Things that are good to know:

Back in 2004 (you know, when Olympics Guy was our Gov), the legislature created the Transportation Finance Commission, an independent agency to look at long-term transportation needs and costs. In 2007, they came out with a report of findings and set of recommendations. They didn’t mince words in the findings:

The Transportation Finance Commission reviewed the most recent actions and decisions of the transportation agencies, spending trends over the past 20 years, and plans for the next 20 years. In each and every instance, we chose to take a very conservative view to make sure we did not overstate the size of the problem. Nonetheless, we estimate that over the next 20 years, the cost just to maintain our transportation system exceeds the anticipated resources available by $15 billion to $19 billion. This does nothing to address necessary expansions or enhancements. Our findings paint a dire picture. Numerous decisions were made in the past that have led us to this juncture. But this report is not about pointing fingers or assigning blame. We need to grasp the enormity of the problem that we face, recognize that “business as usual” will not suffice, and work together to develop sustainable solutions for our transportation system.

In 2009, the D’Alessandro report on the condition of the MBTA was issued. It, too, did not mince words: “THE OUTLOOK IS BLEAK” was the title of the first section. The implementation of Forward Funding was a failure for a variety of reasons, including fuel prices, benefits, especially health care; sales tax revenue shortfalls; etc. And because of that the MBTA had been robbing its future to pay for its present — and then the future showed up.

And as our pal Jim Stergios at the Koch-funded Pioneer Institute reminded us (send back their checks, Jim), they made a big splash inveighing against endlessly deferring infrastructure maintenance a few years ago, using the iconic Longfellow Bridge as an example. Again, for a sense of scale, this is an important quote in the current context:

The MBTA, UMass, MassHighway, Department of Conservation and Recreation, and the County Sheriffs each have maintenance backlogs in excess of $1 billion apiece. Overall, the Commonwealth’s physical assets suffer from a maintenance backlog in the tens of billions of dollars.

Tens of billions. Not $500 million. We’re talking about different scales here, Consensus Reality vs. Legislative Leadership.

Anyway, read up and get all factual and stuff.