Woe is T: 2010 Fare Hike to be "Hefty"

MBTA general manager Dan Grabauskas, who never takes the T, told the Globe to expect a "hefty" fare hike in 2010 if the state doesn't bail out the beleaguered transportation authority. Fare increases have happened every three years since 2001, when the legislature stopped covering the T's debt at the end of each budget period. Without the fare increase or legislative action, Grabauskas warned, the T will have to cut bus routes (a lot of low hanging fruit: consider bus 48, Jamaica Plain Loop, which, at last count, gets used by one old lady once a fortnight for grocery shopping) or run the trains less frequently (less frequently than what?). The T, which gets the bulk of its funding from the unreliable state sales tax, has already depleted its rainy day fund to offset a $75 million deficit. It faces up to $150 million in back pay and benefits from a recent negotiation with the carman's union, and an estimated (by Bostonist) $756,939 bill for the SUVs that its upper management uses to breeze past the commuter rail on its way in from the suburbs.