THE RECENT REPORT by businessman David D'Alessandro paints yet another grim picture of the MBTA's financial situation, concluding that "it makes little sense to continue expanding the system when the MBTA cannot maintain the existing one." The report's diagnosis - that the T is in critical financial condition - is correct. The recommended treatment - freezing the current system until its financial health can be restored - is a prescription for disaster for the Massachusetts economy.

Every weekday the MBTA brings hundreds of thousands of workers to jobs in 175 cities and towns. Many of these jobs are in and around the urban core because Boston and its neighbors continue to provide a substantial share of the region's jobs. A recent Brookings report found that Boston is the only large metropolitan area where job growth is concentrating in communities within 10 miles of downtown, rather than sprawling out into places where the jobs are accessible only to workers with the financial resources and patience to commute by car. The commuter rail system connects residents of smaller cities like Brockton, Fitchburg, and Haverhill to these jobs while catalyzing local development around stations.

Transit capacity and ridership need to expand as the economy grows. Cars alone simply cannot deliver enough workers to dense job clusters like Boston's Longwood Medical Area. The recently adopted MetroFuture plan for Greater Boston projects that modest growth will generate 290,000 new jobs by 2030 and calls for two-thirds of them to be located near transit. Transit ridership must also grow if Massachusetts is to meet the ambitious goals in the state's Global Warming Solutions Act, since transportation accounts for the state's largest and fastest growing share of greenhouse gas emissions.