Many locals hate the ‘T’. I didn’t take a poll, I didn’t run a survey, it’s just my hunch based on a decade in Boston, but I know I’m right. Constant delays, weekend shutdowns, rising fares, the ‘T’ works tirelessly to earn this vitriol. Some say it’s so bad that the solution is to shut it down, to set the ‘T’ free, and usher in a sustainable transit future defined by innovation, technology, and individual responsibility.
Longtime readers will know that I take a dim view of these opinions. A recent article about safety ‘not being a priority’ at the ‘T’ was the latest such example. The report was an embarrassment, I get that, but let’s put this 'safety' into context. The ‘T’ is a mass transit system, thus, by definition it’s safe. Does a squirt gun need a trigger lock? Numbers, numbers always help, in 2018 there were 360 deaths on the Commonwealth’s roads, or 352 more than on the ‘T’. Everyone understand why I think this 'safety culture' stuff is fake news? If safety isn’t a priority at the ‘T’, what’s the priority on Storrow Drive? I can't wait to replace mass transit with mass ride shares, this city needs more assaults, gridlock, and corporate profits like Mayor Marty needs coaching for his Boston accent (1).
The surest way to a stupid opinion is to ignore context. Twenty-five years ago, I remember standing in front of a ‘T’ kiosk while my mom wasted five minutes buying a handful of Chuck-E-Cheese tokens. Then, we forced those tokens through the occasionally functional gates for the privilege of waiting indefinitely for the next train. A coup meant the Alewife subway came within ten minutes. These days, I swipe my automatically recharged Charlie card over a sensor, a process that takes three seconds, and read the schedule on an electronic board. Next train, three minutes! Five minutes later, the train shows up, and everyone complains.
I respect the right to complain. If it isn’t in the Bill of Rights it should be. But some complaints bother me. How do I put this? It’s when I sense contradiction, the hollow hypocrisy killing my brain cells with each additional syllable. Ever hear a billionaire talk, talk, talk about paying fair tax burdens? It's kind of like that. Now, those billionaires probably didn't understand my second paragraph, built on the premise that actions speak louder than words. Hearing the rich talk, talk, talk about fair shares rings hollow just like it does when drivers complain about the T's safety culture.
The other side of this issue is that there is so much more to complain about regarding the 'T'. Why complain about 'safety culture' when you could just talk about prices? I don't even know where to begin here, I’ll start by pointing out that a roundtrip train ticket to Boston from Weston, the Commonwealth's richest town, costs $10 every weekend. This is a ‘buffet ticket’, good for unlimited (but unsafe!) train trips all weekend (2). It’s great that I can save a little cash to get to Weston, I guess I’ll shop local and support their struggling businesses. And while I’m on my shopping spree, someone traveling from Chelsea to Boston via bus pays $1.70 one-way ($2.40 if a subway gets involved). Is there a ‘buffet ticket’ for these weekends? What do you think? Numbers, numbers always help, all I know is that Ten Dollar Weston has a median household income over four times that of Chelsea.
The ‘T’ doesn’t need complaints, posted by bus passengers while sitting in a traffic jam caused by cars. The ‘T’ needs money. If the ‘safety culture’ is a problem, what is $5 billion of debt? The obvious answer is to jack up fairs – whoops, fares – but this answer feels naive, a little ‘Business 101’, because it works from an assumption that the ‘T’ operates like the sidewalk lemonade stand. Should the ‘T’ really make price equal cost? This works well when only the buyer and the seller benefit but it falls apart quickly under more complex conditions.
We pseudo-economists like to use a big word here, ‘externality’. It means value created outside the transaction. Air pollution is a negative externality because it increases the chance that I get lung cancer. My guess is that the ‘T’ is among the Commonwealth’s largest producers of positive externalities (3). My boss needs me at work, I need to get to work, and the ‘T’ solves for X. But we, the boss and I, benefit beyond our working relationship because we both know I can sell my skills to a larger pool of bidders just as we both know the organization can choose employees from a larger pool of candidates. In a way, the ‘T’ ensures I’m paid fairly while my organization gets a fair price. All of this costs $90 per monthly pass (often subsidized by employers, occasionally available pretax) but the total benefits to all involved surely far exceed the price.
So, the question boils down to fair. What is each person’s ‘fare share’ for the ‘T’? I don’t believe in free rides (!) so I say you pay for what you get, the cost being roughly equivalent to benefit from the ‘T’. A wage worker likely benefits from the ‘T’ to the tune of dollars a week, perhaps by using mass transit to access slightly higher paying jobs or a wider range of support and resources. But a rich person running a huge company likely benefits by several magnitudes more than any employee, perhaps by hundreds or even thousands of dollars a day, as the mobility of the workforce enables accelerated wealth creation. My thought then is that one reason wealth tends to accrue with the wealthy is through a resource like the 'T'. Quiz, who do you think I feel should pay more for it?
So does this mean a $100 ticket to Weston? Not quite. Actually, step one is to set it free, all of it, no more fares. Set the ‘T’ free! Step two is the fun part, I’m going to increase taxes, because when benefits accrue indirectly – higher pay, lower expenses, appreciating assets – the only fair mechanism is through taxes. This will help almost all people, you and I, because hey, we ain’t as rich, and our increased tax liability will be less than what we currently pay for fares. Those who end up paying more are simply (and finally) being charged their fare share. This approach makes sense to me because it’s an allocation based on cost reflecting benefit, an approach that we should all agree is only fair.
Footnotes / omitted rants
0. For starters...
I struggled to pick a title, I strongly considered 'fare share' but in the end opted for wordplay ahead of the pun.
1. I'm still a big fan, though.
The alternate joke here would have involved Governor Baker identifying rants, but given that this post is a rant, I decided against it.
2. I tried linking this thought to ‘providence’, I gave up, thank God.
It’s the same price for unlimited weekend trips to Providence. Ten bucks to Providence, and back, unlimited trips all weekend. Providence isn’t in the Commonwealth!
3. Economics 101
First, a clarification – I think it's more accurate to say the ‘T’ (basically) produces a public good rather than a net positive externality, but TOA isn’t an economics space (and never will be).
3a. But, if it was...
The way I use ‘positive net externality’ assumes that the positives of rides far outweigh the negatives. In other words, we all would have agreed that the amount of benefit gained from having the 'T' (such as greater mobility) exceeds its costs (such as pollution).
