The T wants to privatize some bus routes
Well, that was fast.
One of the major reforms to the MBTA this summer was a three-year reprieve from a law that puts a high barrier toward contracting out services to the private sector. Six weeks after peeling away the anti-privatization law, The Boston Globereports, the T is preparing to ask private organizations about operating about 30 bus routes.
The Boston Carmen’s Union, the T’s biggest union, isn’t very pleased.
“This is our work, and the governor thinks it’s OK to just give that out?’’ Carmen’s Union President James O’Brien told the Globe.
The reprieve from the law was championed by Gov. Charlie Baker, who took political ownership of the T’s issues after brutal winter weather sent the regional transit system into a tailspin. Baker has previously said some bus services could be candidates for private sector operation.
The MBTA told Boston.com in July that it had begun speaking “informally with a number of stakeholders and potential partners’’ about offering privatized late-night bus service, which has struggled financially.
Bridj, a Boston startup that offers shuttle service from neighborhood to neighborhood through a smartphone app, is among the services to have participated in informal discussions with the T, MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said at the time.
The T’s new governing body, which also came as a result of Baker reforms, includes some experience with private bus services. One of its members, Monica Tibbits-Nutt, runs the 128 Business Council, which arranges shuttle service in the western suburbs.
Looking back at last winter on the T
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