State Legislators Urge MBTA to Suspend Service Cuts

A group of state legislators from communities affected by proposed service cuts to MBTA commuter rail service met with MBTA and MassDOT officials on Monday to express their concerns.

The legislators asked the MBTA and MassDOT to suspend implementation of the new schedules, which they stated would create substantial hardships for the public.

The MBTA agreed to respond to the legislators’ request for suspension to the legislation on Tuesday.

The complete text of the statement from state Senators Jason Lewis, Michael Barrett, Ken Donnelly, Pat Jehlen, and Thomas McGee; and State Representatives Paul Donato, Paul Brodeur, Michael Day, Donald Wong, Sean Garballey, and Christine Barber is below:

“As elected representatives of communities north and west of Boston that are negatively impacted by recently announced cuts to commuter rail service, we and our staffs met with representatives of the Massachusetts Bay Transportations Authority (MBTA) and Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) earlier today. We explained to the MBTA what we have heard from our constituents – that the service cuts represented in the schedule create substantial hardships, and we also explained that the lack of public process surrounding the development of the new schedules was deeply concerning. We requested that the MBTA suspend implementation of the proposed new schedules that would create substantial hardships on the day-to-day lives of our constituents, and implement a public process prior to any future service cuts.

“We also shared stacks of constituent feedback as well as the names of more than one thousand residents who had signed an online petition requesting service cuts be restored.

“The MBTA agreed to respond tomorrow to our request to suspend implementation.”