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)

The storms of February have made our transportation deficiencies glaringly obvious, and those failures and deficiencies didn’t happen by chance. We created them. We created them by saddling the MBTA with $3.3 billion in state debt, a failed funding formula, and a watering down of Gov. Patrick’s Way Forward funding plan. We are trying to be competitive in the 21st century economy with Nixon-era infrastructure. It doesn’t work. We have before us a choice, an opportunity, and a challenge. The Boston region is one of the most important regions in the world—part of the reason Boston is designated an “Alpha City” by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, meaning that it links major economic regions and states into the world economy. The challenge is: will we remain competitive in the future? Will our capital remain an Alpha City? Business and municipal leaders joined together last week to send a message to our leaders on Beacon Hill: Let’s capitalize on the opportunity before us. Let’s make the choice to invest in a well-maintained and an expanded MBTA system, so we can meet that future economic challenge.

Unfortunately, it seems as though Gov. Baker’s special panel on the MBTA is prepping us for more of the same can kicking down a familiar road. The panel will reportedly outline cost containment strategies, but nothing about increasing investment in the T. That is what got us in this bind in the first place. We have done reform twice and we still have a revenue problem. We should work together, with the Governor and the Legislature, to make sure we are squeezing every efficiency possible out of the system. The same day-to-day approach to efficient management that we do every day here in Somerville should be done at the T, too.

But reform and efficiencies alone simply will not and cannot address the increasing operating expenses and the T’s $6.7 billion state-of-good-repair backlog—and nothing is more expensive than deferred maintenance. Every dollar we spend to keep a road in good condition avoids between $6 and $14 later needed to rebuild the same road once it has deteriorated significantly. The same is true for our public transportation systems. If we do not invest today, we increase how much our taxpayers will have to spend on maintenance and repairs tomorrow.

On top of increasing operating expenses and the state-of-good-repair backlog, we cannot rely on reform and efficiencies to pay for critical capacity expansion.  Now, some are arguing that any MBTA expansion should be stopped until the system’s current assets are brought up to a state of good repair. They also say that the MBTA expanded too much too fast. But according to the Frontier Group, the MBTA is 31st out of 45 peer transit agencies for new route-miles added in the last 20 years. It did not expand too fast—in fact, compared to other systems, it did not expand much at all. And stopping any sort of expansion is a myopic approach to the problem.

Segments of the Green, Orange, Red and Silver lines already exceed their design capacity on the average weekday during peak periods, as pointed in three-year-old report by the Urban Land Institute—and the MBTA is likely to see an additional 367,000 riders each day by 2021. South Station opened at the turn of the 20th century with 28 tracks. It now has 13 tracks, operating above its design capacity and with insufficient vehicle storage. Besides being court-mandated, the Green Line Extension—which has already secured nearly $1 billion in federal funding—is commonsense planning for an urban region that continues to grow in population and a city that is still the most densely populated in New England. We cannot only repair what we already have. It ignores the realities of both the system today and the region tomorrow.

That’s why I joined the non-profit organization A Better City last week, when they released “The Route to Growth”—a case for continued investment in expanding the T. Released in collaboration with Transportation for Massachusetts, the MAPC and other partners, this call-to-action points out that almost 8 million square feet of commercial space and more than 8,000 housing units is under construction within a half-mile of MBTA subway stations. And in the near future, more than 44 million square feet of commercial space and more than 41,000 housing units are planned or permitted within a half-mile of those stations. In short: Our region’s economic viability depends on a well-maintained and growing MBTA.

There are options to generate revenue to support the T. The MBTA could be smarter about its use of surplus land, not simply selling for top dollar today, but taking a long view and maximizing the long-term return on its land. There are opportunities for value capture strategies, like the state’s I-Cubed program used in Assembly Square, where the property value created by public infrastructure is used to help pay for the infrastructure itself. There are private-public partnerships, again like in Assembly Square, where private developers help pay for public infrastructure. These are only some of the options available to help fund the MBTA. If we are serious about remaining competitive in the next generation economy, we cannot start from a position of “no new revenue.” Every option needs to be on the table. Otherwise, 20 years from now, we will find ourselves in the same situation with a higher price tag.