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By Joseph A. Curtatone

On July 1, morning commuters were among the first MBTA riders to pay newly increased fares. Adding insult to injury, riders on the Red, Blue, and Green lines that morning were also subjected to significant delays. It shouldn’t be this way. We shouldn’t have to fight for safe, reliable public transit.

Transit here and throughout our region should be something we take as a given. It’s the smart way to move around in places with high concentrations of people. That’s actually something we figured out a long time ago. Somerville was built around dozens of trolley stops that dotted the city in the early 20^th century. Likewise, the greater Boston region was once made up of streetcar suburbs, but now, by some estimates, our roads have the worst rush hour traffic in the country.

Yet our state’s politicians seemingly forgot the benefits of transit in the late 20th century. Our economy was booming and they stopped building out the MBTA. Even worse, they started short-changing the maintenance, allowing the system to fall into a state of rack and ruin. Now we are looking at a summer of intermittent service on the Red Line. In other cities these frequent breakdowns would be unacceptable, here they’re the norm.

A big part of the problem is revenue. Riders have been unfairly asked to shoulder the burden of fare increases, but the state has known for more than a decade it needs to tap other revenue sources to keep the T running like it needs to run. It’s time to put every idea for new, non-rider revenue on the table.

We are also coming up on the 20th anniversary of the failed plan to have the MBTA pay off large chunks of state transportation debt. There’s more than $3 billion in Big Dig and pre-2000 project debt that MBTA revenue growth was supposed to settle. It didn’t work out that way. Now that debt service money has turned into a constant drain on MBTA finances, contributing to the current maintenance backlog.

At some point we have to stop doing the same thing and hoping for a different result.

Failure to address our transportation needs will have significant impacts not just on the Boston area, but statewide. Eighty percent of our state’s economy is generated by the Boston metro region, which is dependent upon transit to function properly. The Massachusetts economy relies on this transit system.

And this doesn’t even touch on the climate. There’s an ocean immediately to our east that’s in danger of rising unless we stop pumping so many greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. It’s in our vested interest to maintain – and expand – more sustainable transportation options like public transit as quickly as possible.

On the bright side, Somerville is finally getting the Green Line extension, though a quarter of a century later than we should have. I suspect the memory of how hard we had to fight to make it happen is fresh in all of our minds. I lost count of the number of attempts to yank it out from under us, despite the state being required by the courts to build it. If we had been anything less than relentless, the GLX wouldn’t be under construction today.

The lesson to take away from that is that although we shouldn’t, we do have to fight for public transit. It doesn’t just get taken care of in an orderly and sensible fashion. Left to its own devices, it withers from neglect. Riders are now paying the fourth fare hike since 2012 and each time were promised better service. But small improvements here and there won’t result in the major improvements we need. And this time, it seems riders and local leaders have finally had enough.

I’ve been in regular contact with mayors, representatives, and councilors from other municipalities and we’re going to push for radical improvements to be made to MBTA service. In particular, we’re going to fight for the riders and communities served by the T to have a stronger voice in the operation of the system. A deaf ear has been turned to our concerns for too long.

I want to emphasize that when the Green Line Extension comes on line, it will put 85% of Somerville residents within walking distance of a T station. We will go from somewhat dependent to overwhelmingly dependent on transit. It is critical for us to address these maintenance issues before that switch gets flipped. The GLX itself will be brand new, but everything it connects to has been starved for attention for too long.

Half measures and tweaks aren’t going to fix the MBTA’s profound maintenance issues and revenue needs. The fix needs to start with an acknowledgment that the state has failed to deliver on its obligation to riders. People rely on transit to connect them to the rest of their lives – jobs, family, errands, medical care, social events.

Make no mistake, the fight is on. I encourage everyone to get involved. Let the state know we’ve had our fill of shabby service. We cannot afford another round of pushing this off until tomorrow.