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It's hard to imagine the MBTA of the 1980s as described by Fred Salvucci.

"The service was really customer-oriented," said Salvucci, who served as secretary of transportation in both Dukakis administrations. "The infrastructure was in very good shape because we put a lot of money into rebuilding. It was in great shape."

Salvucci says ridership opinion surveys were at 92% favorable by the late 1980s. And the policies of growth and investment were slated to continue.So what happened?

"What happened is the new governor," Salvucci said, referring to Michael Dukakis' successor, Bill Weld. "He zeroed out the investment program for the MBTA in the budget."

Weld, a popular two-term governor through the 1990s, now lives in Canton.

"I get to work every day by going to the Readville station near Hyde Park and hopping on the Fairmont line and 18 minutes to South Station," Weld said.

The former Republican governor, who ran for vice president on Gary Johnson's Libertarian ticket in 2016, says he always regarded the essential aspect of the MBTA as a workforce issue.

"You know, I don't remember cutting the budget a huge amount," Weld said. "I do remember the deferred maintenance was a problem that persisted even when I was an office."

"The tricky thing with infrastructure is you can screw it up and it won't be visible for 10 or 15 years," Salvucci said.

Salvucci is also critical of Weld's push for privatization, including, he says, firing all the top-level managers.

"I still think that privatization is the way to make things more efficient," Weld said.

Significant investment may have stopped in the 90s, but no governor or legislature since then has been able to make the kind of investment so desperately needed to update the century-old system.

"Nobody holds accountable the guy who was there in 1995. It's whoever the poor sap is that's stuck with vehicles that don't work today," Salvucci said.

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What Led to MBTA's Decline? Weld Defends Against Criticism of Administration - NBC10 Boston