Meeting Greater Boston's Transit & Land Use Challenges

May 20, 2006

Also check out: "ULI Report Calls MBTA Anchor to Region's Growth, But Transit Agency Needs Financial Relief," by Joe Christo, Center for Urban and Regional Policy, Northeastern University. Click here for the article.

May 19, 2006

Stephanie Pollack was the featured speaker Friday May 19, 8:00am at MoveMass.
Click here for more information.

Click here for a printable version of the powerpoint presentation in PDF format (1 MB).
Click here for the Powerpoint version of her presentation (3 MB).

May 18, 2006

Click here for the May 18 Globe article, "Real estate group urges state to assume T's debt".

May 17, 2006

The Urban Land Institute today discussed, "On The Right Track: Meeting Greater Boston's Transit & Land Use Challenges." There were three parts to the 2-our workshop detailed below. The key take-away messages from this event: (a) Funding for transit must be looked at as an economic investment for the region. The funding system for the MBTA is currently broken, and simply not investing in expansion is just not an option. The state must take responsible for a significant portion of MBTA's current debt, and confront this crisis head on. (b) Solving the housing crisis must involved rethinking density and transit oriented development. (c) Equity and social justice must be a foundational element of any transit and land use strategy. Projections into the future clearly indicate that in the future, there will be more types of people of the demographic that need and want transit.

Part 1: Report and recommendations

Stephanie Pollack
Senior Research Associate, Center for Urban and Regional Policy, Northeastern University

Click here for a PDF of the report (50 pages, 3 MB)

Click here for a WMA audio file of her presentation (17 MB)

Click here for a printable version of the powerpoint presentation in PDF format.
Click here for the Powerpoint version of her presentation (2 MB).

See below for additional summary.

Part 2: Regional Context and National Perspective

Robert Dunphy
Senior Resident Fellow - Transportation and Infrastructure, Urban Land Institute

Part 3: Moderated panel and audience questions

Panel Moderator:
Charles Kendrick (Managing Director, Clarion Ventures, LLC; Trustee, Urban Land Institute)

Panelists:
Douglas Foy (Secretary, Office for Commonwealth Development 2003 - 2006)
Kairos Shen (Director of Planning, Boston Redevelopment Authority)
Gail Latimore (Director, Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation)
Barbara Smith-Bacon (Project Manager/Vice President, Berkeley Investments, Inc.)
David Harris (Executive Director, Fair Housing Center of Greater Boston)

"On The Right Track: Meeting Greater Boston's Transit & Land Use Challenges." Summary of findings:

Recommendation 1: Everyone with a stake in the future of the MBTA and the communities that it serves must participate in addressing the region's land use and transit challenges.

Recommendation 2: A majority of the housing units that will be built in the greater Boston region during the next decade should be concentrated within reasonable walking distance of existing and planned MBTA rapid transit and commuter rail stations.

Recommendation 3: Metropolitan Boston cities and towns should plan, zone and permit denser transitoriented development around existing and planned MBTA stations.

Recommendation 4: Developers should plan and build more and better transit-oriented development near existing and planned MBTA stations, working in collaboration with the MBTA, cities and towns and community residents and groups.

Recommendation 5: The Commonwealth should relieve the MBTA of the responsibility for paying offbonds that were issued tofund transit projects undertaken before "forward funding" took efect in 2000.

Recommendation 6: The MBTA should adopt a proactive approach to maximizing riders and revenues over the long run by supporting transit-oriented development in areas around its stations andjoint development of its real estate holdings.

Recommendation 7: The lynchpin of the MBTA's revenue growth strategy should be increasing its ridership by setting and tracking both ridership targets and service quality standards.

Recommendation 8: The Secretary of Transportation should coordinate with the MBTA, metropolitan planning organizations and regional planning agencies to reach consensus on a transit investment strategy for the Commonwealth.

Recommendation 9: Transportation planning agencies should establish specific criteria for evaluating and prioritizing potential transportation investments that recognize the importance of land use objectives including housing production and transit-oriented development.

Recommendation 10: The EOT and the MBTA need to collaborate with cities and towns and developers to identify new ways tofinance transit expansion projects.