| Business leaders can’t let any pessimism they feel about the state’s ability to effectively spend money obscure big visions about the future of transportation in Massachusetts.
Realizing the dire state of affairs on our roads and rails, more and more members of the business community and the political establishment are jumping into the transportation conversation with two feet. Even figures like House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Jim Rooney are saying they could support “broad-based” efforts to raise more funds for the fixes everyone knows are needed – Beacon Hill-speak for “taxes” – and Gov. Charlie Baker hinted he would be supportive of congestion pricing in addition to the multistate transportation carbon pricing scheme he favors.
There’s nothing like a looming crisis to sharpen one’s focus. Last week’s MassINC poll showing as many as one in four Massachusetts residents have considered leaving over the state of our roads and trains, and many reported having considered changing jobs because of it. Two-thirds of respondents declared action is “urgently needed” to improve the system.
Businesses’ voices will carry significant weight on Beacon Hill as DeLeo, Baker and Senate President Karen Spilka hammer out a way forward. Businesses are the beating heart that drives this state forward every day, and they need unclogged and efficient transportation arteries to function.
Some have declared that the MBTA and state leaders need to “tell us what the results will be” before raising taxes to fund new transportation improvements. This is an important check on any starry-eyed idealists who think simply shoveling more money into transit agencies with a history limited management capacity will make gridlock and train delays disappear. That attitude, however, can be a short hop (perhaps a bit longer if you’re riding the Green Line) away from a blinkered sense of what’s possible.
To truly solve the transportation mess in Massachusetts, radical change will be necessary.
As Scott Van Voorhis notes in his column this week, and as the MassINC poll showed 80 percent of state residents support, a fast, frequent (and therefore electrified) regional rail system is necessary to keep up with the state’s massive population growth – 354,520 new people in eight years, by the most recent Census Bureau estimate – and keep up with the future. But such a system won’t be enough if, for example, the economic logic Jay Fitzgerald explores in his story on the future of auto-dominated shopping malls keeps demand for traditional car trips high or pushes it higher.
To help find a new road, businesses need to both hold officials accountable for how public dollars are spent, but also for the boldness of the vision those officials are aiming for. Our state’s current economic health and our children’s futures depend on it.
