The Dever program for obliterating the MTA deficit in 1949 has two divisions. Six million dollars, according to his plan, can be saved yearly by refinancing the bond issues and modernizing the bookkeeping system. The remainder, some $5,000,000, must be paid off by some form of public levy.

Refinancing would be a comparatively simple process; at present there is a bill before the State legislature providing for a change in the depreciation system and the recall of the Metropolitan District Obligation bond issue. The same bill would transfer the ownership of all transit structures (subways, elevated lines) from the various cities and towns to the MTA. In addition, Dever has proposed that the MTA, since it is now completely State owned, be relieved of all State taxes.

The public levy problem, however, is not so easily solved. Since 1918, the cities and towns through which the El ran absorbed the yearly deficit. But these lesses had been reasonable; the towns could pay them off without too much difficulty. Now the towns cannot cover the MTA excess expenses without raising their own property tax rates. Consequently, they have rebelled against the old system.

Dever has offered two methods for reallocating the deficits but both have met loud protest from the groups who will have to pay. First, he wanted the State legislature to determine that the MTA lines and the subways were "highways" and, as such, were to be maintained by the receipts from gasoline and other automotive taxes. The car owners objected to this plan; they argued that persons who paid a gas tax were the least likely to use the MTA. And this program was disregarded entirely early this year, when the State Supreme Court ruled such action illegal.

When the gas tax solution fell through, the governor proposed his second alternative--the absorption of 12 1/2 percent of the annual loss by 14 "fringe" communities that do not actually have the MTA service but whose residents frequently use the MTA system. But these towns fail to see why they should have to pay such a percentage if the rest of New England, which certainly benefits from the MTA, has to pay nothing. Besides that, the metropolitan cities and towns will still have to cover 87 1/2 percent of the losses.

One solution seems to remain--a fare increase. Though the EL consistently lost money, it never raised its fare above ten cents. In the 1948 gubernatorial election, Dever accused ex-Governor Bradford of planning to boost the fare; because of the implications that Dever could get around the deficit some other way, the present governor has now a political obligation to keep the ten cent rate.

Actually, a fare increase is a reasonable answer to the problem; cities like Detroit and Washington have had a two-for-a-quarter token system for five years now. One suggestion offered has been to scale the fare in proportion to the distance that a person travels. For instance, the rate on an outlying line, say from Watertown to Harvard Square, would be six cents; the intown rate on one of the main transit lines would be ten cents. Thus the maximum fare for traveling the length of the system (two outlying lines and a main line) would be 22 cents.

At best, operating a public transit line can never really show a profit--not in these days of so much private transportation. Yet the MTA remains for a large number of people a very necessary utility. The public therefore will have to pay either by higher taxes or a fare increase to keep the system running; and the sooner the State realizes that and sets up the mechanics for a more efficient MTA, the less the public will have to pay.