Struggling to maintain ridership and facing a calamitous deficit, the MBTA can’t afford to make commuter Austin Sa any more frustrated than he already is.Sa, who rides to work each day, has by his own admission a love-hate relationship with the transit agency.”It’s really great and reliable when it’s working,” he said as he began his morning commute one day by boarding the 93 bus in Charlestown.But when it’s not?”I’ve been late to meetings or missed really important events or moments,” Sa said.He regularly tweets at the T when anything’s amiss, from broken equipment to real-time delays.”I’d really hope to see the T improve overall and not just reliability, but maintenance across the board,” he said.But it could be wishful thinking if the MBTA doesn’t clean up its money mess.5 Investigates teamed up with Northeastern University’s School of Journalism for a closer look at the T’s shaky financial footing and the reasons behind it. One thing is clear: by 2024, the T will be facing a nearly half-billion-dollar operating budget deficit, leaving the agency with few options other than layoffs, service cuts or increased fares.The looming deficit has been pushed off a bit thanks to nearly $2 billion in federal pandemic relief funds that kept the agency afloat.”We’ve had a bit of a reprieve, but I think doomsday is finally coming,” said Brian Kane, executive director of the MBTA Advisory Board, which provides public oversight of the T. “They call it the financial cliff, and we fall off the cliff in 2023.”The T’s operating budget keeps it running, but that’s on the verge of being hundreds of millions of dollars in the red. Fiscal year 2025, which begins in July 2024, could see a $473 million deficit. The deficit is predicted to jump to as much as $542 million the next year.That doesn’t include the capital budget, which pays for things like new vehicles and major maintenance and repair projects.The Mass. Taxpayers Foundation says the T needs $25 billion over the next decade but only has $12 billion available, leaving a $13 billion gap.Northeastern student journalists surveyed MBTA riders online and gained insight into another problem: nearly 70 percent of those surveyed acknowledged riding for free when they should have paid. The behavior was easy to see at Green Line stops in recent months and on the commuter rail from Franklin heading into Boston last week.According to Kane, the T considered solving this problem by hiring attendants to collect fares using handheld machines on the platforms, but the cost of paying attendants would exceed the money lost from lack of fare collection.”Any amount of problem is a problem,” said David Panagore, the MBTA’s chief administrative officer. He says the T is working to make sure all fares are collected, but that’s just one issue for the financially strapped system.”Short term, we’re doing OK. Longer-term, we’re severely challenged,” Panagore said. It’s a problem exacerbated by the pandemic.”For us, the drop-off was nearly three-quarters of our fare revenue,” Panagore said. “Our challenge is to figure out how long-term the T can identify revenue.” LISTEN: Students from Northeastern University’s School of Journalism produced a podcast on the MBTA’s money woes as part of a Seminar in Investigative Reporting….
Read More: MBTA headed to ‘financial cliff’ once pandemic aid ends next year