MORE COPS This past fall, Transit Police union leader Robert Marino said that only five of the force’s 270 officers ride the trains at a time. The union also says that the force averages one officer for every 5058 riders, compared with the national average of 1759 riders per officer. That this isn’t prompting scenes straight out of The Warriors is somewhat amazing, but why merge with the staties when you can hire? To reach the national average, and to stop incidents such as 2007’s Green Line groping spree, the MBTA police would have to nearly triple its force by adding 510 more cops. At a base salary of $48,000, plus $16,000 for fringe benefits, this looks like a bargain. TOTAL COST $32.6 million
AN EXPANDED GREEN LINE Governor Patrick is still waiting on a $300 million federal grant to extend the line past Lechmere to Tufts as part of a $600 million project that may not be finished until 2016. There’s also some debate over whether it should go to Union Square or not. Stop waiting and stop debating. TOTAL COST $600 million
A FINISHED KENMORE SQUARE Three years and $32 million later, Kenmore Square is still a mess. The bus stop looks like an Erector set with pieces missing; the subway station is a leaky, crumbling bomb shelter; and traffic through the area still snarls. Let’s pay some overtime and get it done before the next Sox game. TOTAL COST $50 million
SILVER LINE PHASE III Forget the fact that calling a bus on a wire a “subway line” is just a wee bit deceitful; connecting the Silver Lines just makes sense, and expanding them to include Copley Square, Grove Hall, Mattapan, Ashmont, and the Fairmount commuter rail offers more than lip service to underserved communities. Considering that tunneling in this town can get costly in a hurry, let’s go with former state transportation secretary John Cogliano’s 2006 plan to keep the link above ground. TOTAL COST $94 million
NEW, LIABILITY-COVERED COMMUTER RAIL The transportation company CSX had offered to sell its tracks between Framingham and Worcester; some of its property in Allston, South Bay, and the South End; and right-of-way on some of its other tracks for $300 million to $400 million. The catch? It wouldn’t be responsible for commuter rail injuries or deaths on its tracks. They called the deal non-negotiable, but it’s hard to get a rail project going without greasing the wheels a bit. So let’s put an extra $200–$300 million toward the T’s insurance payments or, better, into low-yield, low-risk contingency funds just in case another switch mishap or train collision should occur. TOTAL COST $600 million
A WHOLE LOT OF INTANGIBLES For one, we’ll no longer have to worry about the looming fare hikes. For another, MBTA General Manager Dan Grabauskas will no longer need to make red-faced admissions of “hidden service cuts,” as he did in February, to an irate ridership. Finally, the T won't have to float bond issues to cover operating expenses such as maintenance and pesky little variables such as climbing fuel prices. TOTAL COST invaluable
GRAND TOTAL: $2.12 BILLION Including all of those intangibles and a nice cushion for rainy days, that’s not really so bad. Granted, we could blow the rest on a project like a rail tunnel connecting North Station to South Station, which the MBTA estimated would cost billions back in 2003, but then running up the company credit card is no way to run a railroad, right?
