The lack of high-profile local transit advocacy groups

When considering advocacy power, one needs to consider two dimensions about its advocates--whether their geographic (or perhaps socio-economic) situation is dispersed versus concentrated and whether the issue of interest has a narrow or broad scope. For transit systems, the users tend to be dispersed geographically, unless the transit system is limited to one line of service. The importance of the transit system has fairly narrow focus for most transit users, because they rely on it to get to and from work in a timely matter, but it is broad in that people have different ideas about what it lacks. The most powerful advocates tend to be concentrated with narrow focus.

The MBTA in Boston is used by a broad group of users of every socio-economic background. The decline of transit over much of the 20th century has left MBTA riders with little in expectations of the system, even though it is essential to the metro area. Because of the low expectations and a geographically and socio-economically dispersed clientele, there is no strong advocacy group for the MBTA. The only group that I'm aware of is the T Riders Union, which tends to concente on the social justice problems, like cleaning up the bus fleets that are stored in poor neighborhoods. Boston should have a higher profile MBTA advocacy group, especially considering the highly educated population and business interests that rely on the transit network. Where is that group? Can advocates only rally around a certain transit project, like a line extension to their neighborhood? I'm happy to support any increase to MBTA funding that would result in expansion of the rail system. And I'm sure tens of thousands of people would join a group that lobbied for a better-funded MBTA. Here is the best link you can find on MBTA advocacy, the result of the good work of the T Riders Union, MASSPIRG, and the umbrella On The Move coalition.

It seems like we need a group narrowly focused on funding the MBTA to upgrade and expand the rail rapid transit and regional rail. This means serving current riders, from rich to poor, by upgrading bus lines to modern streetcars/light rail with dedicated lanes and signal priority, converting the commuter system into a regional system (frequent and electified service), and fighting to extract money from driving and parking to put into the system. Now, how can I get that started?

Calling on advocates for:

• Modernization and expansion of the MBTA rail network.
• Upgrade of many bus lines to streetcar/light rail on dedicated right-of-way with signal priority.
• Rejection of BRT (bus rapid transit) and fake BRT (i.e. MBTA's Silver Line) in favor of rail transit.
• Institution of major new funding sources for the MBTA to be extracted from driving and parking to simultaneously encourage transit use and discourage driving.

That seems pretty narrow in scope and highly desirable for many people.