Setti Warren opens HQ for gubernatorial run
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Setti Warren celebrated the opening of his campaign headquarters in Boston yesterday and called for a moratorium on MBTA privatization in light of a federal report that showed the T’s commuter rail dealt with more broken down trains than any other transit system in the country.
“When these problems continue to pile up and our commuter rail is rated the worst in the country, it is clear that Charlie Baker’s focus on privatization without additional revenue is simply not working,” the Newton mayor told supporters and volunteers at the opening of his Albany Street headquarters, referring to a Federal Transit Administration report that found that in 2016, the commuter rail saw more train breakdowns than any other transit system in the U.S.
“We can’t afford to allow the problems of privatization to expand into other MBTA services,” he said. “We need to put an immediate pause on all efforts to privatize the MBTA to give the Legislature time to investigate what went wrong with these current privatization schemes and to make recommendations about the best next steps for the T. I’m focused on how we can make the MBTA better, but we certainly can’t sit on the sidelines and watch these problems make it worse.”
Warren is one of three Democrats hoping to unseat Gov. Charlie Baker and will face off against Jay Gonzalez, who served in Deval Patrick’s administration, and longtime activist Bob Massie in the primary. Baker has yet to announce whether he’ll run for re-election.