F-Line, thanks for linking to my post. Denver FasTracks is very instructive but it's important we put it in the right context. Firstly, everyone should keep this in mind:
Other cities would kill to be in a position to have extensions like GLX; even at the inflated cost.
Listen, I'm in no mood to overpay for projects so I want the powers at be to push the contractors back down to the max. However, as you watch all these Western cities build transit lines none of them are in a position to build any one transit line that delivers as much mobility as GLX does; especially for $1bn in state money (because another $1bn is coming from the Fed). Even on the high end of another $2bn in state money (assuming there are no savings from contractor scam inflated amount) GLX still looks like a bargain for the Western States who have trouble coming up with projects that can move this many people without going deep into the multiple billions range. None of the Denver lines come close to GLX. A lot of LA’s lines don’t either. GLX might be a short extension but it is a home-run in terms of mobility enhancement. That is the Boston advantage (mostly because of different land use patterns) and that’s why if the Denver FasTracks people were here they would be doing cartwheels with joy in how much they could do for the same dollar amount they are spending in Denver (even accounting for Boston’s increased construction cost).
That's the irony in all of this. The Western cities see the cost/benefit ledger and are making the choice to tax themselves and build transit because they know:
-Congestion costs money and so do new highway lane miles. Something needs to be done and you might as well get the most bang for your buck; and
-Foregone economic development and competitiveness is a
real cost. It isn't a nice to have.
In Boston we are just too quick to forget that. The reason I think is because- and I go over this in my post F-Line links to- is that we do all our projects in one-offs. That means that any one project becomes a “well how come we are spending so much to bring the green line to Medford, or the Blue line to Lynn, etc.” What we would benefit from is a region-wide vision for transit that everyone could get behind. Then we would be able to put these numbers in a better context rather than jumping down each other’s throat about the merits of building a proper station vs. asphalt slabs.
The same spirit that is leading voters across car-centric- sometimes Republican voter dominated- cities in the American West to vote to tax themselves to build transit lines has not passed Boston. However, the difference is that true visions are being proposed that benefit a broad swath of the region; not one offs like GLX. We have the same capacity here; we just lack the visionary region-wide transit proposal that people will rally around.
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Thought Experiment:
In my long post that F-Line linked to I outlined my concept of a regional visionary transit proposal. It was basically North South Rail Link regional rail plus some rapid transit expansions that become extremely acute in light of north south rail link. Moreover, I proposed a carbon tax to pay for it with half of the proceeds of the carbon tax refunded back to taxpayers.
I thought that the carbon tax was a nice way to fund transit because it has the duel benefit of reducing carbon emissions along with increasing transit use. Also, taxpayers statewide would be entitled to a refund so the “spoils” of the new tax wouldn’t just hogged by Boston. However, I admit it there are a lot of moving parts to it; at least as compared to other tax levies.
So let’s look at something much more straightforward. What about a 1 penny sales tax statewide that sunsets in 30 years to strictly pay for transportation? As of now about 1 cent of the sales tax currently goes straight to the MBTA. In Fiscal Year 2015 that amounted to $810,637,174 (source see page 31:
http://www.mbta.com/uploadedfiles/A...OfficialStatement2014SeriesASalesTaxBonds.pdf).
Let’s imagine you say that 75% of this new penny sales tax will be used to pay for the new T regional transit vision that I outlined- Boston FasTracks- which cost by my high estimate $23.5bn.
The other 25% of this penny sales tax would be put toward road and rail improvements all outside the MBTA district (i.e. it would all be spent in areas that weren’t touched by the other 75%).
Assuming a 2% per annum growth rate of the sales tax receipts (that’s not an aggressive estimate) over the life of the tax that is $24.6 bn in monies for Boston FasTracks and $8.2bn in monies for everywhere else in the Commonwealth for road/transit/rail projects as is deemed fit by the people in those areas.
Those are transformational amounts of money in addition to all current spending. You could easily bang out most of the no-nonsense T expansions that have been contemplated for decades and bring most of the rest of the state into SGR on the other transport assets like roads, highways and bridges.
What’s more, not only do you have the vast majority of the voting population affected by the Boston/MBTA area major transit expansion -because the project scope is where most of the people are- but citizens everywhere else gets to participate too by virtue of 25% of the tax being obligated for other areas. This all sounds eminently achievable in Massachusetts politics and frankly it’s this sort of region wide buy in and broad based tax structure that is working in Western cities- even ones that have a lot of Republican voters who are less likely to vote for new tax levies.
Now with that in mind do you really think that a well-organized ballot initiative here in solidly blue Massachusetts couldn’t get this done? A penny over 30 years to solve a problem that is well recognized across the state and across party lines? I think a penny for Mass Road and Rail would have a very good shot at getting approved if rolled out right.
I hope that puts things more in context. Boston could be like Denver and LA with a few minor changes in how we think about and approach things on transit. In the meantime the fights we are having on GLX are a textbook example of how the old methodology has probably got us as far as it is going to. We either change our approach or get used to old trains and clogged streets.
