Last week’s disheartening string of breakdowns on the Orange Line offered a rude reminder that, despite lots of hard work over the last five years, we’re still a long way off from a fully functional transit system.
From broken third rails to mechanical failures to more garden-variety delays, commuters were treated to a cavalcade of failure on the first properly wintery week this season.
Adding insult to injury, MBTA inspectors had to pull the line’s two brand-new trains out of service to investigate an alarming noise caused by uneven wear on a key part. For many, those two trains are the only physical sign of progress in a transit agency struggling mightily to overcome decades of sub-par management and underinvestment, making the appearance of yet another problem – in the fall, a door unexpectedly opened, mid-tunnel – and no clear timeline for a fix sting all the more.
At least Greater Boston has a subway and commuter rail infrastructure that works some of the time. Many other cities in Massachusetts make do with bus systems that offer a transportation option of last resort. Rather than providing legitimate alternatives, competitive with cars and ride-hailing services, to anyone trying to get around a place like Worcester or Springfield, car-focused politicians for years have looked at them more like charity services instead of business development tools, and funded them accordingly.
As legislators to find a path forward to make a generational investment in the state’s public transit services, they and their partners in local government must approach the issue with the kind of grand vision that led to the federal and state highway systems.
When mass transit works, it works very well. Able to carry orders of magnitude more people than private cars, it is literally the only way any dense area can function well without dying of congestion. It can also create immense value in unexpected places, as visionary developments like Assembly Row and Boston Landing have shown despite being located on the MBTA’s most troubled and infrequent mass transit lines, respectively. Northland Investment Corp. recognized this in its plans for its latest project in a congested area of Newton, where it plans to build a bus network for the entire neighborhood, not just its tenants.
Effective mass transit is also the key to combatting climate change. It moves more people more efficiently than electric cars can, all without causing more of the same congestion issues we would still face if a magic wand made electric or driverless cars suddenly cheap enough to become widely adopted. It also enables communities to densify places like village centers, letting more people carry out more of life’s errands on foot or by bicycle instead of in cars.
As legislators to find a path forward to make a generational investment in the state’s public transit services, they and their partners in local government must approach the issue with visions on the same scale as those held by the planners of federal and state highway systems. To do any less will risk leaving Massachusetts shackled by congestion and unable to do our part to fight climate change.
