Agencies agree to aid T, Turnpike
Proposal calls for pooling resources
Governor Deval Patrick's administration - increasingly desperate to avoid turnpike toll hikes and fare increases on buses, subways, and trains over the next 18 months - announced a plan yesterday to pool resources from the state's transportation bureaucracies in hope of finding money.
The plan, still in its formative stages and only tentatively described, would take money from the state Highway Department and the Massachusetts Port Authority and divert it to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority MBTA and the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority.
But it is far from clear that any cost-sharing plan would raise enough to avoid hitting up commuters for more cash over the next two years.
Leaders of all four transportation agencies met with state Transportation Secretary Bernard Cohen behind closed doors for about 90 minutes yesterday and agreed they would try to find money to channel to the Turnpike Authority and the MBTA and identify services they might be able to perform for them, Cohen said after the meeting.
Cohen said that the officials came up with about a dozen suggestions, but that he would not reveal them for a week so he has time to analyze how much they would save. Others at the meeting referred questions to Cohen.
Attention drawn to yesterday's meeting underscores Cohen's assertion that the state's struggling transportation system will be one of the Patrick administration's top priorities over the next year. The Patrick administration has flirted with various overhaul proposals over the past year, including merging the Turnpike Authority with other agencies, but has yet to announce any plans that would resolve the financial problems.
Combined, the Turnpike Authority and the T are expected to face about a $200 million hole in their annual budgets, beginning in July 2009, according to some estimates. The T has ruled out fare increases for the coming year, but warns of a hefty increase in 2010 if it does not get legislative help. The Turnpike Authority must decide soon whether to raise tolls in January, as its board looks at a $70 million deficit this budget year and a $100 million deficit in next year's spending plan.
Cohen calls toll and fare increases "an absolute last resort," because of the sluggish economy and high gasoline prices, but acknowledges "there's no magic bullet."
At most, the latest plan will be a stop-gap until lawmakers figure out a broader plan. Cohen said the Turnpike Authority board, which he chairs, would wait at least until September before deciding on toll increases.
"Perhaps they can pull a rabbit out of the hat, but I'm skeptical," said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation and a member of a bipartisan commission that documented the financial problems of the state's transportation system last year.
The agencies that have been tapped to help the Turnpike Authority and the T have their own financial issues.
The Massachusetts Highway Department already uses borrowed money to pay 78 percent of its payroll costs.
The Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs the airport and the seaport, is financially the state's healthiest transportation agency. But it also faces problems as the airlines it serves struggle with rising gas prices and dwindling passenger loads. Massport's chief executive, Thomas J. Kinton Jr., recently asked his staff to find cuts in their budgets in response to the crisis in the industry.
One area where MassPort may be able to help: It controls the Tobin Bridge, projected to net about $280 million in tolls over the next 20 years. The Transportation Finance Commission recommended that the bridge be turned over the Turnpike Authority.
Still, most insiders say the state will have to come up with another source of revenue for the T and the Turnpike Authority soon. An increase in the gas tax, proposed by the commission, is not considered politically viable. Leaders of the Legislature's Transportation Committee said yesterday the measure would not pass if proposed under the current conditions.
Noah Bierman can be reached at nbierman@globe.com. 