By Joseph A. Curtatone

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

Not that it necessarily needs to be repeated, but our region is in the middle of extraordinary circumstances with more than seven feet of snow falling in less than four weeks. It’s already the second snowiest winter on record for the region, and the record 30-day snowfall that fell over the past month would be the third snowiest season all on its own. So we’re aware of the tremendous impact the weather is having on the region, and not just on MBTA service. That said, the problems on the MBTA are not the result of this winter’s storms. The choreography of these consequences began long ago. We have chronically underfunded this transportation system for two generations. The MBTA’s problems should be a wake-up call to all of us that our future prosperity, for the Commonwealth and every city and town, depends on the reliability of the T—and its expansion goals.

We shouldn’t look to the past to lay blame, because we all own the T’s problems. Every elected official from the local level to the state Legislature and the Governor’s Office bears some of the responsibility. There’s no one person to blame, and certainly not MBTA General Manager Beverly Scott, who did as great a job as possible with the resources she was given. But we do have to look to the past to understand how we got to where we are today.

Fifteen years ago, the state shifted $3.3 billion in debt from its own books to the MBTA, and the Legislature created the ‘forward funding’ plan that gives one penny out of every 5 cents in sales tax revenue to the MBTA. At the time this might have looked like a good idea—the sales tax grew an average of 6.5 percent per year in the prior decade, so counting on an average 3 percent sales tax increase going forward would seem reasonable. But with the sales tax growth instead averaging only 1 percent per year over the following decade, on top of the rapid increases in costs for healthcare and fuel, we simultaneously saddled the MBTA with tremendous debt and created a structural deficit. There was no way the sales tax alone could have kept up with the T’s operating costs, and yet the sales tax remains the largest piece of the MBTA’s annual revenue—every year since 2000, it brings in more revenue to the T than fares and all other operating revenue combined.

Meanwhile, a 2007 state commission report estimated that Massachusetts needs $1 billion simply to maintain current transportation systems. We knew we weren’t funding the T enough to maintain it. Gov. Patrick stood up and put forth a bold proposal to address this problem in his “Way Forward” plan, which would have raised $1.2 billion in transportation funding. Unfortunately, despite the recommendations in the state’s own report and what we could see on in the books, the Legislature ultimately passed a compromise bill two years ago that only provided $800 million. We sold our transportation systems short again because we weren’t willing to make the hard choice.

Our voters repealed tying the gas tax to the Consumer Price Index, costing us more funding for our transportation systems. I can understand why people may have voted to repeal. They may want to see more reforms in the MBTA and greater efficiency, and reform should never be off the table. But reform alone will not solve the math on the MBTA’s budget books. We must invest in the MBTA if the greater equation of public transit plus a skilled workforce is to give us the result of a thriving economy. The MBTA doesn’t just shuttle workers to jobs, it creates an environment that draws the best jobs to the region and makes it possible for the 101 cities and towns that make up the Boston Metro region to produce four-fifths of all the revenue coming into the Commonwealth’s coffers. We will only continue to realize this benefit to our quality of life and to our economic prosperity if we properly fund maintenance and expansion of the MBTA and our transportation systems.

We need to plan to that future. We need to plan for a future where three-quarters of the world’s population lives in cities, as projected will happen by 2050. We have to understand the strengths that have led our region out of the Great Recession faster than any region in the country—the talent and innovation we have in Greater Boston, from tech companies to the maker movement, and how those industries are based in regions well-connected through public transportation.

That’s what we’re doing in Assembly Square. We planned for that future and leveraged $133 million of city, state and federal tax dollars and the creation of a new T station into, just initially, $1.5 billion of private investment, creating more than 20,000 net new jobs and pumping billions of dollars into the Massachusetts economy. The Green Line Extension, funded by nearly $1 billion in federal grant funds that are earmarked specifically for new and expansion public transit projects, will leverage even more in private investment, create more jobs and further strengthen our region’s economy. And with a strong economy, guess what? We will have more tax revenues to put back into transit. Quality public transportation—both maintaining what we have, and expanding our reach—won’t just get us to our jobs today, it can drive our future.

The time for finger pointing is over. We can continue to rehash the failures of the past—and there’s a lot of them—or we can understand that we all own this problem and commit to strengthening the backbone of our economy. If we envision that, plan for it and build, our prosperity will grow—throughout the region and the Commonwealth. If we don’t, we won’t just face a broken T—we’ll face a broken economy.