New investment in the Bay State's aging transportation infrastructure should be evenly split between gas tax hikes and fare increases, as well as money freed up by the implementation of reforms included in a 2009 state transportation law and earlier legislation, Hub-based think tank Pioneer Institute said today in a policy brief.
"The wisest use of the new money is to phase it in over time, as we did with the 1993 Education Reform Act," said Pioneer Institute Executive Director James Stergios. "That way, we can hold the agencies accountable for delivering on promised reforms, learn from successes and failures, and adjust as we move ahead. It's far more important to do transportation reform right than to do it fast."
Under Pioneer's plan, the state gas tax would immediately rise by three cents, and would rise another three cents in 2016 if the Massachusetts Department of Transportation meets a benchmark based on publicly available customer service metrics and implementation of the 2009 and other reforms, officials said. Massachusetts transportation infrastructure needs roughly $2.6 billion in new investment over six years, Pioneer added.
New revenue would be generated by MBTA fare hikes that are part of a strategy to increase the percentage of operating costs covered by fare revenue from 40 percent to 45 percent, officials said.
Pioneer called for all new transportation-based tax, fee and fare revenue to be used exclusively for transportation purposes. The Pioneer proposal would reduce the number of MassDOT employees paid out of capital by 75 percent over five years, which means moving nearly 285 employees to the operating budget each year.
In return for the initial three-cent gas tax hike, MassDOT will have to focus on re-establishing management rights such as the ability to outsource and control employee assignments, which saved the MBTA nearly $50 million annually in the 1990s before many of them were eliminated, officials said. The agency also needs to develop and post a clear set of customer-focused metrics that provide the basis for decisions about funding future transportation needs, according to the policy brief.
Other sources of new revenue include redirecting $30 million to $50 million in annual savings achieved by moving to automated toll collection. Pioneer's plan also recommends seeking $10 million in new revenue from new electronic tolling mechanisms.
Pioneer also recommended that no major transportation expansion projects be undertaken beyond those already required by law until road, bridge and transit maintenance backlogs have been eliminated. The Institute also called for all transportation infrastructure funding decisions to be based on a project's lifecycle costs, including operating and maintenance expenses, rather than just construction costs.
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