This Opinion Piece on MBTA Bus Privatization by Denise Provost was published in the TAB in December 1996:
For the last year, the MBTA has been planning to turn over
operation of its bus routes to one or more private contractors. The
admirable aim of this plan is to save money. As one who actually
uses buses, however, the prospect of privatization concerns me.
While this move might give me some tiny advantage as a taxpayer, it
could be to my considerable disadvantage as a transit user. How can
bus service that costs the MBTA less equal the service currently
provided?
Not that the quality of that service is magnificent; nor is it
invariably bad. Service quality, however, was not the starting
point for the MBTA's plans, and has barely intruded upon public
discussion of privatization. The MBTA didn't ask what bus riders
think about service, improvements, increasing ridership. The T
didn't say to the Carmen's Union, we think it's in your power to
improve service, and if you don't meet certain standards by this
deadline, then we're putting your jobs out to bid.
The notion of private contracting didn't start from, "how can we
make it better?" but, "how can we make it cheaper?" We're talking
disinvestment here, taking dollars out of the system. When the
cutting starts, can it fail to cut into service?
Notice where the knife falls. Transportation officials continue to
pour capital into suburban commuter rail expansion, even advocating
a New Bedford/ Fall River line that will require a subsidy of $45
a rider per day for the next 30 years. Yet the 159 bus lines
through Boston and adjacent urban communities were chosen for
transportation budget cuts. Why?
MBTA buses serve primarily to feed the broader mass transit system.
That basic 60 cent bus fare is for most riders just part of a $1.45
one-way commute. Is it fair to calculate the costs and income of
the buses as if they were a stand-alone system?
Fairness is at the heart of matter. In our transportation caste
system, buses and the people who ride them stand at the bottom,
just as mass transit ranks below the automobile. Consider that we
are spending almost $8 billion to depress a few miles of Central
Artery, while the goal of privatization is to pare perhaps $27
million a year from an annual bus budget of $200 million.
These savings are to be realized from lower salaries paid to bus
drivers. Leaving fairness aside, do we believe these drivers can be
replaced without affecting operations ? The law requires that MBTA
employees displaced by privatization be offered jobs by
contractors. Even if these workers accept reemployment at lesser
pay, will their motivation and performance be unchanged?
Conspicuously absent from privatization discussions are any
commitments to bus users about service and fares. A year ago, state
transportation officials proposed to abolish the MBTA Advisory
Board. Do these officials have any interest at all in hearing from
transit users or their representatives ?
The stakes are high in this privatization experiment, the biggest
ever undertaken in this country. In Great Britain, where
privatization of bus service began ten years ago, fares have gone
up, ridership has gone down, and service has been uneven or
disrupted. We run the same risks with our own system.
Privatization means new drivers, or former MBTA employees working
on reduced wages. Can we expect safe and dependable service? If a
contractor runs into difficulties and defaults, who will run the
buses? The contractor's performance bond will be of little comfort
to stranded commuters. What if a contractor anticipates budgetary
shortfalls, and asks for increased payment, alternatively walking
away from the contract? Either fares must go up, or the state
subsidizes, right?
These scenarios are real, if extreme, possibilities in the realm of
public contracting. More common is chronic, substandard
performance. The cure for this difficulty is terminating the
contract; the problem of salvaging the system remains.
Even lesser service disruptions cause trouble. MBTA bus service now
is often poor, due to traffic congestion on our narrow streets.
Degradation of bus service will only force more discretionary users
into automobiles, increasing traffic volume, with adverse impacts
on transportation and the environment.
Even as the Big Dig makes it imperative to reduce urban traffic,
the MBTA plays bus privatization roulette. Transportation officials
seem to have forgotten why reliable mass transit is vital to the
health of cities. Let's talk now about providing consistent,
dependable mass transit. Then we can talk about where the dollars
should come from, and where they should go.
copyright 1996 Denise Provost