No one would fault Massachusetts residents for being skeptical that an upcoming report from a special commission on the future of transportation will do much to ease their daily commute.
These well-intentioned studies often included detailed recommendations, a few of which actually went on to be adopted by lawmakers and state officials. Yet commuters still grapple with clogged highways, frequently unreliable public transit and uncertainty over whether their tax, toll and fare dollars are being spent as efficiently as possible.
“The public is right to have a little fatigue around ‘Hey, here’s another plan, here’s another report.’ We tend to do too much of that in transportation policy,” said Chris Dempsey, director of Transportation for Massachusetts, a coalition of statewide interest groups.
Chaired by Steven Kadish, the governor’s former chief of staff, the panel includes experts on a range of topics from urban planning to climate change and autonomous vehicles. Kadish has suggested the report is unlikely to delve deeply into funding questions that have vexed policymakers for decades.
The state has spent $16 billion on roads and bridges in the last 10 years. Still, infrastructure woes have persisted and in some cases mounted, in part due to problems at the MBTA.
Dempsey welcomes the commission’s focus on the potentially disruptive impacts of new technologies such as autonomous vehicles.
“If we think congestion is bad now, imagine a world where you can have a robot or zombie car … driving around, circling the block with no one in it and competing for space on the Mass Pike with you during the morning commute,” he said.
The Pioneer Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank, said in recommendations submitted to the commission that public transportation agencies must be innovative and willing to embrace technological change if they hope to compete for customers in the future.
“Pioneer believes it is critical, in a time of dramatic transportation change, that the T have a singular and easily measured strategic goal: to increase ridership,” the organization said.
Ridership dropped by 2 percent during the first three months of the current fiscal year, resulting in $3 million less in fare revenue than projected, the T’s control board reported.
