Note to Gov. Baker and Legislature: Fund the PVTA properly

May 9, 2018 | G. Michael Dobbs
news@thereminder.com

So if you didn’t have a car how would you get around? Could you get to your job?

This is a question that many people face in this area and at one point I certainly did.

From 1982 to 1987 I was a talk show host on WREB in Holyoke. My wife and I had one car through a good part of that five-year period and I took the PVTA from our home in Indian Orchard to downtown Holyoke where the offices of the radio station were located.

Now what helped me in this daily journey was the fact I started my day mid-morning because the trip was well over an hour-long. I caught a bus on Berkshire Avenue that brought me to downtown Springfield.  From there I caught another bus that would eventually bring me to downtown Holyoke through, if memory serves me well, through Chicopee.

It was not an express.

I used to buy a monthly bus pass so I wouldn’t have to worry about correct change and I used the time on the bus to read and prepare for my daily program.

I found the PVTA to be dependable and affordable, and when our fortunes improved we bought a second car.

I’ve also taken a bus to my current offices, as one runs down Central Street all the way to the Stop & Shop Plaza in East Longmeadow, a quick walk from the Reminder Publications Headquarters for World Domination.

The PVTA supplies transportation to thousands of people but because of inadequate funding resulting in the cutting of service, that number will decrease.

According to a study conducted by the PVTA in anticipation of increasing fares in the next fiscal year, “In addition, PVTA is anticipating an even larger operating budget shortfall for FY2019 that could be as much as $3.1 million (13 percent) of the operating budget. Therefore, PVTA is now developing further and more significant service reduction options, many of which will need to be implemented by the time FY2019 begins on July 1, 2018. These reductions are still unknown; however, historically for PVTA each 1 percent point reduction in the operating budget has resulting is a roughly corresponding drop of 1 percent in ridership. However, in this case a ridership discount of 10 percent  (rather than 13 percent) was applied to the FY2017 ridership baseline to produce the adjusted estimate below, as the actual amount of the FY2019 deficit and corresponding service reductions are not yet known.”

The PVTA, like the other regional transport authorities, does not have the guaranteed stream of revenue as the MBTA does, which derives part of its operating budget from a percentage of the sales tax. That’s right, every time you buy something in Massachusetts you support the MBTA.

This funding issue is not new, but it’s clear the most recent gubernatorial administrations and various Legislatures have failed to come up with a solution. The MBTA has been faring okay with many improvements to its infrastructure and facilities.

So once again Western Massachusetts has got one arm tied behind its back when it comes to economic development. Having a mass transit system that works well is essential to attracting people and jobs.

The PVTA is the largest regional transit system in the Commonwealth with the exception of the MBTA.

It’s time to start treating it as the MBTA is treated.

Speaking of talk shows

I’ve started a new venture with FOCUS Springfield, the city’s cable access TV station with which I’ve been working. As you read this column, we will have finished the taping of a new local talk show titled “Thirty Minutes With.”

My bosses here at Reminder Publications have kindly allowed me to prove once more I have a face built for radio by letting me host this new show.

There used to be a number of broadcasting opportunities locally to express opinion and share conversation, some of which I understand has been replaced by social media.

Still I think there is room for a program that features smart interesting people with well-developed opinions about issues that affect us.

My wrinkle on this format is to have the show taped at Smokey Joe’s Cigar Lounge – a salute to a talk show format the great Chicago journalist and broadcaster Studs Terkel developed, yes there will be drinking – as well as having one show about politics and issues and the following one about arts and popular culture.

I’ll let you know when you can see them and I hope you will tune in on-line or through your TV.

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