The T's unchecked expansion and its consequences

WITH THE turnpike's budget woes making headlines and the Patrick administration going about the painful work of identifying what could be $1 billion in emergency budget cuts, it seems increasingly difficult to find a state agency that can pay its bills.

But the Commonwealth and turnpike are downright flush compared with the MBTA. The governor has vowed to take on the T's bloated pension system as part of his response to the budget crisis, but in the short term the MBTA can't even come up with the money to fund retroactive raises mandated by a recent arbitrator's decision.

If, as Einstein said, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, then you have to wonder about the state's transit policy over the past quarter century.

Unchecked expansion has bankrupted the MBTA, but plans to extend commuter rail service to New Bedford and Fall River move forward. The Commonwealth is slated to pay for the portion of the estimated $1.4 billion in construction costs not picked up by the federal government and the T is on the hook for the expected $21 million annual operating loss.

Even more eye-opening is a one-mile tunnel in Boston that would connect the section of the Silver Line that runs between downtown and Dudley Station with the portion running between South Station and Logan Airport.

As with the New Bedford/Fall River line, the MBTA would absorb the project's $5.5 million annual operating loss. Unlike South Coast rail, the T is also expected to foot the construction bill for phase III of the Silver Line.

Even if the feds pick up 60 percent of the estimated $1.1 billion tab, the project would add about $30 million to the staggering $363 million the MBTA pays in annual debt service - about what it collects in fares. It could also be the last straw for the T's reeling finances, just when the Commonwealth's own budget woes make it least able to help.

Silver Line III is one of the last projects the MBTA is required to build and operate to mitigate the environmental impact of additional vehicle traffic accommodated by the Big Dig. Capital and planning costs for those projects account for about 40 percent of the T's massive $8.2 billion debt and their operating subsidies are responsible for another chunk.

If anything, projections probably underestimate the impact Silver Line III would have on the MBTA's battered bottom line. Tunneling through a densely developed urban area filled with historic structures and existing highway and transit tunnels - all near the part of the city built on fill - is a recipe for uncontrolled costs.

Excluding inflation, the less-complicated South Station-to-Logan portion of the Silver Line was 67 percent overbudget. A similar result would boost the tab for Silver Line III to about $1.8 billion.

What we get in return is like a case study in the dangers of setting policy by decree. The project would attract only about 15,000 new riders to transit, a fraction of the 1.2 million who take the T each workday. That breaks down to more than $79,000 per new rider; $132,000 if the project experiences the same cost overruns as the previous leg of the Silver Line.

Far from fouling the air with vehicle emissions, the numbers actually suggest that an unusually high percentage of the riders Silver Line III would attract are currently walking. The daily reduction in vehicle miles traveled would amount to between five and ten trips from the Route 128 area to downtown. The drop in carbon monoxide emissions would be miniscule.

Depressing as they are, the projections probably overstate project benefits. In 1993, the Commonwealth estimated Silver Line III would attract only about half as many new transit riders. Experience teaches that the earlier estimates, often developed before political pressure is exerted to sell a project, tend to be closer to actual results.

Investing in transit is not by definition a bad idea, but failing to provide a way to pay for the investment is. That failure has landed the MBTA in a deep financial hole. State transportation policymakers should recognize that the first step toward getting out of it is to stop doing the things that got the T there in the first place.

Charles Chieppo is the principal of Chieppo Strategies, a public-policy writing and advocacy firm. He was a member of the MBTA Blue Ribbon Committee on Forward Funding.