TransitMatters Executive Director's Speech At Governor Healey's Press Conference

Below is the full transcript of the speech our Executive Director, Jarred Johnson, gave at Governor Healey’s press conference on February 12, 2024:

“Thank you, General Manager Eng. It’s an honor to be here. Your leadership has marked an incredible shift in the agency’s trajectory. I want to thank Governor Healey for bringing someone with the experience, tenacity, and creativity to do big, bold things quickly, such as slashing the time it took to open that emergency platform at Lynn, giving riders faith that the diversions will deliver safer, faster journeys, and bringing on more bus operators so that we can expand service. 

Governor Healey’s budget is a great down payment on rebuilding the MBTA’s capacity, both on fixing critical infrastructure and delivering more service. This important increase to the operating budget helps to avoid dire service cuts. I also want to thank the governor for making low-income fares a reality after a nearly 10-year fight led by dozens of grassroots groups and hundreds of low-income riders sharing their experiences. 

We need to build on these efforts and identify the revenues needed to bring this system to, not just a state of good repair, but into the world-class system that riders deserve, and that the region needs. While the most urgent repairs are the priority in the short term, we cannot choose between the state of good repair and the modernization needed to help this region grow and improve the quality of life for millions. 

If we want to ease congestion on our highways, the T needs the resources to provide reliable service that makes all kinds of trips much more convenient. State-wide issues, like housing and the MBTA Communities Act, regional fairness, economic competitiveness, and addressing climate change depend on a strong transportation system, and, as [Secretary Tibbits-Nutt] said, ‘across the entire Commonwealth.’ 

Public transit connects people to jobs, education, and healthcare, as well as friends and family. Transit is vital whether we’re talking about low-income folks, people with disabilities, youth, and older adults, who often rely on transit. But transit is also vital when we’re talking about people who are also deciding between our region or other global hubs with stronger transit systems. 

A strong public transit system is a must-have for a strong Commonwealth and for a robust economy that lifts everyone up. This kind of system will support jobs across the state—from Springfield to Somerville—provide high-quality transit and access to people living outside of [Metropolian Boston] by continuing to fund and strengthen our Regional Transit Authorities (RTAs), will finish long-delayed transit projects that will make the MBTA function better, and bring clean energy vehicles that decrease pollution into our communities. 

Such a public transportation system is possible, but only if we properly fund it. The lack of sustainable, long-term funding hurts the ability of public transit to operate, plan, or build efficiently. I hope that the recently announced task force will give us some of those options to fully fund public transit.

Governor Healey, with the team you’ve assembled, led by Secretary Tibbits-Nutt and General Manager Eng, I’m confident that we are on that path. However, the backlog of repairs and the ability to build a transportation system for the future, as well as the current reliability and affordability of the T, needs leadership from all levels of government. I believe that we will get there and we will make those investments and deliver the transportation system that the Commonwealth needs. I’ll turn it back to [Governor Healey], and thank you for including us in this conversation.”

Valentines For Transit Workers

BOSTON, February 1, 2024 — In July, MBTA operators became the highest paid in the industry. In November, the MBTA Board of Directors authorized General Manager Eng to move forward with more favorable contract negotiations. However, there is still more to be done to care for frontline workers, including protecting transit workers from increased assaults and unsafe work environments.

With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, TransitMatters encourages riders to show their appreciation for transit workers by giving Valentine’s Day cards to frontline transit workers on February 14!

To make it easier for riders to get involved, we designed the valentines for them. Riders can choose between three different messages and personalize the valentines they share with their MBTA transit mode(s)! Riders can download the valentines to print at home here.

If riders do not have access to a printer, TransitMatters staff will be at the Orange Line Forest Hills entrance next to the Old South Meeting House (310 Washington St, Boston, MA 02108) on February 8 between 4–6:00 pm to distribute valentines.

Riders who cannot make it to the State Forest Hills entrance on February 8 nor have access to a printer: be extra kind to transit workers on Valentine's Day! Let your drivers, operators, conductors, and ambassadors know how appreciated they are.

2023 Regional Rail Retrospective

BOSTON, January 30, 2024 — I’m excited to be writing the inaugural TransitMatters Regional Rail blog post! 2023 was the year Regional Rail went from idea to work-in-progress. I’m excited to start things by reviewing a promising year gone by and previewing what I believe will only be an even more fruitful year ahead.

2023 saw success in longstanding areas of advocacy for TransitMatters and a change in leadership that heralds more to come. I’m more hopeful than ever for the future and believe our advocacy is poised for its most significant year of impact so far.

What did we accomplish in 2023? 

Key Regional Rail priorities saw an infusion of money under the Fiscal Year 2024-2028 Capital Investment Plan (CIP). The CIP is a short-term rolling document that sets out the T’s spending over the next four fiscal years. Looking through the CIP provides a rundown of what the T is working on. Unlike larger, more aspirational documents like Focus 40, if something is in the CIP, we know it’s going to happen. This year’s CIP brought $61 million of new money to Regional Rail efforts, including $2 million specifically for electrification planning on the Eastern Route between Boston and Beverly. Going forward, we’d like to see more ambition and specificity. Still, this year’s CIP marked improvement over previous cycles and set a new standard.

As the year ended, news broke of the T’s plans to electrify the Fairmount Line using battery-electric multiple units, with revenue service in late 2027. This is by far the most concrete move toward electrification of the system so far. If sustained, this would be a major win for the Fairmount Line and the whole system. We believe that this can happen on a parallel track with—and reinforce—further investment in catenary and electrification across the system. Right now, the benefits of electrification might be theoretical, or largely confined to decarbonization concerns. However, I firmly believe that once the riding public gets a taste of increased performance and comfort of electric trains, they won’t want to go back. Positive feedback is key to advancing and securing policy improvement, and we’re finally on track to see that for Regional Rail.

Commuter Rail set post-COVID ridership records and has emerged as a bright spot for the T. This success is noteworthy for a few reasons. First, the fastest-recovering line has been the Fairmount Line. It has seen the greatest investment in a Regional Rail type of service so far, with consistent—though still infrequent—service throughout the day and integration with the broader fare network. Other lines have seen a significant ridership increase as the MBTA and Keolis make service more frequent and consistent throughout the day. For example, the Franklin Line saw a ridership increase of more than 20% this fill. Ridership on the Commuter Rail network recovered to more than 90% of pre-COVID levels, outpacing the MBTA’s combined figures. One might expect the existing Commuter Rail—a service still in many ways optimized for 9-to-5, suburban-to-downtown commuters—to perform the worst post-COVID. The fact that it’s leading the pack drives home the importance of service quality as the determining factor for ridership, and makes clear that our Regional Rail improvements will only further increase ridership.

The Case for Optimism

I see strong foundations for future progress, even with the considerable challenges at the MBTA. The year began with major changes in leadership in the Commonwealth and at the MBTA that bode well for continued progress. Governor Maura Healey was inaugurated in January, and General Manager Phillip Eng joined the T in March. While it’s too early to judge either leader entirely, there are promising signs of a new-found recognition that investing in transit is essential to our Commonwealth’s economic vitality, climate goals, economic opportunity, and more.

The stakes are high, but the case for sober optimism is strong. Greater Boston looks poised to avoid the worst of the urban doom loop and to put the worst disruptions on the subway system behind us by the end of the year. The in-office presence that comes with lab space and the enduring strength of our universities have kept our core urban areas populated. Disruptions on the subway as part of the T’s Track Improvement Program will cause short-term gains. In the long term, it will improve service and ridership and eliminate arguments that the subway’s issues mean we can’t invest in Regional Rail. 

As Regional Rail gains momentum, we at TransitMatters are fine-tuning our advocacy strategy to keep pressure on the state and T to invest in the system. We released our report on what the Framingham/Worcester Line needs to accomplish for Regional Rail on January 17, and we’re planning to release our report on the Franklin Line–our last line-by-line report–this spring. The release of our Franklin Line report will cap off a very productive 12 months that’s seen the release of reports on the Framingham/Worcester, Fitchburg, and Needham Lines and our Turning Vision into Reality report, which took a broader view of the investment case.

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This blog post was written by Jackson Moore-Otto, TransitMatters’ Regional Rail Project Manager. For media inquiries, please email media@transitmatters.org or contact jmooreotto@transitmatters.org for your Regional Rail questions.

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Photo Credit: James Wang