Can This Man Raise $30 Billion to Save the MBTA? (Probably Not)
There’s no shortage of passengers with bright ideas to fix up the MBTA — especially after this week’s mess. But who among us is willing to cough up the dough to make it happen?
This doesn’t mean raising taxes. Enterprising commuter Janssen McCormick decided to circumvent the state’s normal public financing mechanisms to try and crowdfund the improvements himself.
“If the internet can help one working class guy in Detroit who struggles everyday to get to work surely we can help the hundreds of thousands of working class people in Boston who rely on the decrepit MBTA to get them to work, school, doctors appointments or the grocery store,’’ McCormick writes in his GoFundMe pitch.
McCormick told Boston.com he got the idea after it took his wife over two hours to get to North Station from their Charlestown home during this week’s storm. So far the page has been shared over 1,000 times.
Cool plan, right? Though there is one tiny hurdle:
“All we’re asking for,’’ he writes, “is 30 billion dollars.’’
GoFundMe — cold-hearted pragmatists that they are — technically limited McCormick’s goal to a mere $300 million, though there are still a number of (dubious) reasons to contribute to the fundraiser.
For $200, a donor is provided “carte blanche to forcibly remove backpacks from passengers and throw them into the pit between platforms from the hours of 6am-9am and 3pm-7pm.’’ A $10 million gift will allow you to rename Tufts Medical Center, while $130 million will secure you your own T station and a “state-funded’’ Legoland location.
“(The rewards) were based on frustrations commuting to college and high school on the Green Line,’’ McCormick said. “I’d say 90 percent of the time (the MBTA) suited my needs completely, but 10 percent of the time it’s the absolute worst service in the world.’’
Now this is all well and good and funny, but to be clear there are a few (obvious) reasons not to donate or get too excited:
1. The fund raised a disappointing [fragment number=0][fragment number=1]now $70 after 48 hours — a pretty low amount of money, even when not compared to $30 billion.
2. McCormick has no clear ties to the MBTA outside of his role as a disgruntled passenger, so it’s anyone’s guess where this money will end up if you actually donate.
3. Most importantly: it’s obviously a joke. Obviously.
But hey, a commuter can dream, right? MBTA General Manager Beverly Scott told WBUR this week that the T would only need about $5 billion to handle future storms like those we had this month, so maybe it’s not such a pipe dream after all.
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