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Hear from the Massachusetts Speaker of the House, Representative Ronald J. Mariano (D-Quincy), at the Chamber’s Government Affairs Forum.
04/09/2026
9:45am - 11:00am
Fairmont Copley Plaza Boston
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Policy Initiative
Senior Vice President, Policy
Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce
The MBTA’s budget picture is bleak: existing debt service accounts for almost 20% of total expenses and the T projects a $366 million budget shortfall for FY24, closed by one-time funds. The T projects its budget gap will increase with each fiscal year.
The gas tax raises more than $720 million annually for the state’s transportation system, including debt service. However, state law prohibits gas-powered vehicle sales in MA by 2035
Transportation revenues are typically a form of user fees – tolls, gas tax, registration/license fees, etc. – however, state and federal laws impact and limit how these revenues are generated and distributed.
The Chamber will continue its role as a leading voice on transportation policy. We will facilitate knowledge transfer between the public and private sector.
We will identify and advocate for reforms to transportation funding that seek to generate revenue while also influencing commuter behavior.
The Chamber will convene members and other stakeholders to discuss the future of transportation in the region.
Business leaders in Massachusetts and around the country are starting to call attention to the impending expiration of federal transportation funding. And they’re pressing Congress for a strong and steady investment in urban transportation.
Commuter rail riders passing through South Station will encounter a new requirement before boarding their trains, as transit officials implement a system designed to improve fare collection and create consistency across the network.
Lawmakers Say Infrastructure Needs More Funding, and Congestion Pricing Should Be On the Table “We shouldn’t be scared to have these conversations,” says Sen. Brendan Crighton, co-chair of the legislature’s Joint Committee on Transportation.
Boston ceded its fourth-place spot in a 2025 ranking of U.S. cities with the most traffic congestion, though not for lack of trying.
MBTA buses in Boston are increasingly slowed by traffic congestion, reducing reliability and hitting bus‑dependent neighborhoods the hardest.
MassDOT Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver says that the state’s roadways are at a “critical inflection point” with aging assets, a surge of new funding from Fair Share, and an urgency to deliver safer infrastructure, faster.
According to a new study, the MBTA ranked higher than New York and D.C. in terms of the number of stations across the system, marking a big win for accessibility.
The electronic gates require riders to tap their tickets or passes before boarding and again when exiting. The MBTA said the system is designed to improve fare collection and efficiency while also reducing fare evasion, which has cost tens of millions of dollars over the years.
The MBTA has announced a giant new ferry, while the City of Boston said Tuesday a new ferry stop is coming to South Boston. The new ferry, named the Millenium, will be the MBTA’s largest ferry, with a 400-person capacity.
MassDOT is pausing to re-evaluate its plans for the Allston Multimodal Project after President Trump and his allies in Congress rescinded $327 million in federal funding for the project.
Boston’s Chief of Streets reminds business leaders that ‘Our roads are not getting bigger,’ as city’s business leaders convened for the Chamber’s Transportation First series of talks on Boston’s transportation challenges, which impede the region’s growth.
“With the successful completion of the MBTA’s Track Improvement Program, the region’s residents, commuters, and business leaders are developing a renewed confidence in the T’s reliability and safety,” said Jim Rooney, President & CEO of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce.
“We’re still without a mechanism for figuring out how to deal with a long-term strategy for funding and pricing mobility. Our way of dealing with transportation funding is to lurch from crisis to crisis…That does not allow us to have a comprehensive, strategic funding approach to transportation.”
And for now, the proposal doesn’t include a sustainable, long-term funding fix for the T’s day-to-day expenses. Chamber president Jim Rooney, a former GM of the T, said solutions that could include tolls & congestion pricing will be “incredibly politically difficult things to implement. It’s patch the leak in the roof while we figure out how we’re going to pay for a new roof.”
“I’m not predisposed to a new tax. I think that the genesis of that is that some other jurisdictions have sort of gone in that direction,” Chamber President Jim Rooney told the Herald. “Broad-based taxes either have not been part of the equation in Massachusetts, or when they were, for example, the sales tax that was dedicated to the T back in the 90s, it failed miserably.”
Jim Rooney, Chamber President & CEO, said congestion pricing, or an additional tolling tax for drivers, is among the strategies the Governor’s transportation task force will be considering: “Doing nothing is not an option. There’s a bunch of things that have positive and negative aspects to them, but doing nothing is not an option, particularly when the gas tax is going away.”
The Healey-Driscoll Administration swore in members of the new Transportation Funding Task Force, which is tasked with developing recommendations for a long-term, sustainable transportation finance plan. The recommendations will address the need for a safe, reliable, equitable & efficient transportation network, including roadways, bridges, railways, & bus and transit systems.
The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce is pushing Governor Healey’s administration to offer a new MBTA boss a big pay hike over the last one, with the hope that the governor recruits the most talented person for what promises to be a difficult but crucial job.
“I am more confident that we have turned a corner on truly prioritizing our mobility needs than I have felt in decades,” said Rooney, who previously spent 17 years at the MBTA, rising to deputy general manager. “Let’s face it, the transportation policies of the past 30 years have left us in a mess and the biggest challenge in fixing it will be figuring out how to pay for it.”
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