furlough for non-affiliated executives, Steelworkers, Local 453, and TEA members beginning in February 2021 and lasting through June 2021, for a total of five days in this fiscal year,” MBTA General Manager Steve Poftak said in a letter to employees.
“What started out as a very real budget crisis looks more and more like political machinations every day,” Jarred Johnson, chief operating officer of TransitMatters, told the MBTA board last month. “The MBTA needs to look at what kind of message it’s sending when on one hand it asks for workers to be furloughed and yet still receives $250 million.”
On Sunday, the latest round of MBTA service cuts took effect. Frequency dropped by 20 percent on nonessential bus routes and the Red, Orange and Green lines. It dropped by 5 percent on essential bus routes and the Blue Line. Nine bus routes were eliminated, adding to others that are already closed or consolidated.
In January, weekend commuter rail service on seven lines was halted and and the direct Charlestown and Hingham ferries were suspended. MBTA officials estimate the cuts will save $21 million through the end of this fiscal year.
At Monday’s press conference in Quincy, Koch said ridership is still nowhere near pre-pandemic levels, and did not commit to recommending a return to normal service.
“I assume (the $850 million) will help alleviate some of those cuts, but some of those cuts may stay until ridership picks up,” he said. “It may not make sense to be running some of these trains and buses when very few people are on it.”
T officials said last month that the board meeting on March 22 is the time to consider modifying service levels. Joseph Aiello, the board’s chairman, said the discussion will “take a look at the state of the world” and weigh “any modifications” in the final six weeks of the fiscal year, which ends June 30.
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