Some western Massachusetts legislators say they're skeptical of proposals for additional funding to the MBTA, the eastern Massachusetts transit agency which is again having a slew of problems.
State Rep. Paul Mark and some of his colleagues recently took a survey about the MBTA, he said.
“It asked, basically, how often do you ride the MBTA? How often do the residents of your district ride the MBTA? I wrote ‘zero,’” Mark said. “Because the MBTA doesn’t serve the four western counties, even though it does go into Rhode Island.”
That's why some lawmakers in the state's western region don't think it should fall on them to fix problems like the recent derailments on the MBTA's Red and Green lines.
State Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier said a proposal to increase the state gas tax to add MBTA funding is particularly galling.
“To raise the gas tax to people here in the Berkshires – who don’t have many options at all for public transportation – is completely unfair,” Farley-Bouvier said.
Governor Charlie Baker has said he'll ask the state legislature to approve $50 million in additional MBTA funding.
