MBTA Charges Seniors For Monthly Pass--Philly Seniors Ride Free

In the "New Boston" and the "People's Republic of Cambridge," senior citizens 65 and older are still required to pay $30 each month to the MBTA to obtain a monthly senior pass; which enables them to ride on a bus, trolley or subway train, without having to pay each time they board during that month.

Yet although many more senior citizens live these days in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (whose current population of all ages is 1.6 million) than live in Boston or Cambridge, all senior citizens 65 and older who live in Philadelphia are provided by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority [SEPTA] with senior passes at no cost; which allows them to ride fare-free all year on Philadelphia's mass transit system, without having to pay $30 each month like the MBTA still requires Boston seniors to pay. As Philadelphia's SEPTA website notes:

"Senior citizens, age 65 and older, with a valid ID, ride FREE at all times on all Transit Routes (Bus, Trolley, Broad Street/Broad Ridge Spur Line, Market Frankford Line/Norristown High Speed Line) and on Regional Rail for travel to/from stations located in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania."

And in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, the Lebanon Transit public transit system provides Lebanon residents who are over 65 years of age, at no cost, a Lebanon Transit Senior Pass; which allows seniors who live in Lebanon, Pennsylvania to ride all Lebanon Transit Fixed Route Buses for free each month.

In addition, in Miami, Florida and the rest of Dade County, Florida, senior residents who are 65 years-of-age and over are also provided with senior passes, at no cost, that enable them to ride fare-free on the Metrobus service and Metrorail system of Miami and Dade County's public transit system--without having to pay a monthly fare of $30 per month like the MBTA requies Boston seniors to cough-up. As its website notes, in Miami-Dade County, resident "senior citizens and Social Security beneficiaries can ride Transit Free with a Golden Passport Easy Card."

Ironically, although the MBTA still does not provide Boston, Cambridge, Brookline and Somerville residents over 65 years-of-age with fare-free monthly public transit service like Philadelphia, Miami and Lebanon, Pennsylvani's public transit systems provide their senior resident riders, in a 2012 pamphlet, the MBTA claimed that "one benefit for using the MBTA's fixed-route network is the prices."

According to the Elder Economic Security Index from UMass Boston's Gerontology Institute, no other state in the United States has a higher percentage of income insecure elders than does the "Commonwealth of Massachusetts." And six out of ten Massachusetts seniors living alone don't have enough income to meet basic needs.

Yet, unlike Philadelphia, Miami and Lebanon, Pennsylvania's public transit system administrators, MBTA's administrators still are not providing fare-free public transit for all Commonwealth of Massachusetts residents who are over 65 years-of-age in 2021. And in July 2016 rhe MBTA actually increased the cost of the monthly pass for seniors by one dollar to $30 per month.

In addition, in 2012 MBTA administrators increased from $2.00 the per ride fare it charged Massachusetts seniors with disabilities who utilize its disabled transit service, The RIDE (which only cost $97 million to operate in 2015), prior to the MBTA awarding a $38.5 million contract to Global Contract Services [GCS] in February 2017 that it ended in December 2017--after GCS was fined over $100,000 in June 2017 for failing to meet contract standards.

Lebanon, PA, Philadelphia, and Miami mass transit administrators and elected officials apparently historically made providing fare-free travel for its senior citizen residents each month of the year a political priority. But some elected officials in the "New Boston" and the "People's Republic of Cambridge" and some MBTA administrators sometimes claim Massachusetts "lacks the money" (rather than the political will) to politically prioritize providing monthly fare-free public transit service for all Boston, Cambridge, Brookline and Somerville senior residents in 2021.

Yet, also ironically, in 2019 the MBTA board was willing to prioritize spending $723 million on an overhaul of the fare system for Boston-area buses, trains and trolleys to, according to the MBTA, "make paying for transit easy" because "you will be able to pay with a fare card, a smartphone, or a contactless credit card." And the "non-profit" MBTA administration apparently still pays at least one top administrator over $300,000 per year to administrate the Greater Boston Area's over-priced, inefficient and historically mismanaged mass transit system in 2021.