This new year marks a large step backward in Boston’s transportation policy. As Big Dig construction winds down and Boston drivers fully enjoy a snazzy new highway system on their fellow taxpayers’ dime, less fortunate mass commuters must now pay 25 percent more for every ride they take out of their own pockets. The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) has invoked a variety of excuses for the fare increase, but those who ride the T to work every day know that the idea is an ironic—if not sinister—redistribution of costs from relatively affluent motorists onto the less well-off regulars of public transportation.

Whereas public transportation serves to reduce traffic, pollution and particularly roadway maintenance costs, the Big Dig has raised costs for the MBTA by forcing the authority to rebuild and relocate stations and track lines that were intruding on highway construction. In addition, the 1991 Big Dig contract with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection requires that the MBTA complete a series of projects to provide mitigation for the new Central Artery’s environmental impact. In an independent report released in 2002, the Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research estimated that these mitigation efforts alone would cost the MBTA over $3 billion. And although the bill for the Big Dig is currently estimated at $14.6 billion—significantly more than the current MBTA debt—T fares have continued to increase faster than tolls.

The “user pays” principle for public transportation—a fashionable pretext for fare increases—is an inherently regressive system that makes the poorest more responsible for paying for their transportation. T riders should be rewarded with lower, subsidized fares for lightening traffic and pollution.

Proponents of the fare hike claim that Boston’s subways and buses are still the cheapest in the country, but inhabitants of poor and poorly serviced neighborhoods can testify that paying separately for rides on a bus and a subway for the same trip is hardly a bargain. And the MBTA’s disregard for low-income users goes far beyond its fares. On the Orange Line, which serves many low-income neighborhoods, subways have been known to run once every half-hour. The Silver Line has turned out to be an ersatz subway route covered mostly by bus service. But downtown, part of the revenues generated by the higher fares will be spent on the construction of a new “Superstation” at the Fleet Center. The seeming message—that the MBTA does not care as much about its service for the poor as it does for its more comfortable riders—is hard to ignore.

Instead of resorting to a fare increase, the state should have addressed the MBTA’s financial difficulties by transferring money from more prosperous agencies and increasing subsidies. The promise not to increase fares again until after 2006 is far too weak a concession. The MBTA should make a more durable commitment to the community of riders by keeping fares low, steering improvement efforts toward the neighborhoods that truly need them and allowing an independent audit of its accounts. As it stands, the fare hike remains a suggestion of a regressive transportation policy in which those who can afford a car are valued above those who ride the buses and subways.