Commuters Ditched Public Transit for Work From Home. Now There’s a Crisis.

[Koopzilla24]

The extent of congestion pricing I’d propose are exit tolls within city limits for those coming from outside of the city. Any vehicles exiting the highways onto city streets would be subject to high tolls with the exception of the airport and seaport and no commercial vehicle fees at Southampton St because of the industrial area. The seaport because as-is there is a mass of parking there and transit/walking access to all the office jobs from them is so easy that I’d imagine most would just park rather than squeeze across Fort Point. This would discourage driving all the way into downtown via less convenience but provide a way to drive to downtown without paying an extra fee. Serious transit improvements from the south side of the Charles to Cambridge need to be made though because the Allston exit is hell and there’s no alternative to park and take transit up easily.

 

[jklo]

For me: ditto on all of the above, plus: the world-leading life sciences industry that is necessarily in-person (wherein my wife works), the universities and their ecosystems (which maybe you meant within "schools"), the breadth of arts/sciences cultural institutions that are matched/bested in other places with same or greater cost of living, but less so (at least at this breadth) in places of lower cost of living

I think Manhattan is only more expensive now.

re: Congestion pricing, if subrbanites refusing to RTO was enough to wreck ridership to the point where the MBTA is having serious problems... I can't imagine congestion pricing would help.

 

[DominusNovus]

Hard agree. There’s also the equity component to look at with congestion pricing. Because of our aversion to densify around transit and/or in the inner core, so many working class and blue collar folks have been priced out to the outer burbs or the gateway cities of Lynn, Brockton, ect… The biotech CEO who lives on top of Porter won’t be paying the congestion charge, but the guy who makes his coffee at Dunks probably would.

So true. Almost all the c-suite at my wife’s company live around Back Bay, so they think nothing of RTO - for them, its all plus. Now, granted, my wife makes more than the workers at Dunkin, but its still obnoxious.

And I do think that we have a great opportunity to stimulate growth in our other cities.

I’m going out on a limb and guessing that Boston pays more to the state than it takes in (at least before covid). But picture if we could stimulate growth in the other major cities of the state. Lets imagine a major lab complex up in Lowell, a financial district in Brockton, or a massive hospital in Lynn.

Something that could revitalize some of these cities, help justify regional rail, make edge cases for RTO more palatable, and help congestion in Boston. At the same time, if the smaller satellite cities can be more prosperous, Boston would be carrying less of the burden of supporting the state (and again, I’m taking for granted that it does - this part of the argument falls apart if I’m wrong).

Another tangental thought: if the transit system is getting used less, this is the time to go all in on major upgrades or deferred repairs or any of that. It’ll hurt less, relatively speaking.

 

[jklo]

Another tangental thought: if the transit system is getting used less, this is the time to go all in on major upgrades or deferred repairs or any of that. It’ll hurt less, relatively speaking.

I think that was the idea of the Orange Line shutdown.

 

[JeffDowntown]

So true. Almost all the c-suite at my wife’s company live around Back Bay, so they think nothing of RTO - for them, its all plus. Now, granted, my wife makes more than the workers at Dunkin, but its still obnoxious.

And I do think that we have a great opportunity to stimulate growth in our other cities.

I’m going out on a limb and guessing that Boston pays more to the state than it takes in (at least before covid). But picture if we could stimulate growth in the other major cities of the state. Lets imagine a major lab complex up in Lowell, a financial district in Brockton, or a massive hospital in Lynn.

Something that could revitalize some of these cities, help justify regional rail, make edge cases for RTO more palatable, and help congestion in Boston. At the same time, if the smaller satellite cities can be more prosperous, Boston would be carrying less of the burden of supporting the state (and again, I’m taking for granted that it does - this part of the argument falls apart if I’m wrong).

Another tangental thought: if the transit system is getting used less, this is the time to go all in on major upgrades or deferred repairs or any of that. It’ll hurt less, relatively speaking.

Technology clusters exist for a reason.

The MIT Professor that also serves as CSO for a couple biotech startups will not commute to Lowell for their lab complex. There are real physical proximity issues at work that create clusters. (Same with Longwood and the hospitals the Docs need to service, not in Lynn).

Build out the labs in remote locations, and you get mediocre labs.

 

[RandomWalk]

The MIT professor, however, is perfectly happy to live in Happy Valley and commute in for meetings.

 

[DominusNovus]

Technology clusters exist for a reason.

The MIT Professor that also serves as CSO for a couple biotech startups will not commute to Lowell for their lab complex. There are real physical proximity issues at work that create clusters. (Same with Longwood and the hospitals the Docs need to service, not in Lynn).

Build out the labs in remote locations, and you get mediocre labs.

Perhaps. But maybe there just needs to be a kickstart of something new in these outlying cities.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Perhaps. But maybe there just needs to be a kickstart of something new in these outlying cities.

Pick industries that are high tech, but also dependent on space for development and manufacturing. And less dependent on current, hands-on tech transfer from universities. Clean energy is a good example, Wind turbine development needs a lot of space, for example.

 

[HenryAlan]

Pick industries that are high tech, but also dependent on space for development and manufacturing. And less dependent on current, hands-on tech transfer from universities. Clean energy is a good example, Wind turbine development needs a lot of space, for example.

EG, the Moderna model -- innovation in Cambridge, manufacturing in Norwood.

 

[DominusNovus]

Pick industries that are high tech, but also dependent on space for development and manufacturing. And less dependent on current, hands-on tech transfer from universities. Clean energy is a good example, Wind turbine development needs a lot of space, for example.

Graphene production sounds good to me. Maybe nuclear-related tech, too. SMR’s could use some large factories.

 

[Stlin]

Graphene production sounds good to me. Maybe nuclear-related tech, too. SMR’s could use some large factories.

Such as Commonwealth Fusion: R&D engineering center in Somerville, everything else in Devens.

 

[DominusNovus]

Such as Commonwealth Fusion: R&D engineering center in Somerville, everything else in Devens.

Yup, exactly what I was thinking about. I just picked SMR’s because they seem like an easier tech to reach.

Its too bad there’s no MA cities of appreciable size on the Northeast Corridor until Boston itself. My idea of relocating some finance companies to Brockton would work so much better if Brockton could be a one seat ride to NYC.

I guess when the in-land route gets restored, you could have Framingham or Worcester for that role.

 

[bigpicture7]

Yup, exactly what I was thinking about. I just picked SMR’s because they seem like an easier tech to reach.

Its too bad there’s no MA cities of appreciable size on the Northeast Corridor until Boston itself. My idea of relocating some finance companies to Brockton would work so much better if Brockton could be a one seat ride to NYC.

I guess when the in-land route gets restored, you could have Framingham or Worcester for that role.

Another very recent example just popped up at Devens:

EV Battery Supplier In Talks For Full-Building Lease At Devens Manufacturing Campus

Ascend Elements is negotiating a lease for 101K SF at the Pathways campus, developer King Street Properties revealed in a letter to the planning board.

www.bisnow.com

 

[Koopzilla24]

Yup, exactly what I was thinking about. I just picked SMR’s because they seem like an easier tech to reach.

Its too bad there’s no MA cities of appreciable size on the Northeast Corridor until Boston itself. My idea of relocating some finance companies to Brockton would work so much better if Brockton could be a one seat ride to NYC.

I guess when the in-land route gets restored, you could have Framingham or Worcester for that role.

Springfield is the perfect destination for finance companies that want cheap real estate and is the city in the state in the most desperate need for more jobs and investment. There’s already the busiest CSX operations in the state there along with Westover AFB and an industrial area centered around factory manufacturing. The close relation with Hartford’s existing Fortune 500 company base is another plus.

 

[DominusNovus]

Springfield is the perfect destination for finance companies that want cheap real estate and is the city in the state in the most desperate need for more jobs and investment. There’s already the busiest CSX operations in the state there along with Westover AFB and an industrial area centered around factory manufacturing. The close relation with Hartford’s existing Fortune 500 company base is another plus.

As someone born and raised out there, I agree wholeheartedly.

On the other hand… getting, say, a State Street to relocate from Boston to a city inside 495 seems to be a much easier lift than to Springfield.

 

[jklo]

Springfield is the perfect destination for finance companies that want cheap real estate

Except they wouldn't want to go there. They'd want to go to maybe NH, but only because of the No Income Tax. But mainly some other state with low min wage.

 

[Koopzilla24]

Except they wouldn't want to go there. They'd want to go to maybe NH, but only because of the No Income Tax. But mainly some other state with low min wage.

I meant the perfect place in MA but Manch and Nashua could use the jobs and investment as well. There’s far less of an employable population and education base there though compared to Springfield. If the Lowell Line were extended to Nashua or Manch that’d be very attractive for those companies.

 

[jklo]

If the Lowell Line were extended to Nashua or Manch that’d be very attractive for those companies.

Don't think it would move the needle much since I figure people would just drive since it's a reverse commute.

There are also a few defense contractors in the NH border towns too. But the appeal is only going to go so far since you have to hire older people and not Cheap New Grads that most companies like. Logistically Boston just works much better for them.

 

[Delvin4519]

Came across a new post on american transit recently. The publish date is July 25th 2023, and I haven't seen it yet. Thought that I should post it here.

Here's why public transit keeps running out of money

Public transit in the U.S. is far from profitable

www.cnbc.com

Some key points in the article:

• Public transit is a vital force for the American economy.
• The state of public transit in the U.S. is declining rapidly as systems across the nation face a fiscal crisis.
• Ridership has continuously declined since 2015 and after seeing a steep drop during the pandemic, ridership has failed to recover to its previous levels.

But the state of public transit in the U.S. is declining rapidly as transit across the nation faces a fiscal crisis. Philadelphia’s SEPTA predicts a deficit of almost $269 million by 2027. Chicago’s RTA predicts a budget gap of $730 million by 2026, while the budget gap of the Los Angeles system, LA Metro, is expected to reach $1 billion by the end of 2026.

“The federal money that goes to transit services is largely limited to the capital costs,” said Peter Norton, an assistant professor of history at the University of Virginia. “That means building the infrastructure or buying the vehicles."

The article refers to all of the big American cities with (good by American, god awful bad by western Europe/far east) transit levels of service and frequency, all reaching fiscal cliffs after commuters abandoned public transit and transit agencies slashed service during COVID that never returned. For comparison, European transit agencies restored nearly all service during Summer 2020 and encouraged domestic travel during that time.

 

[C-Town_Jeff]

For the 93 bus there used to be 18 min headways. Now IF they followed the schedule there would be 60+ min headways. The big IF there is that they don't have enough drivers so if they planned on having 3 drivers but only 2 show up the first 2 runs on the line in the morning run then the 3 run just doesn't. So now there is frequently a 2 hour gap in service. Ridership is down on the 93 bus at least in part because it is no longer a reliable method of getting to work.

Another issue is that to commute from downtown to Community College I always make sure I get on at State Street station because it's free because of the blue line. Not only is that taking another paying rider off the 93 but also isn't even tracked as a rider of the orange line.