Put transit on agenda
Maybe now we could begin talking seriously again about mass transit in Massachusetts.
If nothing else, the problems with the Big Dig tunnels should put state transportation policy, or the lack of it, back on the public agenda.
Drivers desperate to escape the traffic of the last week, who turned to the T and commuter rail, learned what regular riders already knew: The state's diminishing commitment to mass transit has left us with a fractured system plagued by dirt, delays, deferred maintenance, and declining ridership.
It was not supposed to be like this. The Big Dig was meant to be one part of a more comprehensive transportation scheme. In 1990, environmental groups extracted promises of expanded mass transit from state officials to counter the expected increase in air pollution caused by the Big Dig and to ensure that public expenditures on transportation did not begin and end with cars. To avoid a lawsuit, the Commonwealth agreed to restore dormant train and trolley lines in the city and to expand commuter rail service to outlying areas.
After interminable delays, the Greenbush commuter rail line to the South Shore is nearing completion. And the Silver Line is running between Washington Street and South Boston. The state has promised to add 1,000 parking spaces to commuter rail stations; to add stations to the Fairmount Line in Hyde Park, Dorchester, and Mattapan; and to extend the Green Line to Union Square in Somerville and to West Medford.
But instead of extending rail service to the economically depressed communities of New Bedford and Fall River or to Springfield, instead of expanding the Blue Line to Lynn or restoring trolley service in Jamaica Plain, the Romney administration is spending millions on a flyover at the Sagamore Bridge to ease traffic tie-ups for weekend beachgoers.
The state's failure to deliver on its promises has triggered the lawsuits that previous administrations had pledged to avoid. The Conservation Law Foundation and Partners Healthcare filed separate suits last year, the latter protesting the state's failure to build the promised subway connector between the Red and Blue lines at the Charles Street station, which serves Massachusetts General Hospital.
Skyrocketing gas prices and the collapse of ceiling panels in the Interstate 90 connector could give fresh political impetus to a plan floated last spring by mass transit advocates to invest $2 billion in transportation construction and expansion projects. The money would come from existing tax revenue and new fees on everything from hotels to rental cars.
It sounded implausible in May. But the gridlock of the last week might have cooled the fevered antitax climate that has doomed so many initiatives for the communal good in the past 25 years, especially after Revenue Commissioner Alan LaBovidge reported on Monday that state revenue is running $1 billion above administration estimates.
Massachusetts is going to need that money and more to fix what went fatally wrong in the design and construction of the Big Dig. As the state's senior senator made clear on a visit to Beacon Hill this week, no one should expect any help from Washington, where the Big Dig is the Republicans' favorite symbol of pork.
Governor Mitt Romney has put on quite a performance at the easel in the past few days. Clearly a quick study, he has mastered the intricacies of undercut anchor bolts and hanger ties, translating engineering theory into plain English. But the alternate routes on Boston's surface arteries that he sketched at his easel are a temporary solution to an immediate crisis, not a permanent solution to a long-term problem.
Romney will not be around to propose, let alone implement, a comprehensive transportation plan that gives commuters an alternative to the automobile. Those candidates who would replace him in the corner office next January might want to add mass transit to their stump speech lists of pressing issues facing the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Eileen McNamara is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at mcnamara@globe.com. 
