Red Line Extension to Arlington Heights

CBCArch61 said:
I don't disagree with the flexibility for towns to put a local sales tax on top of the state tax, especially when it is dedicated to improving transit/mobility within their town. I think that would be an amazing way for a town to put dedicated funding into place for things such as local bus, sidewalks, signal improvements, bike lanes (all of these fall under ROW Equity in my mind). Its when we get to the regional/district projects where it gets a bit more murky.

My logistical question would be in regards to RLX would be even if the town(s) raised say 50% of the funds for the project (or more realistically raise the bonds and fund that debt), does that mean they jump the queue on other T projects on the CIP? That kind of extension would have to be managed by the T, would presumably cause disruptions (at some point in the project) to existing service and basically still takes time and money away from the other projects in the queue.

Other than the sales tax or the Fair Share Fund that is being discusses above, are there other tax revenue streams that the state or towns could adjust to help with funding that is a bit less regressive? For example, could the motor vehicle excise tax, meals excise tax or possibly marijuana tax be adjusted with the adjustment being dedicated to transit improvements?
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Logical candidate would seem to be tolls on Route 2, Alewife Brook Parkway and Fresh Pond Parkway.
 
Does Massachusetts allow state agencies to propose ballot initiatives? That was how Sound Transit 3 happened in Seattle; in effect letting the agency pitch its plans along with a funding mechanism directly to voters.

If not, I think we need to create the conditions for that to happen. I don't think a big expansion push is going to come out of the legislature, and citizen-led initiatives don't matter.

All that said, there will need to be a culture-shift within the agency to where it would actually have the will and capacity to craft such an initiative and then follow-through on it. That culture doesn't exist today but I do see glimmers of hope, but with a very long way to go.
 
bigeman312 said:
Thanks! Isn’t the MBTA Big Dig Debt obligation now down to just $90M per year? Trying to learn more about this, and why that’s still considered a major impediment when on paper it appears to have become a much smaller proportion of spending. I understand it’s still not nothing though.
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It wasn't even that much - $90M was the total remaining balance on it. Their annual obligation was ~$12M, and They actually effectively paid it off completely last year, as the T escrowed the remaining balance, falling off their balance sheet. In fact, my recollection is that the State dedicated a portion of the 2025 fair share distribution to to do so, to open up future debt capacity.
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Either way, debt service is still a substantial chunk of the MBTA's total budget - yet less proportionally than in previous years, but only because the operating budget has grown substantially. That said, the agencies total debt has actually stayed pretty well checked - the T had ~$5B in debt in 2007, it has about $5.8B in debt in 2025. In absolute dollar terms, that's pretty well controlled.
 
HenryAlan said:
You should probably have just said that you didn't know, before listing these assumptions as fact.
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You should read the ballot text first before suggesting otherwise.

Tangently related, I do still think a 7/7.5% bin is happening eventually. Suppose the 10% bin was the first step.
 
jklo said:
You should read the ballot text first before suggesting otherwise.
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Your claim didn't regard the ballot text, but what you stated was actually happening. This was thoroughly rebutted by @BosMaineiac and you can't even try instead to make the fungibility argument, since total general fund appropriations for transportation also increased. People on this board prefer to ground our discussions in verifiable facts, not opinonated suggestions. The verifiable fact is that the fair share tax is at least partly responsible for increased financial support for public transit.
 
Stlin said:
It wasn't even that much - $90M was the total remaining balance on it. Their annual obligation was ~$12M, and They actually effectively paid it off completely last year, as the T escrowed the remaining balance, falling off their balance sheet. In fact, my recollection is that the State dedicated a portion of the 2025 fair share distribution to to do so, to open up future debt capacity.
View attachment 75888
Either way, debt service is still a substantial chunk of the MBTA's total budget - yet less proportionally than in previous years, but only because the operating budget has grown substantially. That said, the agencies total debt has actually stayed pretty well checked - the T had ~$5B in debt in 2007, it has about $5.8B in debt in 2025. In absolute dollar terms, that's pretty well controlled.
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Thanks for the data! It's safe to say that the MBTA has now come out the other side of the Big Dig Debt storm, and that it's no longer a major financial constraint. The impediments to rapid transit expansion now lie elsewhere.
 
CBCArch61 said:
I don't disagree with the flexibility for towns to put a local sales tax on top of the state tax, especially when it is dedicated to improving transit/mobility within their town. I think that would be an amazing way for a town to put dedicated funding into place for things such as local bus, sidewalks, signal improvements, bike lanes (all of these fall under ROW Equity in my mind). Its when we get to the regional/district projects where it gets a bit more murky.

My logistical question would be in regards to RLX would be even if the town(s) raised say 50% of the funds for the project (or more realistically raise the bonds and fund that debt), does that mean they jump the queue on other T projects on the CIP? That kind of extension would have to be managed by the T, would presumably cause disruptions (at some point in the project) to existing service and basically still takes time and money away from the other projects in the queue.

Other than the sales tax or the Fair Share Fund that is being discusses above, are there other tax revenue streams that the state or towns could adjust to help with funding that is a bit less regressive? For example, could the motor vehicle excise tax, meals excise tax or possibly marijuana tax be adjusted with the adjustment being dedicated to transit improvements?
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Maybe some value capture from any jump in real estate value that's adjacent/close to the transit expansion?

For the sales tax, I wonder how much money would be raised if the communities served by rapid transit put in some sales tax/meal tax. For reference, Boston collected $37.6 million in FY 2023 from a 0.75% excise tax on meals.


www.boston.gov

FY25 Local Revenue

Local revenue includes revenue from excise taxes, payments-in-lieu-of-taxes, licenses and permits, fees and fines, investment income, intergovernmental revenue, and available funds. The City collected $749.2 million in FY23, a 36.4% increase from FY22. In FY24, $599.1 million is budgeted for...
www.boston.gov www.boston.gov
 
KCasiglio said:
On the local taxes piece, it should not be on Arlington (and/or Lexington) to fund a red line extension alone. The benefits are regional and the costs should be shouldered as such. Cambridge, Boston, Quincy, and Braintree all clearly directly benefit. Every community on the rapid transit system, and then the CR system, benefit. Surrounding suburbs benefit. If the funding isn't statewide it should at least be the MAPC region.
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RandomWalk said:
I wonder if the T could say “Here’s the catchment for project X. Go vote on the local option tax to contribute to the project.”
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In the bill it states that towns and cities are able to group together to create a transit district where a ballot measure can be passed and then a sales tax issued to fund new transit projects within the district. Unfortunately Boston doesnt have any neat municipal borders that encompass all or most of the boston metro area like LA does with Los Angeles county, so they put this text in there so a single metro “catchment area” can be created since yes everybody in the boston metro benefits from new transit projects so everybody should fund them. My point about Arlington was just that individual towns are also allowed to use this on their own if theyd like, which could be used for funding smaller town specific projects too. What the catchment area or transit district would be would have to be determined later, it could be all the towns in the mbta communities act or something else, but the provision is there for this.

Also when cities go to the feds to get things like an FTA capital investment grant for transit extensions, states are required to match 30-50% of the funds with local funding. A sales tax ballot measure ensures long term funding is secured so you can then go to the feds and get the other 50-80% when it is available. This is how measure R and M are used in LA. Then when something like the bipartisan infrastructure law is passed they already have funding secured and are ready to go. Compare that to here where when the infrastructure law was passed we were trying to use federal funding to help pay for the pike throat project, but we didnt have existing funds ready and couldnt find a way to come up with them and now that project is stalled again and who knows when or if its going to be completed.
 
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stick n move said:
. Unfortunately Boston doesnt have any neat municipal borders that encompass all or most of the boston metro area like LA does with Los Angeles county, so they put this text in there so a single metro “catchment area” can be created since yes everybody in the boston metro benefits from new transit projects so everybody should fund them.
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It does though! While a vague entity, MAPC exists!
 
stick n move said:
Unfortunately Boston doesnt have any neat municipal borders that encompass all or most of the boston metro area like LA does with Los Angeles county, so they put this text in there so a single metro “catchment area” can be created since yes everybody in the boston metro benefits from new transit projects so everybody should fund them.
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As @KCasiglio said, this is exactly what MPOs are for.
 
In LA Los Angeles county covers the majority of the metro area and you can pass county wide ballot measures to fund transit extensions. My point was in boston there is no similar border that cover the metro area where you can pass a ballot measure to fund a transit extension so they came up with the transit district concept. You cant pass a ballot measure within an MPO.
 
RandomWalk said:
Given the varying levels of compliance with the MBTA Communities Act, I could see issues with some municipalities (ahem… Marblehead) spiking attempts to fund projects.
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Which is why any such district taxation should be based on RPA/MPO boundary wide ballot measure and not each individual municipality given responsibility. If I understand the proposed legislation correctly Marblehead could refuse to be a part of a collective funding district despite the obvious benefits to the town from, say, BLX to Lynn.

Something more along the lines of this:

Bill S.1828

malegislature.gov malegislature.gov
 
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Any funding legislation should be a simple majority vote of the residents of the district, without any shenanigans that give empty land a vote (e.g. one vote per municipality). Also, there should be no opt-out for municipalities whose residents can only travel through the district (e.g. Nahant, Swampscott, or Marblehead).
 
RandomWalk said:
Swampscott
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Just because you listed them with two that...haven't been...I want to call out Swampscott has been one of the most eager municipalities to work with us (the MPO) on transportation improvements. They were proactive in planning safe routes to school improvements prior to their new elementary school opening, they are one of our big partners in our vision zero work, were a founding member of our active transportation steering committee, and have been beating down my door trying to get technical assistance and funding to join BlueBikes. Maybe the town government is out in front of their residents, but the muni staff has been far ahead of some much more urban munis in the region.
 
BOS2BON said:
Maybe some value capture from any jump in real estate value that's adjacent/close to the transit expansion?

For the sales tax, I wonder how much money would be raised if the communities served by rapid transit put in some sales tax/meal tax. For reference, Boston collected $37.6 million in FY 2023 from a 0.75% excise tax on meals.


www.boston.gov

FY25 Local Revenue

Local revenue includes revenue from excise taxes, payments-in-lieu-of-taxes, licenses and permits, fees and fines, investment income, intergovernmental revenue, and available funds. The City collected $749.2 million in FY23, a 36.4% increase from FY22. In FY24, $599.1 million is budgeted for...
www.boston.gov www.boston.gov
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For value-capture, the obvious choice is Tax-Increment Financing (TIF). The idea is that some investment (like transit) will increase the property values in an area, which will then result in higher property tax collections. So future property tax projections are used to finance transit now, and help pay off debt after the line opens and new development comes in. One of the appealing aspects of this is that there are no new taxes. The property tax rate stays the same and the revenue just comes from new growth. TIFs are somewhat common internationally (especially in East Asia), but it seems like Southern California is also starting to embrace them, under California's EIFD laws.

For this to work here, a few guardrails probably need to be in place. The first is some binding zoning agreement with the MBTA, that either commits to a certain amount of upzoning once new stations open, or just gives the T some zoning/development authority outright. This would prevent a town from getting a transit expansion then backing out of the development needed to fund it. The second is some kind of contingency if the TIF district underperforms. Should the town be forced to foot the bill regardless, or should the state provide a backstop under certain conditions? I'm not sure, but the money has to come from somewhere. Having this planned for upfront should also help with borrowing costs.

In Arlington's case, and RLX TIF would probably be town-wide given how small it is and how central the new stations would be. To make that math easy, we can assume half of the new tax revenue goes to Arlington's, and half goes to RLX financing. The town's actual 2025 tax collections are $151M, up from $99M (~50%) since 2015. If we assume that same growth (big assumption) for 30 years, Arlington goes to a $500M tax base. In this time, they would collect roughly $4.5B over what they would if collections were flat (unrealistic base case, but is often used instead of projected growth with/without project). $2.25 billion might not cover all of RLX (it should, but that's a different problem) but it will cover most of it, and should be more than enough to get the T/state to chip in the rest. There's more complexity than just what I've shared (debt compounding during construction, change in T operating expenses/fare revenue, residential vs. commercial taxes, etc.), but it shows how one of the "worst" widely considered transit expansions could get most of its financing from local sources.

Note: Massachusetts has a state law allowing cities to implement "TIFs", but they are something completely different. Those are just development tax breaks, intended for things like revitalizing Gateway Cities.
 
www.bostonglobe.com

A changed Arlington reconsiders the Red Line - The Boston Globe

The town has changed a lot over the last half-century. So much that many wish the subway could run there after all.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com
In 2024, with strong support from Town Meeting, Arlington’s representatives at the State House passed a law that repealed the ban on T buildings near Arlington Catholic.
They also added a $50,000 earmark to the state’s fiscal 2027 budget to study the feasibility of picking up where their predecessors left off and adding Red Line stops and/or bus rapid transit in the town; they are pushing to create a commission to weigh those possibilities.
In September, they filed a bill that would repeal the 1980 law that ended study of the Arlington extension.
[...]
But now, as then, opinions vary. Not all residents, even its many new and young ones, want Arlington to have a more bustling pace that might come with greater T access.
Jake and Lauren Flaherty, both 31, are among those opposed. The couple moved to Arlington four years ago after stints in Davis and Central squares, and said they were put off by the drug use and disorder they saw near their neighborhoods’ busy T stops.
“There’s a quaintness here. There’s a charm here,” said Jake, who works in Boston. “I don’t know if you lose some of that quaintness and charm if you start bringing in the effects of the Red Line into town.”
“It would be way more convenient, for sure,” said Lauren Flaherty, who now commutes via Alewife, where her husband picks her up by car. “But it would change the town.”
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