Brass Tacks

Anyone who waits long enough in the Harvard Square station of the Metropolitan Transit Authority's system will see one of the MTA's "new" trains. It has a coat of shining orange paint, fan ventilators and padded seats; but underneath is the outmoded hulk of a 1926 transit car model. In general, that's what is wrong with the entire MTA set-up--it is only a veneer, covering up but not eliminating the financial structure of the Boston Elevated Railway Company that it replaced.

The major change that the State made when it converted the old El into the MTA in 1947, was to buy up the old corporation's stock. Since 1918, the dividends on this stock had been paid on the gross profits before any of the surplus had been plowed back into improvements for the transit system; thus, the stock was for private investors highly profitable and secure. Inasmuch as a politically appointed board of trustees ran the company, these stocks became during the Curley regime a form of party patronge. So the State elimination of these dividends cut out a large portion of the system's yearly operating expenses.

But in 1948, after the MTA had been in operation for a year, the transit deficit was $9,000,000--an increase of $4,000,000 over the previous year's loss; and this month, the deficit is increasing at the rate of $40 per minute. In the reorganization, the State disregarded many other financial and organizational disabilities besides the stock issue that the company had incurred in its twenty years of corrupt management.

The rental system remains the greatest operative inefficiency. Though the cities and towns of the metropolitan area pay the MTA's yearly deflect, they still demand rental fees from the transit lines for the use of their streets. In Boston, the MTA must pay for the use of all subways and elevated structures because the 'Boston Transit Department built and owns them; the MTA pays the city of Boston over $2,000,000 yearly. The most flagrant inconsistency is that the MTA, though State owned must pay the State for the use of the Cambridge-Park Street tunnel.

The State also overlooked a score of miscellaneous inefficiencies. The Metropolitan District Obligation, a publicly owned bond issue that had been paying an exorbitant interest rate for thirty years was not refinanced; the antiquated system of depreciation was never changed; and the cities and towns with MTA track running through them never reimbursed the MTA for snow removal. Probably $6,000,000 of the deficit is represented in these and the many other small bookkeeping complexities that permeated the old El accounting.

The MTA reorganization itself brought new financial burdens. Though the millstone of gross profit dividends was removed from the public neck, it was done so very extravagantly. The State bought up the old El stocks at $85 per share when the market value of the stock averaged $57.50 and, in twenty years, had not exceeded $73. In reorganization, too, the public ownership clause exempted the new company from participation in the Federal Social Security Act benefits. The MTA had to set up its own pension system at an annual cost of $1,400,000. To add to the staggering totals, the outgoing El trustees voted $80,000 in lavish executive pensions.

The net result of the inadequate reorganization was not only the enormous deficit but also the complete deterioration of the MTA's rolling stock; 80 per cent of the equipment is over ten years obsolete. The best innovations that the MTA can afford are the slovenly changes in those select trains on the Cambridge-Dorchester line.

So the State now has a very expensive orphan to care for. Somewhere money enough must be found to pay off the rapidly increasing deficit; somehow an organization must be constructed to keep the MTA on a reasonably self-sufficient basis. At the present moment this is Governor Dever's most aggravating administrative worry.