The dream of a frequent, electrified suburban rail in Greater Boston has, for several years, seemed like it’s perennially about to come into view on the horizon. Could this time be different?

Indications are, yes. And it’s something multifamily developers should keep an eye on.

Speaking with Banker & Tradesman at a publicity event for the interim Lynn commuter rail station last month, Transportation Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt confirmed that the Healey administration plans to use the next contract to operate the MBTA’s commuter rail system in 2026 as the vehicle to make this massive upgrade. The team that will write the request for proposals that will shape that contract is being assembled, she said, and will aim to complete its work in the next 18 months or so.

But while the administration has committed to electrifying some or all of the commuter rail network, much still has to be worked out as part of developing the RFP. Even the most basic question is unresolved: Will the state opt for tried-and-true overhead wire technology, or new-fangled battery-powered trains that are untested but whose backers claim will obviate potentially fraught efforts to string wires through NIMBY suburbs? Or a mix of the two?

Transit observers say the transformation of the commuter rail will likely be slow-moving and complex. More electrical substations, workshops and train storage facilities will need to be built. Stations across the system will need to be rebuilt for handicapped accessibility. And we’ll have to figure out how we can pay for it all when the T’s subway and bus system alone is facing nine-figure deficits in the next few years.

Those money discussions will have to include tough fights about lowering commuter rail fares if we want all this expenditure to translate into actual impact on traffic and carbon emissions. In a recent interview, Tibbits-Nutt herself admitted she drives an hour and a half to work instead of taking the train because she can’t afford to spend nearly $400 a month on train tickets.

Given all these tough challenges ahead, why should multifamily developers pay any mind at all to the idea of commuter rail electrification when we have a state political culture notorious for kicking cans down the road?

The biggest reason: Around half of the MBTA’s existing diesel commuter rail locomotives will be worn out by 2030. Given locomotives’ long lives – some of the T’s were built in 1973 – this creates a shot clock.

But most of all, developers should keep an eye on this process because of its potential to make development in the inner suburbs much cheaper and thus more viable, many developers active in the area told Banker & Tradesman. Each parking space in a first- or second-floor podium costs $40,000, and each space in a basement garage costs $80,000, according to data from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. Fast, electric commuter rail trains serving a development every 10 to 15 minutes, those developers say, are a powerful argument to cut down or even eliminate many suburbs’ requirements of one or two parking spots per unit.

And that’s the kind of savings anyone can get on board with.

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