City Council opposition to MBTA Fare Increase Proposal

How it started

Feb 25, 2019 · Proposed by Vice Mayor Devereux, Councillor Zondervan, Mayor Siddiqui, and Vice Mayor Mallon: a formal request from the Council to the administration.

What happened

Feb 25, 2019 · Amendment carried Moved by Vice Mayor Jan Devereux; carried on a voice vote.

the aforementioned order by adding that a copy of the resolution be sent to the Cambridge Delegation at the state house as well as to the MBTA’s fiscal management and control board and to Governor Baker

The clerk's words, from the minutes of Feb 25, 2019, p. 23.

Feb 25, 2019 · ✅ Order adopted as amended

View the roll call

Present and voting at this meeting (9)

Alanna Mallon
Craig A. Kelley
Dennis Carlone
E. Denise Simmons
Jan Devereux
Marc McGovern
Quinton Zondervan
Sumbul Siddiqui
Timothy J. Toomey

Adopted by voice vote. A voice vote records the outcome, not individual positions. No member's yes or no is on the record (though a member can ask to be recorded in the negative in the minutes). Showing the members who cast recorded votes at this meeting. Rule 6 requires a roll call for spending over $50 or on any member's request; state law requires one for every vote when a member participates remotely. · photos: City of Cambridge

What’s next

⌛ No response on the docket: nothing has been filed back under this request's number. Answers sometimes arrive as other items; this ledger tracks only this one.

The document Agenda item attachment · 2 pages

🏛 This item on the city's site 📄 Download original PDF

ORIGINAL ORDER

The MBTA recently released a fare proposal that would increase fares by a systemwide average of 6.3%; and If adopted, this increase would take effect July 1, 2019; and The MBTA is accepting public comment on the fare proposal at a series of public meetings and online through February 28, 2019; and The MBTA projects that this fare increase, the fourth since 2012, would reduce ridership by 1.3%; and A recent report from INRIX found that Boston has the worst rush-hour congestion of any urban area in the country; and Public transit ridership in Massachusetts must grow in the coming years, as an essential component of both the fights against climate change and against extreme roadway congestion; and An increase in fares would only disincentivize the use of public transit, as increases have been shown to do in the past, and worsen vehicular traffic in the region; and This proposed increase is a regressive funding mechanism that will disproportionately impact lower income residents who especially depend on access to public transit and will be more sensitive to higher costs; and The MBTA must identify progressive funding mechanisms that improve service and conditions within the T without putting an undue burden directly on the T’s ridership and the working/middle class; now therefore be it RESOLVED: That the City Council go on record opposing the MBTA fare increase proposal; and be it further RESOLVED: That the City Clerk be and hereby is requested to forward a suitably engrossed copy of this resolution to the members of the MBTA Fiscal and Management Control Board and to Governor Baker on behalf of the entire City Council.

🗓 The meeting where this was taken up: Feb 25, 2019