The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, losing money and beset with complaints about high fares and poor service, has decided that a winning strategy is to start irritating the communities it serves.

The MBTA announced this week it plans to dramatically expand its billboard advertising program by setting up huge new signs in 32 locations, including some in communities where billboard advertising is banned.

The transportation authority is ramming its program through over local objections based on a Supreme Judicial Court ruling from last year that said MBTA-owned property is not subject to local zoning regulations. The SJC upheld a lower court ruling that said state agencies are not bound by local regulations as long as they are performing their function as authorized by the Legislature.

So how is a train and bus agency in the advertising business? Because the Legislature has ordered the MBTA to maximize its revenue from nontransportation sources, including advertising.

The MBTA plans four billboards locally along Interstate 495, two in Andover near Route 28 and two near Sutton Street in North Andover. Andover has banned billboards for decades.

The MBTA should demonstrate it can run a train system efficiently before it gets into other lines of business. Why should a state agency, operating tax-free, get to compete unfairly with the private businesses that sell advertising for a profit and pay taxes for the privilege? Among these are private billboard companies, radio and television stations, magazines and, of course, newspapers.

The MBTA is $8 billion in debt. This advertising expansion would generate an estimated $6 million in new revenues. That's not exactly going to make a big dent in the T's fiscal problems.

And it seems little return for the high cost of making enemies out of the very communities the transit agency exists to serve.