Mayor Menino at the 2nd year launch of Hubway. Photo Credit: City of Boston.

In a major city like Boston, the mayor plays a pivotal role in advancing transportation innovation and improvements. After all, few things show off a city better (or worse) than its transportation systems. To help the public understand where Boston’s mayoral candidates stand on this key campaign issue, CLF is co-sponsoring a free forum on Transportation and Livable Communities on Tuesday, September 17, 2013 from 6pm to 8pm at the Boston Public Library.

During Mayor Thomas Menino’s twenty years in office, the City of Boston has advanced many transportation projects, including the modernization of the Blue Line, the rehabilitation of old and opening of new stations on the Fairmount Line, the launch of the Hubway bike share system, and the completion of the Big Dig. Around the country, Antonio Villaraigosa in Los Angeles, Rahm Emanuel in Chicago, and Michael Bloomberg in New York all have successfully put new transportation ideas, policies and investments at the center of their administrations.

For CLF and everyone who lives and/or works in Boston, it matters that the next mayor of Boston, whoever it is, understands the importance of its transportation systems to the city: the ability to walk and bike safely and easily, the need to assure that public transit is affordable and accessible to all, and the foresight to consider how good transportation planning can help the city reduce greenhouse gas emissions and manage through the challenges presented by a changing climate. With the right mayor, Boston can and will continue to lead in this area.

Four Corners/Geneva Avenue Station on Fairmount Line. Photo Credit: Patrick D. Rosso, pdrosso @ flickr

The forum on Transportation and Livable Communities will give each of the candidates an opportunity to address the vital transportation issues impacting Boston’s communities. CLF is co-sponsoring the event with a group of non-profit organizations, planners, and advocates who have been working to make Boston, and other Massachusetts communities, more livable.  As a group, we have provided all of the candidates with extensive information on policies related to transportation and livable communities. Now, on Tuesday, September 17, 2013 from 6pm to 8pm,  you can learn how more about how each candidate will improve Boston’s streets and public transportation. The event is free and  open to the public and the media. Register here to get your free ticket. We hope to see you there.

Despite a long history of industrial pollution, the Lower Mystic continues to be fished by local residents. Although there is a fish advisory upstream, which suggests that fishermen catch and release only, the Lower Mystic doesn’t have its own fish advisory. Rather it falls under the general fish advisory for the Boston Harbor. However, contaminated sediment, combined with significant ongoing water pollution from sewage overflows and stormwater, raises serious doubt whether the Boston Harbor fish advisory, which was based on sampling in Quincy Bay and has not been updated since 1988, is adequate for this area. What this means is that residents can continue to fish in the Lower Mystic, although they lack the necessary information to determine whether or not the fish they catch are safe to eat.

Now, with the help of a grant from the Massachusetts Environmental Trust (MET), CLF and its partners—Chelsea Collaborative, Mystic River Watershed Association, Neighborhood of Affordable Housing (NOAH), and the University of Massachusetts Boston (UMass-Boston)—will be able to work with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) to develop and provide clear, useful, and necessary public information that will help people to safely catch and consume fish from the waters in the Lower Mystic.

We suspect that a lack of specific, accurate, and reliable information for the residents of the Lower Mystic has likely resulted both in consumption of fish that is unsafe for human health and an overall underutilization of a valuable river resource. With this grant, we are excited to work closely with MDPH to improve this situation and provide clear guidance to the communities of the Mystic River and visitors in the form of an easy to read fish advisory.

As part of the grant, CLF and its partners will survey anglers about the current use of the Lower Mystic for fishing, develop an estimate of current consumption, conduct spot sampling of fish to help MDPH obtain the information it needs to assess the risks, and, if appropriate, seek issuance of a fish advisory specific for the area. CLF will also help MDPH in developing a user-friendly fish advisory and advocate for its translation into all languages spoken in the area.

Interestingly, it was CLF’s work to stop pollution of Boston Harbor that helped to establish the Massachusetts Environmental Trust. As part of the 1988 settlement of CLF’s and the federal government’s lawsuits which required the state to clean up Boston Harbor, the state legislature also established MET, which was initially funded with $2 million dollars.

Today, funding for MET is generated by proceeds from the sale of special environmental license plates. There are currently some 50,000 drivers with MET plates, generating roughly $1,000,000 annually for environmental projects. In addition, the trust continues to receive funding through settlements, judgments, civil actions, and administrative consent orders.

License plates like this one help fund MET.

The Lower Mystic is the part of the Mystic River Watershed closest to Boston Harbor. The watershed includes eight of the twenty most environmentally overburdened communities in Massachusetts. The environmental hazards in the Lower Mystic communities of Chelsea, Everett, East Boston alone include hazardous waste sites, landfills, transfer stations, incinerators, polluting industrial facilities, and power plants. The Mystic also has more parking lots, buildings, industrial sites and less green space than any other watershed in the Commonwealth. Residents of the Lower Mystic also have limited access to the waterfront.

CLF and its partners believe that, while we need to continue to work on addressing these environmental problems, it is also crucial that the access to the water that does exist is as beneficial and safe of a resource as it can be. A fish advisory for the Lower Mystic will go a long way toward helping us reach that goal. We’ll keep you posted on our progress.

On April 13, the Massachusetts Senate voted in favor of a $600 million per year transportation funding plan. But can that plan fund all of the challenges facing the Bay State’s transportation system? It’s a question many are asking, and few have the tools to answer.

That’s why we built the Transportation Budget Calculator. Follow this link to see how short this funding falls in the face of the state’s overwhelming transportation needs.

The plan that the Senate approved directs an average of $600 million per year to transportation. While the Senate bill is similar to the proposal previously approved by the House, it added roughly $100 million per year on average in revenue. This additional amount does not require raising any new taxes. Rather, the Senate bill redirects 2.5 cents per gallon from the gas tax that is currently committed to underground storage tank removal to the transportation sector. The Senate bill also calls for new revenues from the leasing of MBTA and MassDOT land to utilities.

A conference committee has formed to try and merge the House and Senate bills. There has been a lot of interest in understanding how much of its transportation challenges the Commonwealth would be able to tackle should legislation emerge that is consistent with the revenue that the Senate bill raises.

The Senate bill raises sufficient revenue to correct some of the Commonwealth’s most egregious financial practices born out of the necessity to fill budget holes created by chronic underfunding. This includes ending the terrible practice of paying for costs associated with the operation of our transportation system with bonds.

The bill also includes about $100 million per year on average for capital projects. This number could be significantly lower depending on two factors: first, whether the bill’s growth projections for payroll and benefits come to pass or not; and second, whether it is realistic for the MBTA to be able to meet the bill’s underlying projections about how much money the agency can raise on its own. Regardless, this amount, unfortunately, cannot resolve all of the infrastructure challenges of our transportation system.

To get a sense of the challenge facing the committee, try our new Transportation Budget Calculator. Using the revenue provided by the Senate bill, the calculator allows you to pick state of good repair and expansion projects off of a project list and will inform you if you can afford the projects you have selected or not.

It’s may not be as exciting as your favorite video game, but you can still enjoy the ride (if you can afford to build the road or the track)!

At a time when our legislators are facing critical decisions on transportation financing, their ability to properly assess the plans on the table is being hampered by confusion about the different plans’ price tags and where the money is going to come from.

Factions are forming around inaccurate characterizations of the different transportation plans, so before the Senate begins its debate tomorrow and key decisions get made, we thought it would be helpful to lay it out apples to apples.

Following is a simple way to keep the numbers organized. For each plan, we added up the amount to be spent on transportation over the next five years and divided it by five. This gives annualized numbers that are comparable. Here are the average amounts per year for the first five years of the three plans:

• Governor Patrick’s Plan: $858M/year
• House Transportation Bill: $504M/year
• Senate Transportation Bill: $602M/year

There are still significant differences on how these amounts would be raised and the assumptions about growth underlying them. Still, to the extent that the public, the press and the legislature chooses to focus on the size of the plans as a matter of debate, it’s important to be sure we’ve at least got that part straight.

Our bottom line? Bigger is better if we want a working transportation system for all of Massachusetts. Underfunding transportation again is the worst possible outcome. It will still cost taxpayers money; they just won’t have anything to show for it. If you are one of the majority of Massachusetts voters who believe a working transportation system is worth paying for, please call your state senator today.

This post is part of a series on transportation issues affecting Massachusetts. Look for more from Rafael Mares and Christine Chilingerian in the coming weeks. To stay up to date, visit this www.clf.org/blog/tag/MA4Trans/ or follow the hashtag #MA4TRANS on Twitter.

Massachusetts relies on several sources of funding for its transportation system. In addition to user fees—such as transit fares, registry fees, and tolls—and federal dollars for capital projects, a good portion of the system is funded through state gas and sales taxes. Both the gas tax and the sales tax, however, have been providing less revenue than originally expected or planned.

For one, the gas tax has not been increased since 1991. Due to inflation, the value of the gas tax is trickling away over time. In Massachusetts, we’ve lost 41% of the 1991 gas tax’s purchasing power as costs rise and cars become increasingly fuel-efficient. It is now worth only 12.4 cents in 1991 dollars. That’s a paltry amount, especially in light of the fact that it was originally worth 21 cents. Consider that, over the same time period, other staple consumer goods have increased in price, for example, the average cost of a pound of flour has more than doubled. It is clear that the gas tax hasn’t kept pace. Consider also that state gas taxes are higher in every other New England state, with the sole exception of New Hampshire, which is currently considering a gas tax increase whose rate would put Massachusetts in last place in our region. Nationwide, Massachusetts currently ranks 29 in the gas tax; Wyoming’s pending gas tax increase could make the Commonwealth drop to number 30 by July 1st.  That should not be a point of pride.

In 2000, the last time the legislature considered a major funding bill for transportation, the sales tax had just experienced a decade of 6.5% growth per year. A portion of the sales tax was dedicated to transportation at the time with an assumption that it would increase at least 3% per year. In reality, the sales tax, however, only increased an average of 1% per year, leaving the system significantly underfunded. While the legislature responded with some smaller fixes over the last few years, none were large enough to correct the problem.

If we want to solve some of the problems I identified in an earlier post, we need to raise new revenue for transportation. It doesn’t have to come from the gas tax or the sales tax, but it has to come from somewhere.

On Tuesday, the Massachusetts House and Senate Committees on Ways and Means jointly announced a transportation finance framework. Upon close review, there is more (or really less) to the supposedly budget-minded proposal than meets the eye.

In short, the legislature’s answer to MassDOT’s ten-year transportation plan would neither be big enough (it does not even attempt to close the one billion dollar revenue gap), nor long enough (only five years) to meet the Commonwealth’s fundamental transportation needs. The framework would not cover the maintenance of our transportation system, nor keep it in a state of good repair, let alone allow for any investment in modernization. This would leave the entire transportation system vulnerable, staunching economic opportunity by locking in another five years of chronic underfunding for transportation. And rather than providing a real, long-term solution to the real problems associated with chronic underfunding, it guarantees we’ll be having this conversation all over again as soon as next year.

Here is what you should know about the framework:

1)    How the revenue will be raised:

• The $519 million per year price tag that the legislature is putting on its proposal includes revenue to be raised from the following sources: a $.03 gas tax increase ($95M), indexing the gas tax to inflation starting in 2015 ($15M), a tax on cigarettes, cigars and tobacco products ($165 M), a tax on computer services ($161M), elimination of utility tax classifications ($45M), and a change in the source of sales for multistate corporations ($35M).

• However, not all of the new revenue is dedicated to transportation. Rather, a total of $260 million per year on average is not allocated to transportation or any other purpose as of now. Apparently no agreement has been reached on how to spend this portion of the new revenue.

• What the legislature did not advertise is that the framework also directs MassDOT and the MBTA to raise an additional average of $214 per year from unspecified revenue sources the agencies have under their own control. Such revenue sources include primarily fares, tolls, and Registry of Motor Vehicles fees. While modest, planned and regularly scheduled fare, toll, and RMV fee increases are advisable, the amount MassDOT and MBTA would be expected to raise from these sources under the legislature’s proposed framework is nearly double the amount MassDOT proposed to raise from this category in its plan. As a result, it is fair to expect that fares, tolls, and RMV fees would go up as soon as July 1, 2014, and again in the fiscal years 2016 and 2018. So much for the committees’ spin that their stripped-down framework is mindful of people’s pocketbooks.

• The framework also includes other transportation revenue sources from gambling revenues, contributions from the Convention Center, and contributions from MassPort ($40M).

2)    How the revenue will be spent:

• While the framework does not list all the particulars on how the money could be spent, it promises to stop borrowing to pay for operating expenses over a three-year period and to provide full funding for snow and ice removal (phased in over a two-year period).

• The MBTA’s operating deficit would be close to covered for five years, but not quite.

• The state’s fifteen regional transit authorities (RTAs) would be forward funded in 2014, but would receive a significantly reduced investment from what MassDOT originally proposed. Instead of an additional $100 million/year, the fifteen RTAs would have to make do with an additional $18 million/year.

3)    What is not covered:

• The framework does not identify any money to borrow for new capital projects. Hence the Commonwealth would not have the ability to address its overwhelming maintenance backlog. Therefore, there would not be enough funding to rehabilitate our structurally deficient bridges (there are over 400 of them in Massachusetts), replace the Red Line, Orange Line, and Green Line cars that are beyond their useful lives, repair the I-91 viaduct, and swap out old RTA buses.

• The RTAs would continue to be underfunded. As a result, a combination of restoration of service previously cut, increased frequency of service, and longer evening and weekend service will not be possible.

• No new investment in our state’s transportation system would occur. Think no South Station expansion, no South Coast Rail, no new bike and pedestrian paths, or other improvements. It is noteworthy that the Green Line Extension to Somerville and Medford is legally required, but the New Starts application for federal money, which requires the MBTA’s financial house to be in order, would be put at risk and could cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in federal assistance. Additional delays could also be expected.

• Although a separate bond bill authorizes an additional $100 million for next year to be spent on local road maintenance, the insufficient amount of money in the framework for debt service and other more pressing needs would mean that this increase could not be released.

While the proposed framework purports to be sustainable, adequate, and simple, on closer look, it unfortunately achieves none of these laudable goals. No matter which way you slice the numbers, there isn’t enough there to achieve the most basic improvements needed to ensure the safety and reliability of our public transit systems, roads and bridges.

Raising taxes at this time is clearly necessary to fund our transportation system, but if we ask people to pay more, we need to make sure that they have something to show for it. This framework fails that simple test.

This post is part of a series on transportation issues affecting Massachusetts. Look for more from Rafael Mares and Christine Chilingerian in the coming weeks. To stay up to date, visit this www.clf.org/blog/tag/MA4Trans/ or follow the hashtag #MA4TRANS on Twitter.

If you have ever tried to get from one place to another in the Bay State, you could get the impression that everyone in Massachusetts must have a car. If you’ve ever tried to ride your bike across the Longfellow Bridge (as currently configured), or walk around Agawam, you know what I’m talking about.

You’d be surprised to find out, however, that one in every eight Massachusetts households does not have a car. Even more interesting is the fact that the percentage of Massachusetts residents of driving age without driver’s licenses has been increasing steadily from 8.67% in 2006 to 13.41% in 2010. Since few people who have a driver’s license tend to give it up, a growing number of young people are deciding not to drive. They’re taking to the streets, en masse, but on foot or on bike.

The number of miles traveled on public transit among sixteen to thirty-four-year olds in the United States increased by 40% between 2001 and 2009. That’s an important trend to be aware of when we decide how to spend our transportation dollars going forward. When we build transportation infrastructure today, it will be used by a generation or two to come. We need to keep their habits in mind when building today or we’ll lose them tomorrow.

Regardless of young people leaving cars behind, there are other important reasons to open up travel options for people. Consider that the average cost of owning a car in the United States is almost $9,000/year for a sedan—money that can be spent in better ways when there are other options to get around. Likewise, to reduce our energy consumption, we have to look to the transportation sector. Transportation consumes roughly 33% of all the energy in Massachusetts – the most of any end-use sector. Emissions from our vehicles accounts for 36% of our entire statewide greenhouse gas emissions – and it is the portion of our emissions that is rising the fastest. Since not all ways of getting around are created equal—e.g., buses during rush hour use much less energy and don’t contribute fewer emissions per passenger per mile than SUVs—we will have to develop our transportation system with the goals of reducing energy consumption and mitigating climate change in mind.

As a result, I think it is fair to conclude, it would make little sense to spend money on maintaining our current transportation system without developing it in a way that meets our future needs. Today’s construction builds tomorrow’s infrastructure. If we build like we always have, recent trends suggest that people may not use it. That would be a waste, for our economy, our health, our environment, and our communities.

We all expect our transportation system to work. But what happens when it doesn’t and we don’t fully understand the alternatives? Image: shoothead @ flickr

This post is the first in a series on transportation issues affecting Massachusetts. Look for more from Rafael Mares and Christine Chilingerian in the coming weeks. To stay up to date, visit this www.clf.org/blog/tag/MA4Trans/ or follow the hashtag #MA4TRANS on Twitter.

We all expect our transportation system to work. We get upset when we wait for the bus, drive through a pothole, sit in traffic, or are stuck on the T behind a broken down train. We expect our transportation system to be in place—for roads to be paved, for sidewalks to be built, for bike lanes to be marked, for train track and trains to be available, and for tunnels to be dug and lit. What’s more—we not only expect them to be there, but to also be in good service when we need them: for roads to be smooth and not congested, for buses and trains to be timely, for sidewalks to not be treacherous, and for tunnels to, well, not leak.

As Paul Levy, a distinguished Massachusetts public servant, however, has pointed out, the nature of our democratic system, and the slow deterioration that all infrastructure goes through do not mesh well. Almost two years ago, Mr. Levy wisely called for a cheering section for infrastructure. With legislators on Beacon Hill now finally actively trying to tackle the long-standing, severe underfunding of our transportation system, we believe it’s time to put on the cheerleading uniform, pull out the pom poms, and cheer loudly.

But how can we cheer, if we‘re not armed with important facts about the root of our transportation system’s problems? This blog series attempts to shed light on facts about the Commonwealth’s transportation system that can help us be informed supporters of new revenue for our transportation system, even if it takes a billion dollars a year over the next ten years to solve the problem.

I hope you’ll follow as we post this. They’ll make great reading while you’re waiting for the T.

Since Governor Patrick proposed his plan to raise revenue for transportation and education, a lot of time has been spent on discussing the merits of the revenue sources he has chosen. In comparison, relatively little time has been devoted to how such money should be spent. The great American humorist Evan Esar once wisely said, “The mint makes it first, it is up to you to make it last.”

Transportation for Massachusetts has worked closely with Representatives Tricia Farley-Bouvier of Pittsfield, Representative Carl Sciortino of Medford, Senator Katherine Clark of Melrose, and others to draft legislation that addresses this side of the coin. In addition, Transportation for Massachusetts helped develop a bill that could prepare Massachusetts for better ways to raise revenue for transportation in the future. In total there are currently three great bills pending that Transportation for Massachusetts helped develop.

Here they are:

An Act relative to transportation investment, regional fairness, and accountability to state policies (HD 3119 introduced by Rep. Farley-Bouvier, Rep. Sciortino, and S. 1670 by Senator Clark) will guide any transportation investments the legislature and the governor agree on to build a financially stable, safer and more modern transportation system in every corner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. This bill would:

• Eliminate the unsustainable practice of paying for day-to-day operational costs of our highway system by borrowing through state bonds (currently, MassDOT is spending roughly $1.75 for every $1.00 borrowed because of the interest on the bonds);
• Require that an equitable portion of transportation revenue benefit all regions throughout the Commonwealth;
• Set aside funding for Gateway Cities and environmental justice neighborhoods to plan and design projects that are eligible for federal transportation money. This would allow these communities to invest in projects that residents care most about—such as fixing roads and bridges, improving Regional Transit Authorities, and investing in sidewalks, bike lanes, and other projects that promote transit oriented development and affordable housing;
• Require that transportation projects comply with existing policy goals and objectives that reduce pollution, improve public health, improve land-use coordination and meet our mode shift goals;
• Require that transportation investments over $15 million be analyzed for their impact on our economy, environment, public health, low-income communities and communities of color, pedestrian and bike access, and cost of operations;
• Ensure that sufficient money is available for critical maintenance and safety investments; and
• Support the state’s existing mode shift goal to triple trips made on public transportation, biking and walking across the Commonwealth.

An Act relative to contract assistance for Central Artery debt of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (H. 3141 introduced by Rep. Sciortino) proposes a way to address the crippling debt load at the MBTA by paying down the debt related to the Central Artery Project. The legislation would require that the Commonwealth provide contract assistance from the Commonwealth Transportation Fund for the Big Dig debt held by the MBTA. This money couldn’t come out of funds that are already set to support investments at the MBTA or RTAs.

An Act relative to the establishment of a vehicle mileage user fee pilot program by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (H. 3142 introduced by Rep. Farley-Bouvier and Rep. Sciortino) proposes a voluntary vehicle miles traveled pilot program to identify alternatives and supplements to the gas tax. The pilot seeks 1000 volunteers from the entire Commonwealth to evaluate ways to protect data collected, ensure privacy, and vary pricing based on time of driving, type of road, proximity to transit and vehicle fuel in order to help Massachusetts prepare for the future of transportation revenue.

We are grateful to the legislative sponsors of these bills who share our commitment to creating and sustaining a 21st-century transportation system that serves all people in communities across thes state.

You can also find this post on the Transportation for Massachusetts (T4MA) blog.