The MBTA would raise subway fares by up to 70 cents and dramatically cull bus routes, eliminate ferries, and end weekend commuter rail trains under a plan unveiled yesterday to help erase a projected $161 million deficit.
MBTA officials stressed that details could change after a string of public hearings through February. But after 5 ½ years of staving off fare increases and maintaining or increasing services, they said change appears inevitable when the next budget year begins July 1.
“These are difficult decisions for us; we don’t take it lightly,’’ said Jonathan R. Davis, the T’s chief financial officer and acting general manager, acknowledging the hundreds of thousands who rely on the MBTA daily.
Since it last raised fares Jan. 1, 2007, the T has avoided increases by cutting labor costs or refinancing debt and by generating cash selling surplus property and advertising space.
But options are running out, transportation officials said as they unveiled two packages of possible cuts and fare increases.
That the T has avoided fare hikes until now - even as most transit agencies have raised fares, cut service, or both - provided little balm for those smacked with the news yesterday.
Lance Wheeler, riding home to Dorchester from his job as a cook in Cambridge, sighed as he sank into his seat on the Red Line yesterday. “Right now is really not a good time for a fare increase: People are struggling,’’ said Wheeler, 53.
Already Wheeler opts for the $15 weekly pass instead of the $59 monthly subway-bus pass. Under both scenarios proposed by the T, the weekly pass would jump to $20, the monthly LinkPass to $78 or $80.
“I’m just making it now for bills and everything else,’’ he said.
A team at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has been working for months with the Boston Metropolitan Planning Organization’s central transportation planning staff and a group of riders and activists to come up with the two plans.
One of the proposals would eliminate fewer bus routes than the other, but would raise the cost of passes and fares for subway, bus, and commuter rail by an average of 43 percent and would increase fees at park-and-ride lots by 28 percent. The second proposal would wipe out dozens of outlying bus routes while raising passes and fares an average of 35 percent and parking 20 percent.
Senior citizens could see the highest percentage increases, from roughly 33 percent of current fares to 50 percent or more.
The T - with steady ridership increases that put it on pace to provide nearly 400 million one-way trips this year - would probably drive away 9 to 13 percent of riders under the first scenario and 14 to 17 percent under the second, said Charles Planck, the MBTA’s senior director for strategic initiatives.
