Transportation specialists on a panel discussion on “How Innovation in Transportation Is Disrupting Real Estate Development, Planning and Design” were generally in favor of more BRT, or bus rapid transit, and were not so enthused over the idea of a gondola to get people from South Station to the eastern edge of the Seaport District.
On a panel at a well-attended CREW Boston March lunch at the Hyatt Regency Boston Hotel, moderated by CREWBoston President Lisa Serafin, Principal at the real estate firm Redgate, the three panelists agreed that the economic health of the region depends on continue investment in transportation and that some commitments need to be made in the near future.
“We are really at a turning point,” said Julia Wallerce, Boston Program Manager for the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. “Where our economy is today is directly related to the investment we’ve made.”
“A number of cities are facing this problem,” said Amy Korte, Principal at Arrowstreet, a Boston architecture and design firm. “Boston is doing really well. We have a great infrastructure. We just need to continue.”
“There’s no more room for roads,” said Keri Pyke, Principal of Planning and Public Involvement at the transportation planning and engineering firm Howard Stein Hudson. “We can’t level Boston and start over.” She and others favor giving buses more right of way in the crowded traffic environment.
“Maybe it makes sense to take one lane and dedicate it to BRT,” Pyke said, because more people would benefit.
“We can’t build our way out of congestion,” said Wallerce, who added that widening roads only eases congestion for a brief period, until more commuter realize they can get back in their cars. All said that steps that benefit more people, like those on buses rather than in cars, make sense.
Studies don’t all agree, Korte said, but some have shown that new ways of commuting, including transportation network companies like Uber and Lyft, are causing declines in the use of public transportation. She said one showed that bus use was down 6 percent and light rail down 3 percent as a result of the relatively new availability of TNCs.
Companies like Uber and Lyft “have the potential to help solve the transportation problem or exacerbate it,” said Wallerce. If commuters use car services instead of public transportation, it will only further crowd the roads. But car services help solve the “first mile” and “last mile” challenges that people have getting to and from transit stations that are too far to walk to.
Pyke said that Boston has already seen that car services like Uber and Lyft have reduced the need for valet spaces at restaurants. But those services are not paying enough for the increased congestion they cause, Korte said.
Pyke called for transportation “equity – that’s where walking and biking come in.” But she admitted, “Biking around Boston scares me to death” at this point.
Wallerce in particular is a fan of bus rapid transit, systems where buses have lanes of their own. “The Silver Line is not BRT – it is misnamed,” she said. But with the wide corridors on surface streets in the Seaport, “We could run a gold-standard BRT corridor. It can be even better than rail.” She said Albuquerque, NM, has beat Boston in recognizing the value of BRT.
None of the panelists was favorable to the recent plan by a developer to build and fund a gondola system to transport people from South Station along Summer Street to the eastern parts of the Seaport. “The gondola opens up this conversation,” said Wallerce, but Boston needs to be “using the road space we have or equitably and efficiently.”
Conditions in Mexico City, where a gondola operates, “do not match the conditions in the Seaport…. It would be a poor use of $100 million,” she said. Wallerce noted that Everett has dedicated bus lanes and “Drivers love it.” Arlington is testing them, she said.
“BRT is very inexpensive and yields enormous benefits,” said Pyke. “We already have the roads.”
The panelists recommended further reading including “The Transportation Dividend: Transit Investments and the Massachusetts Economy,” a February 2018 report issued by the downtown business group A Better City.”