A viaduct for the MBTA's Green Line Extension program under construction next to apartment buildings in Cambridge in 2020. MassDOT photo

Changes wrought by the pandemic mean Massachusetts needs to plan much more holistically for its transportation and housing needs, two former MBTA board members told an audience of businesspeople yesterday.

Joe Aiello, the former chair of the MBTA Fiscal and Management Control Board, and Monica Tibbits-Nutt, former board vice chair and executive director of the 128 Business Council, were speaking at a virtual event hosted by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce.

“People will not come back [to the office] five days a week. I never ever see that happening, ever,” said Tibbits-Nutt.

“I agree,” Mass General Brigham Chief Human Resources Officer Rosemary Sheehan, also a panelist at the event, replied.

“You will never be able to get employees,” Tibbits-Nutt continued. “No one’s going to want to do that. We all know we still can’t get employees under these circumstances, but it will never happen. And I honestly am not sure that it should.”

Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce CEO James Rooney said his group’s members are “all over the spectrum” on work models, with the “great majority” still opting to keep a mix of in-person and virtual options in place.

This new, transformed model of white-collar work sends ripples into the state’s transportation systems, particularly the MBTA, which relies on fare revenue from commuting Boston-area employees for a chunk of its annual operating budget.

Before the omicron-fueled winter spike, average T ridership had rebounded to only around 50 percent of pre-COVID levels on the T’s subway lines, 50 percent on commuter rail lines and nearly 70 percent on bus routes.

Both Aiello and Tibbits-Nutt praised the agency for some of its COVID-era adaptation, including a new commuter rail schedule offering more service at traditionally off-peak times and flexibility in running buses based on demand.

Equity and Housing Tied to Transit

In the long run, Aiello said, the most pressing questions for the agency are “less about COVID” and “more about us and how we as a region are going to move forward” to tackle issues like housing affordability and climate change.

“The MBTA has to be part of the discussion. It can no longer be separated from discussions about equity and housing,” he said. “It absolutely, positively has got to be at the table, and it traditionally hasn’t. It’s wanted to live in its own cocoon.”

Tibbits-Nutt said that she believes Massachusetts needs to do more work to have “shovel-ready” projects lined up at the MBTA and clearer goals about investments to ensure the state is in the mix for available federal dollars, particularly with a new infrastructure funding law in place.

“It’s going to have to be a collaboration not just with transportation, but with housing and economic development,” she said. “If we don’t start building in housing concerns into a lot of these transit projects, which I think this discussion around regional rail has, it’s going to be very, very hard to be competitive in getting these funds.”

Housing and transportation go hand in hand for most workers. Tibbits-Nutt said it remains “significantly cheaper to drive” to a Boston-area office than to take the commuter rail from one of its more distant stations, where monthly passes can cost hundreds of dollars.

And Sheehan said a lack of affordable housing is “top of mind” for MGB as well.

“The reason people have long commutes is they’ve had to push way out. They can’t afford to live near where they work, so they’re not going to want to come into the office, and then for those who have to – our essential workers – it’s a very inequitable system,” she said.

“People are going to live and work everywhere,” Sheehan added. “They’re going to have really flexible work models. They’re going to come in half days, they’re going to come in one day and next week it’s four days, and I think that’s hard for the T and the state to respond to.”