The Patrick Administration and Transportation Secretary James Aloisi suffered a huge embarassment today with the publishing of emails showing that Secretary Aloisi was the person pushing for fare increases at the MBTA. This after the Administration, and the Governor personally, had cited former General Manager Dan Grabauskas for supporting a fare increase and used that as one of the reasons for getting rid of him. From today’s Boston Globe:

In a July 6 e-mail to Transportation Secretary James A. Aloisi Jr., Grabauskas detailed a plan to delay a fare increase until January 2011, writing that that there would probably be enough new state sales tax revenue and federal stimulus money to “spare our customers, many of whom are poor and transit dependent, a fare increase for an additional year, during the worst economic climate in 80 years.’’

So the ex General Manager looks to hold off on any fare increases for a year. But his boss sends the rejoinder, looking for immediate fare increases.

“Thanks Dan,’’ Aloisi wrote. “My reaction is that there are too many ‘ifs’ or other risks in the scenario you outline – too many things have to go right . . . My objective here is to set the MBTA on a much stronger financial footing, and moving forward on the fare increase now seems to me to be the best and most certain way to accomplish that for the next three fiscal years.’’

As I said in an earlier post this was never necessary. Grabauskas could have been moved simply, without breaking all the china in the room. Now both the Secretary and the Governor have egg on their face, and have truly created a huge credibility gap for themselves. It has a keystone cops ring to it, which seems to be a recurring theme. Even the blogs that have been harshly critical of Grabauskas cannot seem to believe the ineptitude displayed here by the Administration. They broke it, they own it, and they are off to a pretty slow start in fixing it. Best of luck!

Grabauskas