ORDER-2021-39 : Request for State Action to Restore Proposed MBTA Service Cuts Impacting Public Transit Serving the City of Melrose

Transcript (~20 min @ 1:40:45)

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▶ 1:40:39 Jen Grigoraitis: 11 yes, so the motion passes. Thank you again to our kindness warriors for being here tonight. And you just want to remind everyone of kindness day this coming Friday and at this time, I will entertain a motion to take order 2021 dash 39 out of order.

▶ 1:40:57 Christopher Cinella: We should take what are 2021 dash 39 out of order.

▶ 1:41:02 Jen Grigoraitis: So, we have a motion to take order 2021 dash 39 out of order made by counselor. Seconded by counselor. Madam clerk, can you please call the role? Yes.

▶ 1:41:17 Speaker 11: Councilor Eccles? Yes. Councilor Garipay? Yes. Councilor DeMoledine? Yes.

▶ 1:41:30 Speaker 11: Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor McNaught? Yes. Councilor Migliorelli? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi? Yes.

▶ 1:41:47 Jen Grigoraitis: Grigoraitis yes 11 yes 11 yes so the motion is now before us this is this motion is off this order is offered by the entire City Council's or someone who would make a recommendation for immediate consideration motion for

▶ 1:42:05 Jen Grigoraitis: immediate consideration we have a motion for immediate consideration other end by Are there any objection seeing none this order is now before us and I believe we have Senator Lewis and state representative and joining us and while they're coming into the queue. I will read the order into the record. This is a request for state action to restore proposed service cuts, impacting public transit, serving the city of Melrose offered by the Melrose city council. Whereas the MBTA has proposed temporary service cuts due to COVID-19 related budgetary constraints, including the elimination of the 131 and 136 bus routes, the closure of Cedar Park commuter rail station, and the elimination of weekend and weekday evening commuter rail service, all of which serve the residents of Melrose. Whereas all municipalities within the MBTA service area are charged an annual assessment for these services and there is no indication in the proposed plan for Melrose's $631,477 assessment to be reduced in proportion to the proposed service cuts. whereas Melrose residents and the customers and employees of our small business community rely on access to public transit and such cuts will have a devastating impact on our local economy whereas Melrose is a housing choice community and as such in alignment with Governor Baker's housing choice legislation has committed to the development of smart growth transit oriented development to assist in alleviating our regional housing crisis whereas Melrose has committed to net zero emissions by 2050 which is only achievable with increased community reliance on sustained and accessible public transportation as an alternative to car trips therefore be it resolved that we the city council of melrose respectfully urge the massachusetts bay transit authority and its governing boards to maintain existing commuter rail and bus service within the city of melrose be it further resolved that upon its passage a copy of this resolution shall be forwarded to the mbta's two governing bodies the Massachusetts Department of Transportation Board and the Fiscal and Management Control Board, to His Excellency the Governor, Charles D. Baker, and to the Great and General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and that on this 16th day of November in the year 2020, a copy of this resolution be spread upon the permanent record of the City of Melrose. That was a lot, sorry. So at this time, I believe we have Representative Lippert-Garrett Bedian with us. Thank you for being here, and the floor is yours to speak to the impact of these proposed

▶ 1:44:39 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: cuts on our community great i believe the senator is here as well um so he may just be it took me a minute to figure out the um video setting for this but um it's nice to see you all i hope everyone's well um and i enjoy getting to spend time with you but i wish it were for um a topic other than this one so i want to start out by just thanking you for your partnership on this issue um the senator and i both became aware of these proposals at the beginning of last week when the mbta provided a briefing for legislators uh in relation to a significant budget shortfall that it faces due to the pandemic um of greater than half a billion dollars and so um as i think most members of our community now know and as you all obviously do um there are proposals now on the table specific proposals related to service reductions and eliminations across the mbta system which serves nearly 80 communities in the boston area including melrose some system-wide proposals include a reduction in hours so for example the commuter rail would no longer run on the weekends all trains would stop after midnight similarly buses i believe would stop after midnight And then there would be longer times between, for example, the Orange Line cars. So we'd see sort of everyone would bear that equally across the MBTA. But then the MBTA also has proposed specific elimination of six commuter rail stations and 25 bus routes. And remarkably, three of these are all in Melrose. So we have the Cedar Park commuter rail station that would be proposed to be closed, as well as our 31 excuse me our 131 and our 136 bus routes the 136 also serves wakefield and reading to our north um so these were of course a great concern to all of us and so i'm i'm really glad that you all are showing such uh concerted and coordinated leadership in terms of uh contacting the mbta to voice your concerns in opposition to this proposal uh you probably i believe i shared with you last week and i um and i know both the senator and i have shared publicly a letter that we wrote together and sent to the general manager last friday i believe similarly identifying our concerns with this proposal um i mean essentially roughly 10 percent of the closures of buses and commuter rail stations are in melrose despite the fact that we are just one of about 80 communities being served by the system um so you know we've also done a lot of work directly with city hall uh mayor broder uh the um city planner gaffey we've been on a call together talking about um opportunities to voice our concerns i've also been in touch with melrose wakefield hospital and they put together a letter that they also sent to the mbta at the end of last week I'm noting the impact that this would have on serving their patient population as well as their workforce, which also rely on bus and commuter rail for commuting. I've been in touch with our largest nursing home employers. You will not be surprised that many of those workforces as well use the buses coming north from the cities where the men and women who work in our nursing home facilities may live they rely on the buses to get to work um so i believe at least a couple of the nursing homes are also putting together letters um of course as well the mbta will be doing um virtual meetings so they'll have um and they've done it both by the system-wide as well as divided every community into different regions and so melrose falls in region nine there will be a specific virtual meeting um on our region i believe it's the first monday in december on that evening i signed up to speak at that uh i would expect others um you know could as well um and we're going to continue to push out information to the community the web pages i'm sure you all are aware is mbta.com forging dash ahead and there is a there is a place there where anyone can send in a comment about these proposals and also sign up to attend these virtual meetings so i'll pause there um and see if the senator has anything he'd like to add um and then of course we can continue we can answer any questions you might have or hear from you about additional thoughts about our strategy for for addressing this um proposal thank you representative

▶ 1:49:16 Jen Grigoraitis: and i believe we do have senator lewis but we're having some tech issues and we aren't able to bring him in as a panelist senator lewis can you hear us by audio madam president we can hear you

▶ 1:49:30 Speaker 8: There we go. Excellent. That'll work just fine. So good evening to you, Madam President, city councilors and residents of Melrose. And thank you to my colleague, Representative Lippa Garabedian. I wish I was with you tonight to speak about Kindness Day, but unfortunately, no such luck. We are with you to discuss our strategy for opposing these ill-conceived uh, MBTA service reductions and, uh, cuts. Um, I don't think I need to say much, uh, to you all about how critical public transit services are to, uh, the city of Melrose, as well as to the entire greater Boston region. I think we all understand how many people depend on public transit for their livelihoods and also for our local economic development strategy and housing development as well. It is true that due to the pandemic, ridership levels are significantly down on commuter rail, subways, and buses, and that has resulted in a loss of fare revenue to the MBTA. Um, that said, you know, if the MBTA were proposing to, you know, dial back frequency of service, you know, on the commuter rail buses and subways, you know, we would not be happy about that. But I think that would be more understandable to most local official legislators and members of the public. But that is not what the MBTA is proposing. Instead, they're proposing a much more draconian set of cuts. And furthermore, I think we could certainly make the argument that this is premature, what they are rolling out. It is much more draconian because, as you know, when Rep. Garabedian went over, this proposal includes the actual elimination of service, like many bus routes, including the 131 and 136 in Melrose. It includes actually closing commuter rail stations, including Cedar Park. It includes shelving a number of important capital projects that are going on around the whole system. Exactly the wrong time to be shutting down capital projects. We should be investing in capital projects right now to stimulate our recovery. And also that cutbacks in service are very significant. The reason it's premature is because we are right in the middle of finishing work on the FY21 state budget right now. The House of Representatives debated the budget last week. The State Senate is beginning its debate tomorrow morning. So we are in the midst of looking at these issues and looking for solutions. We also will be then rolling right into the fiscal year 22 state budget process. Because remember, none of the shortfalls that the MBTA is talking about affect them in the current fiscal year. They haven't received enough Federal CARES Act dollars to meet their budget gap in fiscal year 21. This is all about fiscal year 22 and beyond. So we will still have time in the fiscal year 22 state budget process, which begins very soon. And furthermore, as we all know, we are soon going to have a new president in Washington. President-elect Biden is as committed to public transit as probably anybody out there. As you know, he's ridden the Amtrak most days of his life. So it is certainly we are very hopeful that there will be another federal coronavirus relief package next year. and that that's very likely to include funding for states and cities and also for public transit agencies. So we, again, think that the MBTA should wait. I want to thank the city council excellent resolution, and I also want to thank Mayor Broder for the letter that he also already sent to the MBTA. As you've seen, Representative Lippert-Garabedian and I also have drafted a letter expressing very forcefully our opposition to these cuts and their impact on the city of Melrose and its residents and businesses. That has been sent to the general manager of the MBTA and also copied to the transportation secretary, Secretary Pollack. We also have the public meeting coming up December 1st, which would be great for as many of us as possible to testify. Representative Lipik Arabidi and I are also rallying local opposition as much as possible. So we want to encourage residents of Melrose and local organizations and businesses to also provide their feedback directly to the MBTA, either in writing through the website or through one of the public meetings to, again, express opposition. We want to make sure that the MBTA is hearing as much feedback and opposition to these cuts as possible. The representative and I are also working with our legislative colleagues who represent other communities also that would be harmed by these cuts. We're working with the legislature's MBTA caucus, and we're also working with statewide transportation advocates like the MAPC and Transportation for Mass, trying to rally and build as much of a coalition to oppose these cuts as possible. And then the last thing I'll mention is that I have filed an amendment, which will be considered during the Senate budget debate this week, which would do two things. It would first increase the annual transfer from the Commonwealth's transportation fund, known as the CTF, to the MBTA. Ordinarily, we transfer approximately $130 million, which subsidizes the MBTA's operations. That's in addition to the one penny on the sales tax that they receive from every purchase that generates sales tax in Massachusetts. So to increase that $130 million to $435 million, which would provide them with additional funding to help address their budget gap. And then the second part of the amendment would basically put significant guardrails around what the MBTA could do. For example, it would not allow any commuter rail stations to be closed. It would not allow any service to be entirely eliminated. So no bus routes could be eliminated. And it would also prevent them from making unreasonable cutbacks in service frequency. So we're going to, that's one of my top priorities in the budget debate this week. And I'm very hopeful, you know, certainly there's support from colleagues as well in the Senate. And we're hopeful that we will be able to make some good progress with that as well. In closing, this isn't a hopeless fight. I want folks to know that, you know, nothing is set in stone. The MBTA has put this out there, but they are definitely, you know, going to listen to feedback. And that can absolutely make a difference in what the final plan looks like. And I can tell you, for example, several years ago, they floated a proposal to make some changes to the commuter rail schedules. Some of you may remember this, it would have affected the Haverhill line and the Lowell line, nothing nearly as severe or draconian as what they're proposing now. But we rallied opposition to that. And we got that mostly canceled. They made some very modest changes, but mostly canceled it. So again, this is not hopeless. We can push back. We can make our case persuasively and look forward to continuing to do that together with you and the

▶ 1:57:39 Jen Grigoraitis: residents of Melrose. Thank you, Senator Lewis. Thank you both for being here tonight and help to underscore the ways in which our community can engage and express their concern about these cuts um are there any members of the council wishing to ask a question no um i just wanted to clarify my understanding is that the decisions will be made by december 7th and then the cuts could go into effect as early as january of 2021 is that your understanding as well i think that's

▶ 1:58:11 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: right in terms of the december vote and i i recall that from the presentation and perhaps there are some details that remain outstanding on this that the uh the actual implementation of these reductions and elimination are sort of staggered over time i believe some may not even come up fully online until the spring for example which sort of underscores the point um that the senator was making about the timing of this being problematic um because in addition we've gotten some really promising news both today and last week in terms of the vaccine um prognosis and so there is some hope that we will start um to be able to combat the virus that way as well such that people may be able to start feeling more confident um you know returning to a more normal schedule come spring just as some of these buses and um and then the cedar park stop might no longer be available to them. Thank you. Sure. Anyone else wishing to

▶ 1:59:16 Jen Grigoraitis: ask a question? No? All right. Thank you both, Senator Lewis and Rappaport Garabedian, for being here this evening and for your leadership on this issue. We appreciate knowing that you're advocating for Melrose at the State House and making sure that hopefully the MBTA rethinks its decision. We really appreciate you taking the time tonight to be here and speak with the public about how they can engage around this issue. So thank you both, and we wish you a

▶ 1:59:47 Speaker 8: wonderful Thanksgiving. Thank you. You're very welcome. Thank you. You as well. My pleasure.

▶ 1:59:51 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you. Good night. Good night. At this time, I'll entertain a motion to place on file.

▶ 1:59:58 Jen Grigoraitis: Motion to place on file. Second. So we have a motion to place on file made by I, Councilor Migliorelli, I did not see who made this, who seconded, was it Councilor McNaught? We'll go with that. Madam Clerk, can you please call the roll?

▶ 2:00:15 Speaker 11: Councilor Sinella?

▶ 2:00:17 Speaker 2: Yes.

▶ 2:00:18 Speaker 11: Councilor Eccles? Yes. Councilor Garipay? Yes. Councilor Dimaladeen?

▶ 2:00:27 Speaker 11: Yes. Councilor McMaster?

▶ 2:00:30 Speaker 2: Yes.

▶ 2:00:32 Speaker 11: Councilor McNaught? Yes. Councillor Migliorelli? Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Thomas? Yes. Councillor Tramontozzi? Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes. 11 yes.

▶ 2:00:48 Speaker 4: 11 yes, and the motion carries. At this time, I'll entertain a motion to recess so we can return to the Appropriations Committee.