When Amie Shei thinks about Massachusetts’ patchwork quilt of regional transit agencies, she sees more than just buses, routes, and lines on a map.
The 15 regional providers, which serve tens of thousands of strap-hangers from Pittsfield in the Berkshires to Springfield, Worcester, and points beyond, also are gateways to health care, education, and jobs.
“We hear a lot these days about social isolation, and being able to move around the community is critical,” Shei, the president and CEO of the Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts, told MassLive on Monday. “We need to rethink how we invest in rural transportation and prioritize it.”
A new study out Tuesday shared exclusively with MassLive, underscores the important role that these providers, many of whom serve rural residents, play in the economic life of the commonwealth.
It also stresses that, as it’s currently envisioned and funded, the state’s approach to these services is “fragmented and incomplete,” and doesn’t “adequately account for issues of regional, rural, or economic equity.”
The new report, a joint effort by Shei’s group, the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University, and the Quaboag Connector, a regional transit provider, comes amid a broader debate over how Massachusetts pays for mass transportation now – and how it will for years to come.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, much of the discussion has focused on state support for the MBTA, which, after years of disinvestment and inattention, faces a more than $600 million deficit for the new fiscal year that starts in July, MassLive previously reported.
A Healey administration task force, originally charged with finding a menu of funding options for the perennially challenged T, since has shifted focus, and will now craft a “tool kit” that policymakers could use to come up with new funding options, CommonWealth Beacon reported last week.
Brian Kane, the executive director of the MBTA’s Advisory Board, and a veteran of the transportation funding wars, told WBUR’s “Radio Boston” program on Monday that task force members were “disheartened” by that change.
“None of us are doing this because it’s fun or easy,” he said. “A lot of us want to solve this, so we can stop having this conversation every year.”
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Given that towering need, it might be understandable that the RTAs, as they’re referred to in legislative shorthand, suffer from a case of benign neglect at the hands of policymakers.
That’s reflected in the numbers. The $57.9 billion budget plan that state Senate Democrats unveiled last week provides a total of $361 million in taxpayer cash for the T in the fiscal year that starts July 1.
Regional transit agencies, meanwhile, would see about $106 million in total state funding under the Senate Democrats’ plan, MassLive previously reported.
And while that sounds like a lot of money — and it is — the regional agencies still are more dependent on local support than the T (32.6% compared to 11.9%), the new report shows. The rest of the agencies’ funding comes from federal aid and fares.
“In rural parts of the state, where the residential and commercial tax base is more limited, the local contributions can be a significant financial burden,” the report’s authors noted.
To fix that, the report calls for more “reliable resources” for the regional agencies that are not as subject to the whims of Beacon Hill’s annual budget derby.
Read more: Healey starts down bumpy but ‘important’ road to more transit funding | Analysis
And because not every part of the state has a regional transit agency, Shei told MassLive that she was encouraged by a provision in the Senate’s plan that sets aside $10 million for “connector” services that would link those areas.
“That is an exciting addition, and we’re hoping the Senate will consider expanding that language so that smaller providers can compete for those funds as well,” Shei said. “If there are independent transit providers who want to fill that gap, they should have the opportunity to do so.”
To further move the regional systems onto solid ground, the report calls for a “clear set of publicly shared principles” that guide funding decisions from year to year.
Absent such a formula “the de facto effect of this funding-by-inertia approach is that funding levels mostly reflect ridership, with no obvious adjustments for need, capacity, or otherwise,” the report’s authors wrote.
Shei puts it this way: “We need to be flexible and account for local needs so that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach.”
Any future formula would “need to be stable over the long-term,” she continued. “There needs to be a strong focus on equity and the important role that transportation plays in connecting [people] to opportunity.”
That’s way more than just buses, routes, and lines on a map.
“It’s a very broad and encompassing view,” she said. “It’s not just getting people from one place to another."
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