If you’re a student going to school in Boston, the T is a vital part of your college experience. While ridiculous waiting times and overcrowded cars are a staple of most rides, all students are used to hearing Boston University stops being announced over the speaker system, before students struggle to disembark off the T and on to campus. Harvard University, Northeastern University and the Tufts Medical Center are other institutions that can boast having T stops to their name. However, if a new Massachussets Bay Transportation Authority proposal is approved, these same institutions will have to pay a fee to ensure their name remains as a T stop.
According to an article published in The Daily Free Press today, institutions that apparently reap great benefits from the MBTA would be required to pay a certain fee to retain their respective T stops. With this additional revenue, the MBTA would be able to keep their fare increases to approximately 25 percent and as a consequence of the extra money, no services would have to be cut from the existing program. This is only one of many proposals being put forth by the MBTA to alleviate the massive debt they are burdened with at the moment. Furthermore, venues such as TD Garden and Fenway Park would be two venues that would have to pay the MBTA an additional fee due to the rush hour traffic they induce.
Obviously, should the proposal be passed and an institution such as BU be opposed to the new measures, changing the names of existing T stops will present a much larger dilemma for the MBTA. However, where institutions have the resources to pay the surcharge, it’s a small price to pay in return for all services to be preserved. Hundreds of students take advantage of the T daily, so it would be unfeasible for institutions to argue paying the fee when alternatives include cutting down on existing services. Understandably, paying for T stop names that have been used for years will be an annoyance, but at this stage in the MBTA’s financial recovery, it is worth it. Paying this proportionally smaller price will save the functionality of lines, and this more creative approach to raising the required funds is preferable to more severe alternatives.
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