MassDOT, MBTA Spending Plans By the Numbers

By ALISON BAUTER (Patch Staff)

TEWKSBURY, MA - The Massachusetts Department of Transportation and the MBTA both pitched spending plans Wednesday, including potential funding for projects such as the stalled Green Line extension, South Station expansion and South Coast Rail restoration.

MassDOT presented a five-year plan to its board of directors Wednesday that would direct 80 percent of it $14.3 billion capital budget toward modernizing and improving transportation systems.

Per Statehouse News Service, the breakdown looks like this:

• $5 billion - What the five-year capital plan proposes spending on upgrades to the MBTA

• $400 million - Allotted for pavement improvement projects (a 60 percent increase over prior spending levels)

• $2 billion - Planned spending on bridge infrastructure, which would reduce the state's structurally deficient bridges to 2 percent if extended over 10 years, according to MassDOT

• $2 billion - Transit expansion budget, including funding for design and permitting of projects that include South Coast Rail, a commuter rail station in Allston and the expansion of South Station

• $1 billion - Approximate amount of that $2 billion expansion budget that would go toward extending the Green Line

• $2 million - Dollars planned for a reevaluation of a rail link between North and South Stations

• $148 million - Designated funding for "early action projections" and design/permitting on the South Coast Rail bringing commuter rail to Taunton, Fall River and New Bedford

Statehouse News notes the South Coast Rail and the South Station expansion are possible candidates for public-private partnerships. Details on that five-year plan are still to come, and a final decision on the capital plan is slated for May.

Meanwhile, the MBTA is targeting a spending increase for its next budget, bolstered by a recently passed 9.3 percent average fare increase, increased dollars from advertising and anticipated wage reductions.

For those reasons, the MBTA’s projected structural deficit is down to $80 million, compared to the $242 million deficit originally anticipated. Its budget, presented and granted initial approval by the MBTA Control Board Wednesday, is meant to close that remaining gap through wage and benefit savings; flexible contracting; reducing vendor costs; reforming high-subsidy, low ridership bus and commuter rail service lines; and increasing parking revenues.

A press release Wednesday outlined the authority's planned $2.02 billion 2017 budget, which increases spending by 4 percent.

The budget, which must be finalized by April 15, assumes the state will green-light the transfer of $100 million into a Capital Maintenance Improvement fund, which would upgrade old technology and ensure tracks, rails and signals can withstand winter weather.