>>959091hold on to your asshole, this is gonna be a long one.
The short answer is, they can't. they're talking about paving the path and making it a dedicated busway because this would be the most cost effective option, sadly (though, for one of the shortest services the MBTA offers, it's more expensive than any regular city bus here.)
Basically, the MBTA has no money. they always operate at a deficit. The reason for that is a little convoluted, so hear me out.
Boston, and MA politics, are fucked. The most powerful man in MA is named Robert Deleo, he's the speaker of the house. The Governer, Charlie Baker (a corrupt crony-capitalist republican fuckwit anyway) has less power than him. The Mayor of Boston, Marty Walsh (a corrupt Crony-capitalist ostensibly democrat recovering-so-everybody-has-to-suffer-cause-he-did-alcoholic), was elected under promises of expanding night life and increasing arts. He has since cracked down on the homeless, refused to continue the MBTA late night service program, and cut money in as many public works as possible (look up the BPS budget cuts if you want to rage).
these three are a team dedicated to making Boston appeal to the upper-middle class that was boston 20 years ago and financially and physically cannot exist anymore based on how the city is built and how the public works are funded. A big factor in THAT was the big dig-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig "The Big Dig was the most expensive highway project in the US"
guess who had to pay for the Big Dig? the MBTA has to pay for the big dig. (not actually Baker or Walsh's fault- DeLeo's though.)
on top of that, the MBTA's Green Line was supposed to expand. but because of how the contracts were set up, the construction companies were allowed to charge what they wanted for most of it, doubling the estimated price- this may shock you, but the owners of the private companies contracted for the expansion were friends of the three politicians! shock and awe!
Continued-
