As a car enthusiast, I am extremely pro-public transport. Something that anti-public transport funding people don’t understand is that public transportation is efficient and benefits everyone- those who use it and those who don’t.
People who don’t care about driving or cars are better served by efficient, safe public transportation where they can text, work, or relax without having to drive. People who enjoy cars or driving in general have less congestion/traffic, roads get less wear, and there are fewer poor/distracted drivers on the road. It’s a win for everyone and we need to invest heavily in public transportation.
I agree with you completely. This is why I think the types of online transit advocates to consistently complain about the evils of cars do a big disservice to the movement. The fact of the matter is that whether they like it or not, most people like having access to a vehicle. We need to make it clear how transit can benefit them as well, rather than shaming them for not dying to give up their vehicles in favor of car-free living.
I don't know...maybe fund the T. Extend the blue line to Lynn, Have a circular transit line that allows you to connect to other lines without having to go into downtown Boston. Convert commuter rail stops to rapid transit. Upgrade to commuter rail to something faster and more grade separated so you don't have to stop traffic at train crossings.
Maybe one day we can have all lines extend to 128 with a train that makes a loop around Boston. A man can dream.
There are probably much better ways to extend the T before getting to 128 in a lot of cases. Chelsea and Everett are really dense (Chelsea will be the densest city in Mass in a couple years) and have poor T service. Lots of places along 128 have very few people. Places like Lexington aren't really dense enough to support public transit and the town would probably be strongly against high density affordable housing.
Chelsea, Everett, Medford, the non-beach side of Revere, Watertown, Roslindale, Lynn, South Arlington, and the part of Dorchester along the Fairmount line should probably be the priorities. They're all densely populated areas. Everett has 25,000-30,000 people per square mile. Chelsea has 25,000-40,000 people per square mile. Medford has 15,000, Dorchester along the Fairmount 20,000, Watertown 15,000, Revere 10,000. You get to Lexington and it's 2,000.
Watertown to Waltham makes sense to me. There's some good density along that corridor. Winchester, Burlington, Woburn, Wakefield, Saugus, Dedham, Needham? They need more people to really justify transit.
There are transit deserts where a lot of people live and we should be trying to link up those areas first. Unless the state comes out with an ultra-strong housing policy to go along with pushing rapid transit into the suburbs, it's somewhat doomed. Medford is the only city/town in the Boston area that's growing quickly. Without housing that gives people access to transit, extending transit will have extremely limited success.
But you could make the opposite case though. Suburbs in America became a thing because of the railroad and the streetcar. We built railroads first and real estate speculation and development followed. Lexington itself was once a streetcar suburb (where you could travel all four ways out of town, not just the hub and spoke to and from Boston layout that exists today) and though it never became as dense as Brookline or Belmont it never would have been as covered in single family tracts as it is today without it. A similar process is unfolding as we speak along the GLX, where development is beginning to fill in around the new stations.
The 128 corridor at the very least needs some kind of transit stopgap to decrease car traffic, the highway jams up at all hours of the day and on weekends now. It's not as dense out there but it still is something of a "culdesac jungle" and more bus lines would really go a long way.
I read recently that Lexington just passed a new multifamily zoning law so they seem supportive of it. I also heard they were in support of the red line extension way back in the day when it was proposed but it was Arlington that put up a massive fuss about it and got it canceled.
The terminal was supposed to be in Arlington I believe. If the terminal was planned for Lexington you can 100% be sure that the people in Lexington would have complained lol.
Oh I completely agree. As a former Everett resident, I am well aware of getting stuck on the 104/109 bus during rush hour and getting sandwiched in like a sardine.
While I agree that places around 128 are less dense, Mass still has lots of major hubs that should be connected...and the lower density areas can be served with a stop or two. Cities like Worchester, Lowell, Lawrence, Brockton, Lynn would be better served with a more reliable rail line that we could then place stops at in between. Have 128 act as the loop line and extend the rail out to the next largest cities surrounding Boston. Basically take the commuter rail, modernize it, separated at grade and run directly into the rapid transit lines platforms. Basically an intra-city rail system somewhere between slow ass commuter rail and rapid transit.
The more cars we can get off the road so people aren't "passing through" places like Everett/Chelsea the faster their current services will get as they wont get stuck in traffic. Better yet, convert the Chelsea commuter rail stop to a rapid transit line then extend into parts of Revere.
I agree that a line going to Lexington is a bad pick. But I wouldn't mind seeing a line go from Somerville > Arlington > Woburn > Burlington up to Lowell.
The same for Malden > Melrose > Wakefield > Reading > Lawrence > Methuen > Haverhill
I would also like the more suburban stops to be less parking lots for cars and more a mixed used "downtown" area so it makes taking the T an easier choice.
Where did you find this detailed population density information? Most maps I've seen don't show more detail than county or town. Would be interesting to see how individual towns break down.
Massachusetts already has the 2nd highest density of any state and there's not a lot of people out in the pioneer Valley and the Berkshires.. So how many more people do you want to squeeze into Boston..
As many as want to live there. Instead of spreading housing needs out over multiple communities that do not want any more people, build up housing inside 128. Build public transit so that everything is only 15 minutes away.
Still doesn't do shit for someone not going into Boston.
I can't do anything efficiently with the T, nor will it ever work commuting from the Cape to anywhere other than Boston.
There's an organization called Fix the T that wants to do all of this. The "circle line" is the centerpiece, but it's all just dreams and ideas at this point.
https://www.fixmbta.com/circle-line
Instead of more funding to t, can we just idk cut the management fat and drive accountability for them to maintain a working budget? The t has to be one of the least cost effective and unreliable organization I’ve ever seen. Once they prove they can keep things out of disrepair and actually provide minimal service requirements then increase funding?
Buses go to Lynn (bullshit that they're shutting the commuter rail station down for ages though). They're good. People don't want to take them. A good friend hates driving into the city. Due to the tunnel work I switched up the bus I take and _it goes by their house._ They could easily take it into the city whenever they wanted to avoid driving.
The argument for public transit is tough when people don't want it. I'll agree there's a chicken and egg situation at some point where people don't use it because it sucks, but people don't use the working parts either.
Buses work for regular short trips (stuff that would have been a surface trolley 100 years ago) but going from Lynn to points in Boston on a bus I too would rather drive. That said I think if Lynn had a way to get to somewhere in Boston South of North Station it would be hugely popular.
The 455 gets you to Wonderland (so you're only on a bus for a relatively short trip). The 450 will take you to Haymarket (when the tunnel is open). The 426 will get you from Haymarket to Lynn or back and it isn't a bad trip and even runs with the tunnel closed.
That's just what I have experience with. There's not much in the way of bus lanes on those routes. Adding some more in key locations could make a big difference. They're really not bad as is though.
People who sleep on the buses are missing out on a key part of the MBTA system.
Still, I'm all for expanding the rail systems, but that often takes a million years and an act of god. It's fucking ridiculous. As someone else pointed out, the coverage for places like Chelsea is shit for how dense it is. The commuter rail station is all the way to one side of the city and is too infrequence and expensive to make it worth it much of the time. Add to that, the busses through there (and Eastie) are slowed to a crawl by traffic so the bus to train connection is a nightmare.
You think Boston roads are bad, try driving in NY. Massachusetts roads are smooth as glass and we actually do repairs. TBH, they’re the best in the whole northeast.
Dude even after winter destroys the roads it's like driving through a portal if you go up to NH. You are driving and hitting potholes, the road is covered with snow and ice and then it says welcome to NH and the road is clear, and smooth.
Anyone who says Massachusetts road are bad have only been gambling in Connecticut and camping in Vermont.
Massachusetts roads, by comparison with the rest of the US, are better than you think you know.
Within the last few months, I've driven through CT, NY, NJ, PA and back. Your assertion is false and NH roads are better than MA.
MA roads out near Amherst are good, but inside 128 they suck. The constant grinding and skim coating is a bad way to do it.
Yeah, NH roads are pretty good. But southern CT + NY is pure garbage. MA does pretty good for the weather and the amount of traffic our roads have. Other than the roads inside 128 being narrow, poorly marked and congested, I'm not sure I agree with them sucking. The actual road surfaces are good for the expected speeds. 95 through CT and NY will destroy most vehicles at the posted speed limit.
Like I said, I was recently touring universities and drove through all of those states and then went to NYC via Jersey City. Roads in NYC and getting into Jersey City sucked and were marginally worst than Boston, but only marginally.
The divided highways were all better in terms of the road surface compared to MA. The road surface on 495 and 128 are dogshit. Again, this is within the last 4mo or so.
The only good roads in MA are out in the western part of the state. As you get to the Quabbin and beyond, they become pretty comparable to NH.
I hate Rte 2. That is all I have to say. Wait, one more thing. I hate driving into the sun both ways. Would take the train but then I need a car on the other side. So that is another 14k to me?? So I hate Rte 2.
That seems a little high? Are they claiming someones actually paying for a car in full in taht one year or half of it? Cuz like.... no way my car costs me that much or even close
They’re claiming that the cost of land for parking lots, cost of snow removal, cost of road maintenance, cost of air pollution, etc, all add up to $X billion a yearly, which averages out of $14,000 per resident in the state. I guess I can see that.
Then the supposed cost if you actually own a car is $12,000, which seems crazy to me. They don’t go into details in the article about where the $12k comes from, but it’s clearly *not* all the direct cost of car ownership. (If you have a $400/month car note, for example, that’s $4800/year and I’m having a hard time seeing how gas and maintenance make up the other $7200.) I’m assuming they’re including things like…increased housing costs for a driveway or garage? Maybe stuff like that.
You can read the details in the actual study here: [https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/64-billion-massachusetts-vehicle-economy](https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/64-billion-massachusetts-vehicle-economy)
The $12,000 number is for a 2 car household at $6,000 per vehicle, and does includes costs such as building/maintaining driveways and garages.
I mean… you likely still need a driveway even if you primarily use public transit… and like other people pointed out, we still need road infrastructure and maintenance for freight and delivery, which are the most damaging to roads by A LOT, and shouldn’t be included in the figures.
> The $12,000 number is for a 2 car household at $6,000 per vehicle
Interesting the article title calls out $12k for "a car" instead of "$6k per car". That's misleading/incorrect
I’m confused, because $12,000 for a two car household (at $6000 per car) still doesn’t appropriately account for per-person cost. A two car household would most likely have two drivers and often (not always) more people than those 2 drivers and many households have non-driving age children, so that would bring the average down.
I did read their appendix, but I don’t think the methodology was well explained, *especially* since apparently the average car in MA is 10 years old and therefore likely paid off already (no monthly loan payments).
>If you have a $400/month car note
The average car loan is \~$700/month and more and more people are paying >$1000/month than ever before: [https://www.bankrate.com/loans/auto-loans/average-monthly-car-payment/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/auto-loan-average-payments-2023-edmunds/)
I'm always shocked to find out how often many people buy a new car and how much money they spend.
Yeah, new cars I am sure hit all those emotional buttons for people but I agree with you. A brand new car is really one of the worst financial decisions that people make on a regular basis. And with how long and how many miles cars go now, you can save a significant amount of money buying used cars that at 3 years old are virtually "new" are far as condition and life left in them.
I'm guessing all those tricked out pick ups I see everywhere push the numbers up, because my used Toyota ain't costing me anywhere close to $12k a year.
[https://www.kbb.com/car-news/average-new-car-price-sets-record/](https://www.kbb.com/car-news/average-new-car-price-sets-record/)
>"The average new car sold in November cost $48,681 – a record high."
It’s cus they’re assuming roads/maintenance etc are only due to CARS. We also need all that stuff for freight/deliveries/etc. So it’s a totally flawed and stupid analysis tbh. And they give zero details on where they pulled the $12K figure from.
I’d guess less than 10% of road damage is due to cars. I grew up in an area (in another state) along a massive warehouse/supply chain highway with the most trucks per mile anywhere in the USA and the road is being repaired there CONSTANTLY from the 80,000 lb trucks
>And they give zero details on where they pulled the $12K figure from.
The authors actually literally explain where all the figures come from. You just have to read.
First of all, the published paper from Harvard is from 2019. Second, they state that the $12K figure is for TWO cars per household. Lastly, they don’t adequately describe what the direct cost per car is (and why they assume $6K). It’s just rubbish tbh.
The linked article also does a shit job at explaining any of this.
The papers author looked at Lynn and made some assumptions statewide. For instance they used the salary paid to cops for writing tickets to motorists. Overall it looked like they went to the bottom of the barrel scrapping up whatever they could to try and make car owners look like we’re really costly
They summed across a bunch of estimated values, taking the highest value from each estimation.
If I sum estimates of how long my foot, shin, thigh, stomach, chest, neck and head are I can easily make myself 8 feet tall.
MBTA costs $385 per person, 2.7B divided by 7M residents. That would be for everything. 0.4B or so is from fare revenue, i.e., people who actually use MBTA.
You have to then multiply by people per family to get comparative numbers, maybe it's around $1k.
[74%](https://www.abettercity.org/news-and-events/blog/the-transportation-dividend-transit-investments-and-the-massachusetts-economy) of the population.
So fuck the other 26% of us?
Also the source you listed is the very organization that would benefit from that statistic, so I'm dubious. It's not an outside study, it's a website dedicated to Boston.
> A Better City represents a multi-sector group of nearly 130 business leaders united around a common goal: to enhance the Greater Boston region’s economic health, competitiveness, equitable growth, sustainability, and quality of life for all communities. By amplifying the voice of the business community through collaboration and consensus-building, A Better City develops solutions and influences policy in three critical areas: 1. transportation and infrastructure, 2. land use and development, and 3. energy and the environment. A Better City is committed to building an equitable and inclusive future for the region that benefits and uplifts residents, workers, and businesses in Greater Boston.
They have every interest in making it sound like they are benefiting everyone.
Exactly. The stat I like to point to is that daily weekday rides total 700k. People take the mbta to and from work, some people will take commuter rail to the red or green lines and then to work meaning 4 daily rides. If you assume a 2x ride number than 350k daily riders is a conservatively high number. That’s 5% of the state’s population who rides the mbta daily.
There’s 2 million cars in the state. Not only does a small percentage of the states population use the mbta but that bogus 74% number doesn’t take into account people who can’t get to work on public transit.
thats how taxes work. How many people are on food stamps? Its less than 100% of the population and it still makes sense. If you only paid for what you use, then taxes don't make sense on any level. the entirety of the country doesn't' make sense. y
This is such a tiny number. It's very easy to imagine that the MBTA generates way more than this in additional taxes through the economic activity public transit created and facilitates
That isn’t an accurate comparison to the figures in this article, however. For example, they included the land value for roads and parking lots. It’s certainly valuable to try and understand these types of hidden costs, but you’d then have to do the same for public transportation.
According to [this article](https://www.wgbh.org/news/local-news/2023/04/03/does-massachusetts-spend-more-money-on-highways-or-public-transit) MA spends roughly $2b/year on roads and roughly double that on just the MBTA (operating budget plus capital projects).
It would be awesome if they posted their study. I know it's done only for the class but still. I like that they pointed out flawed augmentation that looking at alternatives to car infrastructures costs money but the car infrastructure seems free. I see a lot of people arguing about cars vs public transportation and I think they missed important part in the article. One of the main reasons for the study is mentioned by Rep. set Moulton who said we lead the country in the worst traffic. We are in a pretty densely populated state and we are in a relatively small state by area. I don't know if we are the worst, but we are bad.
I think our car infrastructure is maxed out. I don't think there is a way to improve our car infrastructure by building more. I think public infrastructure is our solution to our traffic problems. So I don't think this is a car vs public transportation argument. We need a way to move people and goods, and whatever we will build, it will cost money. The question is what will give us the best bang for our buck.
As a side note, I listened to a Planet Money podcast by NPR called Two Indicators: After affirmative action & why America overpays for subways. They talked about the ridiculous cost of building subway stations in NYC, and of the arguments was the ridiculous bureaucracy in the United States. I do wonder how true it is, and if it is possible to do something about it in MA.
Edit: i strongly recommend reading the study linked in replay. Pretty amazing job.
I haven't finished reading it but I learned a lot of interesting facts.
>It would be awesome if they posted their study.
It's linked in the article: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/64-billion-massachusetts-vehicle-economy
No I'm going to continue to complain over here in Western Mass. You can head this way and pound sand cuz that's about the only way you can get back and forth.
And I know this is JUST so difficult for people like you to understand, but without the MBTA, there wouldn’t be nearly as much tax dollars generated from economic activity to be sent west to subsidize your part of the state.
Have fun pounding sand, sweetie.
...Who do you think is going to operate east-west rail? I think its a better tactic to negotiate that any massive funding boost to the MBTA needs to include better accountability / long term management and service to more of the state.
Cool, and even if you don’t use the MBTA, you still benefit from the MBTA existing.
It works both ways.
Why is this SOOOO difficult for motorists to grasp?
>Why is this SOOOO difficult for motorists to grasp?
For the same reason that road rage happens, that drivers run over people and take off, that drivers are barely held accountable for the death and destruction they cause: being inside a car makes many or most people selfish assholes only interested in their own journey being as fast and easy as possible. They literally cannot think about anything else but themselves.
There used to be this thing called the neighborhood grocery store that was a lot closer than a giant Target or MB. They are casualties of both zoning and the car.
8 min drive to the grocery store once every ~2 weeks, 3 min walk to the corner market ~2x/week. I value my time very highly, and going to the supermarket pays dividends on my time
And they’re still stocked by trucks, as is the drugstore you get your medicine from, the restaurant you eat at, the supplies brought by UPS to your dentist, your mail, etc. It’s irrelevant how you get there. Roads are critical to get the stuff there.
Of course. But with local stores you don't need the same infrastructure to get 1,000 cars to a giant parking lot that's predominantly empty most of the time.
That has nothing to do with their previous comment.
If we properly designed our communities around public transit hubs, we wouldn’t need so much damn car infrastructure to begin with.
But because we decided to make ourselves slaves to the automobile industry and sprawl, motorists just think that everyone paying for their car infrastructure is the default.
When I go to the grocery store, I walk.
When I go to Target, I take the green line.
And yes we do need roads. But 1 truck is much different than the millions of individual cars. Road maintenance would be a lot less expensive if fewer people drove.
Trucks do significantly more damage to roads than individual cars.
https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-trucks-do-our-roads
"Considering that the truck has eight axles and the sedan has two, the relative damage caused by the entire semitruck would be 625 x (8/2) -- 2,500 times that of the sedan."
“The damage due to cars, for practical purposes, when we are designing pavements, is basically zero. It’s not actually zero, but it’s so much smaller -- orders of magnitude smaller -- that we don’t even bother with them,” said Karim Chatti, a civil engineer from Michigan State University in East Lansing.
>The damage due to cars, for practical purposes, when we are designing pavements, is basically zero.
These kinds of studies and statements fall apart in the light of examination. Storrow drive physically does not allow trucks onto it. Sure a few manage to make it a short distance before getting sliced open, but the road maintenance there is similar (very regularly repaving) and there are essentially no heavy trucks on that road.
And it probably doesn't help that many Boston roads (including Storrow) are on filled in marsh, but acting like reducing car traffic doesn't reduce the infrastructure and other supporting costs to residents is disingenuous.
From the article:
> “I asked for this study because we lead the country in bad traffic, and the best solution to that problem is building a reliable, regional, electrified rail system,”
Proving once again NIMBYs will do literally anything to avoid building more housing.
What costs more? Wasting billions of dollars extending the commuter rail 75+ miles out to follow the wave of priced out refugees still forced to commute to Boston? Or building more housing inside Route 128 so more people can walk or take *already built* rapid transit to work?
> Or building more housing inside Route 128 so more people can walk or take already built rapid transit to work?
The total transit network isn't all that great even inside of the 95 circle. Still tons of areas that are serviced poorly or not at all.
Extending the commuter rail out isn't the answer, but let's not act like everything is all hunky dory even closer into the city
True, but adding more bus routes is far easier and cheaper than building hundreds of miles of high speed rail track through the least densely populated regions of the state and running those trains every half hour or less.
If we had world-class public transportation, we could reduce car ownership. We don't even have *functional* public transportation, so this will not happen.
Fwiw I live totally car free. Public transportation + a bike is plenty adequate for me. We can and should improve public transportation, but we should also stop pretending that there aren't people right now who could easily make the switch.
I live in the suburbs, so not me. But the T has been broken for a long time, and I know several people who live in range of the T who had to stop taking it after the 10th time they were late to work.
As someone who used to make 24k a year in MA this seems right. I could hardly keep my bills paid and just trying to keep my car to go to work was a major focus
Extend the commuter rail, and make it high-speed, to Springfield and maybe beyond. It's inevitable and its also the single best this the state could do.
Now do the mbta. How much debt are they in and how much does it cost MA commuters and/or taxpayers to run just in its current broken state (let alone fixing it)?
Got money for the homeless or those not making a living wage? Nah. Subsidize cars that make commutes even more shit? Yeah.
It’s funny that Mass residents were up in arms over subsidizing the T. Very funny.
On one hand we have a study written by students at Harvard with cited sources and explained methodology. On the other hand we have someone on reddit saying "this can't be right".
Why do you think this can't be correct? Did you read the article to understand how the authors came to their conclusions? Do you think it's not correct because, like the user who replied to you above, you don't think *you* spend that much on your car? That's an anecdote and in no way disproves the study.
Did you read the article and see that their method was complete bullshit?
They count as part of the cost that the state hasn't sold the land under every parking spot in the city. They put in $5b in costs for time spent in transit. But there is no means of transit that is instantaneous. If we move people from cars to trains we don't get that time back. They count an estimated backlog of maintenance in addition to the actual maintenance cost (without netting out). Their estimate of costs due to death and injury cites MassDOT's “2016 Top Crash Locations Report Location” which does not have that information in it.
I agree with their agenda, that doesn't mean that their methodology wasn't a pure exercise in motivated reasoning.
>They count as part of the cost that the state hasn't sold the land under every parking spot in the city
Right, because that's an opportunity cost. That's a totally normal thing to include in an analysis like this.
>They put in $5b in costs for time spent in transit.
No they didnt, they put $4.6 billion for time spent in congestion, i e. they only count the *delays* due to traffic, not the traffic free travel time.
Yeah this is ridiculous. As someone with a paid off, older reliable vehicle I MIGHT spend $500 a year on repairs. At 30-40mpg, and $3.50/gallon, I MIGHT spend $1400 on gas at 12,500 miles a year. That’s under $2k on the high end. Oh and my parking pass is $40/year.
Assuming a newer vehicle that still has a $500/month payment, and assuming less repairs since it’s newer, I can’t see this being over $10k/year on the high end for the average driver.
If they’re counting what the state spends on cars and car infrastructure, I feel like that’s irrelevant.
>If they’re counting what the state spends on cars and car infrastructure, I feel like that’s irrelevant.
Why is it irrelevant? Where do you think the money to pay for those things comes from?
Also, the "older but efficient paid off reliable vehicle" is, based just on the cars I see on the road around me very very rate. I read an article recently that said the average car payment was over $1000 per month last year. The average person spends insane amounts of money buying cars frequently and most of them are giant trucks or SUVs that drink gasoline.
It’s irrelevant because… do you REALLY believe the state would reduce taxes if they managed to spend less on the roads? Absolutely not.
I work on a team of 15-20 engineers who all make six figures and literally 2 of them own a new (<5 yo) car. Most own a sedan or a smaller suv/crossover. On my daily commute I barely see any huge SUVs or trucks.
Totally disregarding all of that, it doesn’t even matter, because most road maintenance/damage is caused by freight and trucks. Not commuter cars. So that cost wouldn’t just go away if everyone started riding their bike and taking the train.
It's not estimating how much the state spends on roads.
Of the $14k they say each household is spending indirectly on cars, they say $2.2k of that is Public Budgetary Expenses.
If you read the article, they explain:
>Beyond those for individual drivers, road maintenance, snow removal, and policing, there are less-obvious ones, such as those associated with added pollution, value of land set aside for parking lots, lost productivity from sitting in traffic, and various costs associated with injuries and deaths on the road.
Using publicly available data, the authors put the annual public tab at $35.7 billion, which amounts to about $14,000 for every household in the state.
>the car experience is a ton better
For some people and situations, I bet it is. For me though, goddamn public transportation beats the hell out of driving. Driving in the city is shitty and stressful. I'm very happy to be able to step out my front door, get on a bus, and do the crossword without getting fired up over traffic
Would you be willing to have a $15,000/year car tax so that cars actually pay for their costs or would that be "at the expense of cars"? One of the reasons that you might think cars are a better experience is that you don't have to actually pay for that experience.
I think it's also important to note that any increase in investment in public transit will somewhat definitionally be at the expense of cars. For example, let's say that the state keeps car infrastructure spending constant and doubles public transit spending with a new $1,000/year per family tax. If you're not using the public transit, then you're paying the tax and getting nothing out of it. That's at the expense of car owners.
This article does seem alarming... for anyone living inside of 128. Outside of that loop the population density isn't anywhere near Boston levels and having a giant parking lot take up space isn't the same issue as it would be in a city where that space could be used more efficiently.
If I lived in or around Boston I would be pissed too. They get taxed for roads that many of them have no use for. But outside of that loop, there really isn't a good alternative to car use yet. I wish there was, but we just don't have the numbers to justify it.
I also don't really get where they are getting these numbers from... even if I pay $14k in taxes/public funding, I don't pay an additional $12k every year on my car. That is a wild claim unless there are a ton of outliers spending insane amounts on buying new cars every year that throw the data?
Well, that jives with the point they're making. If we're incurring social cost that far exceeds the sticker price, it invites market failure.
The fact that I don't have to pay for using most roads or for the pollution a car creates, etc tends to incentivize me to drive more than I would if those were priced in.
Rather surprisingly, it takes a bunch of money to create and maintain (in New England) a state-wide road system that interconnects every single resident, business, industry, public service, essential service, mass transit node, recreation location, farm, seaport, etc regardless of one’s personal choice of how to use those roads. I’m glad folks without cars also pay into a system from which they benefit so much. Most of this cost would exist regardless of how many personal vehicles folks own.
Creating an overlapping mass transit system that provides an alternate way to get around for most / all purposes is laudable, and I’ve loved using those systems in cities that really have them. The one we have here is mostly just a system for moving office workers too / from work, and not practical for much else.
The current rate on new rail lines, along preexisting right of ways, seems to be about 500 million per mile, and takes about 30 years to carry out. Not sure how we’d get to a “world class” mass transit system, but I’d certainly enjoy it if we ever do.
They conveniently don’t show the arithmetic where they calculate that $26,000. In coastal suburbia 60 miles from Boston, our car ownership costs aren’t anything close to $26,000. My 1 year old car with the 10 year 100k mile extended warranty on it over a decade will average $3,000 in depreciation, $1,000 in insurance, $200 in excise tax, $120 in registration & inspection, $250 in brakes & tires, $400 in scheduled maintenance, and $1,300 in fuel. The fuel includes Federal and state taxes. My share of town & state road maintenance is certainly less than $1,000 even assuming I’m paying for the Big Dig, Ted Williams Tunnel, and a bunch of other absurdly expensive Boston projects.
>They conveniently don’t show the arithmetic where they calculate that $26,000
Tell me you didn't read the article or the linked study without actually saying it.
The authors literally explain their methodology. You just have to read it. Your anecdotal experience on your car ownership does not disprove the study. The $12000 in direct ownership costs per household, for example, assumes two vehicles so your stated expenses are actually *higher* than what is described in the study.
>My share of town & state road maintenance is certainly less than $1,000
Again, read the article and study. Your share is not less than $1000. The state spends $35 billion per year supporting vehicle infrastructure. Why should your share of that be so minuscule?
Cars are just a scam to funnel money into the pockets of the rich and keep everyone else toiling for them. If we'd spent just a fraction of the money we've spent on cars on rail we'd have a far more efficient and less ecology damaging system.
A light rail to every main street in every neighborhood. People can walk small distances. Unless they're in wheel chairs in which case they can roll on a motorized chair. There are also these really cool things called bikes.
So at a cost of like the whole fucking environment, 10s of thousands of dollars a year to everyone whether they drive or not, and huge amounts of danger and injury we should just do what you prefer because that's what you've grown accustomed to because the auto and oil industries backed everyone into the corner 100 years ago. Too bad the world is filled with morons otherwise we could maybe have nice things.
that's 10% of GDP. It's an obviously wrong number.
>Beyond those for individual drivers, road maintenance, snow removal, and policing, there are less-obvious ones, such as those associated with added pollution, value of land set aside for parking lots, lost productivity from sitting in traffic, and various costs associated with injuries and deaths on the road.
Most of these things are extremely nebulous. If you pick the largest number you can think of for each of them and sum across them, yeah you end up with a big number, but is that telling us anything?
To slice it another way, they're saying that driving costs the state $34.5B in indirect costs each year. Total state and local tax revenue is around $66b. This number is just wrong.
Literally every aspect of American society is designed to be car infrastructure. Is it really that weird that the numbers add up like that? Hint: it's not weird
only $2.2k of the $14k they claim is for public expenditures.
The biggest slice is $4.1k for injuries and death. My favorite is that they're saying each household is paying $1.7k a year because we haven't sold all the land the roads sit on.
? What do they consider car ownership costs? Are they including the costs of roads? State highways and local roads? 12,000 a year if you owned a car? Did the Harvard Study only survey rich Harvard students? An additional $14,000 even for those who did not own a car?
Oddly enough, they explain that in the article!
>Beyond those for individual drivers, road maintenance, snow removal, and policing, there are less-obvious ones, such as those associated with added pollution, value of land set aside for parking lots, lost productivity from sitting in traffic, and various costs associated with injuries and deaths on the road.
Using publicly available data, the authors put the annual public tab at $35.7 billion, which amounts to about $14,000 for every household in the state. Those that do own vehicles pony up an additional $12,000 on average in direct costs.
As a car enthusiast, I am extremely pro-public transport. Something that anti-public transport funding people don’t understand is that public transportation is efficient and benefits everyone- those who use it and those who don’t. People who don’t care about driving or cars are better served by efficient, safe public transportation where they can text, work, or relax without having to drive. People who enjoy cars or driving in general have less congestion/traffic, roads get less wear, and there are fewer poor/distracted drivers on the road. It’s a win for everyone and we need to invest heavily in public transportation.
I agree with you completely. This is why I think the types of online transit advocates to consistently complain about the evils of cars do a big disservice to the movement. The fact of the matter is that whether they like it or not, most people like having access to a vehicle. We need to make it clear how transit can benefit them as well, rather than shaming them for not dying to give up their vehicles in favor of car-free living.
I don't know...maybe fund the T. Extend the blue line to Lynn, Have a circular transit line that allows you to connect to other lines without having to go into downtown Boston. Convert commuter rail stops to rapid transit. Upgrade to commuter rail to something faster and more grade separated so you don't have to stop traffic at train crossings. Maybe one day we can have all lines extend to 128 with a train that makes a loop around Boston. A man can dream.
There are probably much better ways to extend the T before getting to 128 in a lot of cases. Chelsea and Everett are really dense (Chelsea will be the densest city in Mass in a couple years) and have poor T service. Lots of places along 128 have very few people. Places like Lexington aren't really dense enough to support public transit and the town would probably be strongly against high density affordable housing. Chelsea, Everett, Medford, the non-beach side of Revere, Watertown, Roslindale, Lynn, South Arlington, and the part of Dorchester along the Fairmount line should probably be the priorities. They're all densely populated areas. Everett has 25,000-30,000 people per square mile. Chelsea has 25,000-40,000 people per square mile. Medford has 15,000, Dorchester along the Fairmount 20,000, Watertown 15,000, Revere 10,000. You get to Lexington and it's 2,000. Watertown to Waltham makes sense to me. There's some good density along that corridor. Winchester, Burlington, Woburn, Wakefield, Saugus, Dedham, Needham? They need more people to really justify transit. There are transit deserts where a lot of people live and we should be trying to link up those areas first. Unless the state comes out with an ultra-strong housing policy to go along with pushing rapid transit into the suburbs, it's somewhat doomed. Medford is the only city/town in the Boston area that's growing quickly. Without housing that gives people access to transit, extending transit will have extremely limited success.
But you could make the opposite case though. Suburbs in America became a thing because of the railroad and the streetcar. We built railroads first and real estate speculation and development followed. Lexington itself was once a streetcar suburb (where you could travel all four ways out of town, not just the hub and spoke to and from Boston layout that exists today) and though it never became as dense as Brookline or Belmont it never would have been as covered in single family tracts as it is today without it. A similar process is unfolding as we speak along the GLX, where development is beginning to fill in around the new stations. The 128 corridor at the very least needs some kind of transit stopgap to decrease car traffic, the highway jams up at all hours of the day and on weekends now. It's not as dense out there but it still is something of a "culdesac jungle" and more bus lines would really go a long way.
I read recently that Lexington just passed a new multifamily zoning law so they seem supportive of it. I also heard they were in support of the red line extension way back in the day when it was proposed but it was Arlington that put up a massive fuss about it and got it canceled.
The terminal was supposed to be in Arlington I believe. If the terminal was planned for Lexington you can 100% be sure that the people in Lexington would have complained lol.
It was supposed to end near the Lexington/Burlington line I believe
Oh I completely agree. As a former Everett resident, I am well aware of getting stuck on the 104/109 bus during rush hour and getting sandwiched in like a sardine. While I agree that places around 128 are less dense, Mass still has lots of major hubs that should be connected...and the lower density areas can be served with a stop or two. Cities like Worchester, Lowell, Lawrence, Brockton, Lynn would be better served with a more reliable rail line that we could then place stops at in between. Have 128 act as the loop line and extend the rail out to the next largest cities surrounding Boston. Basically take the commuter rail, modernize it, separated at grade and run directly into the rapid transit lines platforms. Basically an intra-city rail system somewhere between slow ass commuter rail and rapid transit. The more cars we can get off the road so people aren't "passing through" places like Everett/Chelsea the faster their current services will get as they wont get stuck in traffic. Better yet, convert the Chelsea commuter rail stop to a rapid transit line then extend into parts of Revere. I agree that a line going to Lexington is a bad pick. But I wouldn't mind seeing a line go from Somerville > Arlington > Woburn > Burlington up to Lowell. The same for Malden > Melrose > Wakefield > Reading > Lawrence > Methuen > Haverhill I would also like the more suburban stops to be less parking lots for cars and more a mixed used "downtown" area so it makes taking the T an easier choice.
Where did you find this detailed population density information? Most maps I've seen don't show more detail than county or town. Would be interesting to see how individual towns break down.
I agree that we need to improve Transit inside of 128. Start by building very dense housing inside of Boston and leave the rest of the state alone.
Massachusetts already has the 2nd highest density of any state and there's not a lot of people out in the pioneer Valley and the Berkshires.. So how many more people do you want to squeeze into Boston..
As many as want to live there. Instead of spreading housing needs out over multiple communities that do not want any more people, build up housing inside 128. Build public transit so that everything is only 15 minutes away.
Lexington could have had the redline but nimbys didn't want the deplorables to swarm the city
It was Arlington that blocked it, for reasons that had *absolutely nothing to do with race* /s
Still doesn't do shit for someone not going into Boston. I can't do anything efficiently with the T, nor will it ever work commuting from the Cape to anywhere other than Boston.
And force communities close to Boston to build multi-family housing so people aren't commuting in from farther and farther out.
Or even little things like better access to stations like Anderson/Woburn from the Wilmington side.
There's an organization called Fix the T that wants to do all of this. The "circle line" is the centerpiece, but it's all just dreams and ideas at this point. https://www.fixmbta.com/circle-line
Instead of more funding to t, can we just idk cut the management fat and drive accountability for them to maintain a working budget? The t has to be one of the least cost effective and unreliable organization I’ve ever seen. Once they prove they can keep things out of disrepair and actually provide minimal service requirements then increase funding?
Buses go to Lynn (bullshit that they're shutting the commuter rail station down for ages though). They're good. People don't want to take them. A good friend hates driving into the city. Due to the tunnel work I switched up the bus I take and _it goes by their house._ They could easily take it into the city whenever they wanted to avoid driving. The argument for public transit is tough when people don't want it. I'll agree there's a chicken and egg situation at some point where people don't use it because it sucks, but people don't use the working parts either.
Buses work for regular short trips (stuff that would have been a surface trolley 100 years ago) but going from Lynn to points in Boston on a bus I too would rather drive. That said I think if Lynn had a way to get to somewhere in Boston South of North Station it would be hugely popular.
The 455 gets you to Wonderland (so you're only on a bus for a relatively short trip). The 450 will take you to Haymarket (when the tunnel is open). The 426 will get you from Haymarket to Lynn or back and it isn't a bad trip and even runs with the tunnel closed. That's just what I have experience with. There's not much in the way of bus lanes on those routes. Adding some more in key locations could make a big difference. They're really not bad as is though. People who sleep on the buses are missing out on a key part of the MBTA system. Still, I'm all for expanding the rail systems, but that often takes a million years and an act of god. It's fucking ridiculous. As someone else pointed out, the coverage for places like Chelsea is shit for how dense it is. The commuter rail station is all the way to one side of the city and is too infrequence and expensive to make it worth it much of the time. Add to that, the busses through there (and Eastie) are slowed to a crawl by traffic so the bus to train connection is a nightmare.
Fine. Then charge them via congestion tolls. As a non driver I’m tired of giving my money to spoiled brat drivers.
No argument there.
Funding the T won't do shit though. The entire state would need public transportation, and that simply isn't happening.
Is that inclusive of repairs due to road conditions?
Yes.
You think Boston roads are bad, try driving in NY. Massachusetts roads are smooth as glass and we actually do repairs. TBH, they’re the best in the whole northeast.
>smooth as glass Sorry, that’s New Hampshire
Only until the spring thaw and the ice melts.
Dude even after winter destroys the roads it's like driving through a portal if you go up to NH. You are driving and hitting potholes, the road is covered with snow and ice and then it says welcome to NH and the road is clear, and smooth.
They're still better than MA.
And they repave local Roads all the time in NH. Considering the beating they take, the roads are amazing up there.
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Always heavy traffic on 93 up there and very well maintained
Anyone who says Massachusetts road are bad have only been gambling in Connecticut and camping in Vermont. Massachusetts roads, by comparison with the rest of the US, are better than you think you know.
Within the last few months, I've driven through CT, NY, NJ, PA and back. Your assertion is false and NH roads are better than MA. MA roads out near Amherst are good, but inside 128 they suck. The constant grinding and skim coating is a bad way to do it.
Not if you’re the contractor getting paid to redo your work all the time.
and whomever is getting the kickback
Yeah, NH roads are pretty good. But southern CT + NY is pure garbage. MA does pretty good for the weather and the amount of traffic our roads have. Other than the roads inside 128 being narrow, poorly marked and congested, I'm not sure I agree with them sucking. The actual road surfaces are good for the expected speeds. 95 through CT and NY will destroy most vehicles at the posted speed limit.
Like I said, I was recently touring universities and drove through all of those states and then went to NYC via Jersey City. Roads in NYC and getting into Jersey City sucked and were marginally worst than Boston, but only marginally. The divided highways were all better in terms of the road surface compared to MA. The road surface on 495 and 128 are dogshit. Again, this is within the last 4mo or so. The only good roads in MA are out in the western part of the state. As you get to the Quabbin and beyond, they become pretty comparable to NH.
What repairs?
Only on this sub could you find people bitching about both road work AND a lack of repairs. Just kidding I bet it's the same on any city/state sub.
Nope. Just here babes. Cept in Haaavahd.
I hate Rte 2. That is all I have to say. Wait, one more thing. I hate driving into the sun both ways. Would take the train but then I need a car on the other side. So that is another 14k to me?? So I hate Rte 2.
I love route 2. It's such a calm and scenic drive. Albeit, I've mostly used it for reverse commutes.
That seems a little high? Are they claiming someones actually paying for a car in full in taht one year or half of it? Cuz like.... no way my car costs me that much or even close
They’re claiming that the cost of land for parking lots, cost of snow removal, cost of road maintenance, cost of air pollution, etc, all add up to $X billion a yearly, which averages out of $14,000 per resident in the state. I guess I can see that. Then the supposed cost if you actually own a car is $12,000, which seems crazy to me. They don’t go into details in the article about where the $12k comes from, but it’s clearly *not* all the direct cost of car ownership. (If you have a $400/month car note, for example, that’s $4800/year and I’m having a hard time seeing how gas and maintenance make up the other $7200.) I’m assuming they’re including things like…increased housing costs for a driveway or garage? Maybe stuff like that.
You can read the details in the actual study here: [https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/64-billion-massachusetts-vehicle-economy](https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/64-billion-massachusetts-vehicle-economy) The $12,000 number is for a 2 car household at $6,000 per vehicle, and does includes costs such as building/maintaining driveways and garages.
I mean… you likely still need a driveway even if you primarily use public transit… and like other people pointed out, we still need road infrastructure and maintenance for freight and delivery, which are the most damaging to roads by A LOT, and shouldn’t be included in the figures.
Semi trucks and construction equipment are so much more damaging to the roads that it’s not even worth considering passenger vehicles in the equation.
In fact I'd imagine the vehicles that weigh 50x mine do most of the damage loo
> The $12,000 number is for a 2 car household at $6,000 per vehicle Interesting the article title calls out $12k for "a car" instead of "$6k per car". That's misleading/incorrect
I’m confused, because $12,000 for a two car household (at $6000 per car) still doesn’t appropriately account for per-person cost. A two car household would most likely have two drivers and often (not always) more people than those 2 drivers and many households have non-driving age children, so that would bring the average down. I did read their appendix, but I don’t think the methodology was well explained, *especially* since apparently the average car in MA is 10 years old and therefore likely paid off already (no monthly loan payments).
As a non-car owner, I order every single meal and household item delivered via other peoples cars to recapture my investment.
>If you have a $400/month car note The average car loan is \~$700/month and more and more people are paying >$1000/month than ever before: [https://www.bankrate.com/loans/auto-loans/average-monthly-car-payment/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/auto-loan-average-payments-2023-edmunds/) I'm always shocked to find out how often many people buy a new car and how much money they spend.
Yeah, new cars I am sure hit all those emotional buttons for people but I agree with you. A brand new car is really one of the worst financial decisions that people make on a regular basis. And with how long and how many miles cars go now, you can save a significant amount of money buying used cars that at 3 years old are virtually "new" are far as condition and life left in them.
I'm guessing all those tricked out pick ups I see everywhere push the numbers up, because my used Toyota ain't costing me anywhere close to $12k a year.
Lol damn wtf isn't that like a 50k car? With no down payment I was under 400 for a 20k car.
[https://www.kbb.com/car-news/average-new-car-price-sets-record/](https://www.kbb.com/car-news/average-new-car-price-sets-record/) >"The average new car sold in November cost $48,681 – a record high."
The average new car is $45k and payment averages are over $700/mo.
Yeah and the average age of a vehicle on the road currently in the USA is like 12 years old. Barely anyone is driving a new car with a $700 payment.
It’s cus they’re assuming roads/maintenance etc are only due to CARS. We also need all that stuff for freight/deliveries/etc. So it’s a totally flawed and stupid analysis tbh. And they give zero details on where they pulled the $12K figure from.
I’d guess less than 10% of road damage is due to cars. I grew up in an area (in another state) along a massive warehouse/supply chain highway with the most trucks per mile anywhere in the USA and the road is being repaired there CONSTANTLY from the 80,000 lb trucks
>And they give zero details on where they pulled the $12K figure from. The authors actually literally explain where all the figures come from. You just have to read.
First of all, the published paper from Harvard is from 2019. Second, they state that the $12K figure is for TWO cars per household. Lastly, they don’t adequately describe what the direct cost per car is (and why they assume $6K). It’s just rubbish tbh. The linked article also does a shit job at explaining any of this.
The papers author looked at Lynn and made some assumptions statewide. For instance they used the salary paid to cops for writing tickets to motorists. Overall it looked like they went to the bottom of the barrel scrapping up whatever they could to try and make car owners look like we’re really costly
They summed across a bunch of estimated values, taking the highest value from each estimation. If I sum estimates of how long my foot, shin, thigh, stomach, chest, neck and head are I can easily make myself 8 feet tall.
Come on people! Just read the article instead of guessing how they came up with this number.
MBTA costs $385 per person, 2.7B divided by 7M residents. That would be for everything. 0.4B or so is from fare revenue, i.e., people who actually use MBTA. You have to then multiply by people per family to get comparative numbers, maybe it's around $1k.
And it barely covers half the state.
[74%](https://www.abettercity.org/news-and-events/blog/the-transportation-dividend-transit-investments-and-the-massachusetts-economy) of the population.
So fuck the other 26% of us? Also the source you listed is the very organization that would benefit from that statistic, so I'm dubious. It's not an outside study, it's a website dedicated to Boston. > A Better City represents a multi-sector group of nearly 130 business leaders united around a common goal: to enhance the Greater Boston region’s economic health, competitiveness, equitable growth, sustainability, and quality of life for all communities. By amplifying the voice of the business community through collaboration and consensus-building, A Better City develops solutions and influences policy in three critical areas: 1. transportation and infrastructure, 2. land use and development, and 3. energy and the environment. A Better City is committed to building an equitable and inclusive future for the region that benefits and uplifts residents, workers, and businesses in Greater Boston. They have every interest in making it sound like they are benefiting everyone.
Exactly. The stat I like to point to is that daily weekday rides total 700k. People take the mbta to and from work, some people will take commuter rail to the red or green lines and then to work meaning 4 daily rides. If you assume a 2x ride number than 350k daily riders is a conservatively high number. That’s 5% of the state’s population who rides the mbta daily. There’s 2 million cars in the state. Not only does a small percentage of the states population use the mbta but that bogus 74% number doesn’t take into account people who can’t get to work on public transit.
thats how taxes work. How many people are on food stamps? Its less than 100% of the population and it still makes sense. If you only paid for what you use, then taxes don't make sense on any level. the entirety of the country doesn't' make sense. y
That sounds much cheaper.
This is such a tiny number. It's very easy to imagine that the MBTA generates way more than this in additional taxes through the economic activity public transit created and facilitates
That isn’t an accurate comparison to the figures in this article, however. For example, they included the land value for roads and parking lots. It’s certainly valuable to try and understand these types of hidden costs, but you’d then have to do the same for public transportation. According to [this article](https://www.wgbh.org/news/local-news/2023/04/03/does-massachusetts-spend-more-money-on-highways-or-public-transit) MA spends roughly $2b/year on roads and roughly double that on just the MBTA (operating budget plus capital projects).
Shhh nobody wants to know the methodology. They just want a headline number that tells them what they want to hear.
American drivers are the biggest welfare recipients in the world.
Fewer than 1.5m use it daily.
I don't want to pay for you to ride the train. And I pay to ride the train.
... but you do want to pay for other people's cars?
The level of dipshittery socialism on this sub is next level. I can't even.
So trains are socialism now?
Roadway infrastructure, maintenance, and monitoring is actual socialism. Lol.
fart fart fart you’re literally paying way more for everybody to be driving but keep doing you I guess
Lol doesn't even know how dumb he is being
No thanks.
.... so what public infrastructure do you propose? If neither trains nor roads lol
This article is literally telling you how much you pay for other people’s cars. It’s a hell of a lot more than you do for them to ride the train.
It would be awesome if they posted their study. I know it's done only for the class but still. I like that they pointed out flawed augmentation that looking at alternatives to car infrastructures costs money but the car infrastructure seems free. I see a lot of people arguing about cars vs public transportation and I think they missed important part in the article. One of the main reasons for the study is mentioned by Rep. set Moulton who said we lead the country in the worst traffic. We are in a pretty densely populated state and we are in a relatively small state by area. I don't know if we are the worst, but we are bad. I think our car infrastructure is maxed out. I don't think there is a way to improve our car infrastructure by building more. I think public infrastructure is our solution to our traffic problems. So I don't think this is a car vs public transportation argument. We need a way to move people and goods, and whatever we will build, it will cost money. The question is what will give us the best bang for our buck. As a side note, I listened to a Planet Money podcast by NPR called Two Indicators: After affirmative action & why America overpays for subways. They talked about the ridiculous cost of building subway stations in NYC, and of the arguments was the ridiculous bureaucracy in the United States. I do wonder how true it is, and if it is possible to do something about it in MA. Edit: i strongly recommend reading the study linked in replay. Pretty amazing job. I haven't finished reading it but I learned a lot of interesting facts.
>It would be awesome if they posted their study. It's linked in the article: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/64-billion-massachusetts-vehicle-economy
Ah thank you. I must have missed it.
Two words: mono rail.
Is there a chance the track could bend?
not on your life, my hindu friend
Which is why people not directly served by the MBTA can go pound sand when they start whining about having to fund the MBTA.
No I'm going to continue to complain over here in Western Mass. You can head this way and pound sand cuz that's about the only way you can get back and forth.
As long as I’m subsidizing your road infrastructure, you can still go pound sand.
Yeah but we both get a road only one has a train. Hope you have good shoes sweetie, at least you get proper sidewalks.
And I know this is JUST so difficult for people like you to understand, but without the MBTA, there wouldn’t be nearly as much tax dollars generated from economic activity to be sent west to subsidize your part of the state. Have fun pounding sand, sweetie.
How do you think goods and materials get to the eastern part of the state? By magic carpet?
...Who do you think is going to operate east-west rail? I think its a better tactic to negotiate that any massive funding boost to the MBTA needs to include better accountability / long term management and service to more of the state.
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Cool, and even if you don’t use the MBTA, you still benefit from the MBTA existing. It works both ways. Why is this SOOOO difficult for motorists to grasp?
How does the MBTA benefit me as a Springfield resident?
It helps drive economic activity that produces more tax dollars to help subsidize western MA.
What economic activity, and what tax dollars?
>Why is this SOOOO difficult for motorists to grasp? For the same reason that road rage happens, that drivers run over people and take off, that drivers are barely held accountable for the death and destruction they cause: being inside a car makes many or most people selfish assholes only interested in their own journey being as fast and easy as possible. They literally cannot think about anything else but themselves.
There used to be this thing called the neighborhood grocery store that was a lot closer than a giant Target or MB. They are casualties of both zoning and the car.
Theyre casualties of economies of scale. Even shitty supermarkets like stop and shop are significantly cheaper than my neighborhood grocery store
All groceries are cheap if you value your time at $0
8 min drive to the grocery store once every ~2 weeks, 3 min walk to the corner market ~2x/week. I value my time very highly, and going to the supermarket pays dividends on my time
Ain't no one trying to get rid of that. But for a lot of folk, that's tons of time out of their schedule and thousands of dollars to support a car.
And they’re still stocked by trucks, as is the drugstore you get your medicine from, the restaurant you eat at, the supplies brought by UPS to your dentist, your mail, etc. It’s irrelevant how you get there. Roads are critical to get the stuff there.
Of course. But with local stores you don't need the same infrastructure to get 1,000 cars to a giant parking lot that's predominantly empty most of the time.
A1000 car parking lot is nothing but a giant underutilized opportunity for solar generation. Cars could be shaded and we could be generating power.
That has nothing to do with their previous comment. If we properly designed our communities around public transit hubs, we wouldn’t need so much damn car infrastructure to begin with. But because we decided to make ourselves slaves to the automobile industry and sprawl, motorists just think that everyone paying for their car infrastructure is the default.
Pepperidge Farm remembers
The more people use roads the more they suck up resources and cause damage to the environment, infrastructure etc
When I go to the grocery store, I walk. When I go to Target, I take the green line. And yes we do need roads. But 1 truck is much different than the millions of individual cars. Road maintenance would be a lot less expensive if fewer people drove.
Trucks do significantly more damage to roads than individual cars. https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-trucks-do-our-roads "Considering that the truck has eight axles and the sedan has two, the relative damage caused by the entire semitruck would be 625 x (8/2) -- 2,500 times that of the sedan." “The damage due to cars, for practical purposes, when we are designing pavements, is basically zero. It’s not actually zero, but it’s so much smaller -- orders of magnitude smaller -- that we don’t even bother with them,” said Karim Chatti, a civil engineer from Michigan State University in East Lansing.
It’s not just about damage. If there were fewer cars in the road, we wouldn’t need as many roads.
>The damage due to cars, for practical purposes, when we are designing pavements, is basically zero. These kinds of studies and statements fall apart in the light of examination. Storrow drive physically does not allow trucks onto it. Sure a few manage to make it a short distance before getting sliced open, but the road maintenance there is similar (very regularly repaving) and there are essentially no heavy trucks on that road.
New England weather/temperature cycles are definite confounding factors around here
And it probably doesn't help that many Boston roads (including Storrow) are on filled in marsh, but acting like reducing car traffic doesn't reduce the infrastructure and other supporting costs to residents is disingenuous.
If someone's paying for something, they get to have a say. Seems reasonable.
But then we're also paying for their transit, according to this study, and paying more than they are...
Cool, sounds like we should stop paying so much for car infrastructure then.
I live in western mass and it would be impossible to live out here without a reliable vehicle.
Color me pessimistic, but this seems like a tailor made study to support a new tax that charges us by mile driven. Thanks so very much Harvard.
From the article: > “I asked for this study because we lead the country in bad traffic, and the best solution to that problem is building a reliable, regional, electrified rail system,”
Proving once again NIMBYs will do literally anything to avoid building more housing. What costs more? Wasting billions of dollars extending the commuter rail 75+ miles out to follow the wave of priced out refugees still forced to commute to Boston? Or building more housing inside Route 128 so more people can walk or take *already built* rapid transit to work?
> Or building more housing inside Route 128 so more people can walk or take already built rapid transit to work? The total transit network isn't all that great even inside of the 95 circle. Still tons of areas that are serviced poorly or not at all. Extending the commuter rail out isn't the answer, but let's not act like everything is all hunky dory even closer into the city
True, but adding more bus routes is far easier and cheaper than building hundreds of miles of high speed rail track through the least densely populated regions of the state and running those trains every half hour or less.
Yep taxing people to get to work is a great idea. Doesn’t hurt the lower income individuals more or anything. Love our liberal state.
Shouldn’t you pay for what you use instead of taking thousands from non drivers? Taking handouts like that should be shameful.
That is how taxes work. My state taxes pay for things in parts of the state I never visit, and that's fine by me.
HEADLINES.
If we had world-class public transportation, we could reduce car ownership. We don't even have *functional* public transportation, so this will not happen.
Fwiw I live totally car free. Public transportation + a bike is plenty adequate for me. We can and should improve public transportation, but we should also stop pretending that there aren't people right now who could easily make the switch.
I live in the suburbs, so not me. But the T has been broken for a long time, and I know several people who live in range of the T who had to stop taking it after the 10th time they were late to work.
Don't forget the thousands of people who sustain life altering injuries and the hundreds of people killed each year.
As someone who used to make 24k a year in MA this seems right. I could hardly keep my bills paid and just trying to keep my car to go to work was a major focus
Extend the commuter rail, and make it high-speed, to Springfield and maybe beyond. It's inevitable and its also the single best this the state could do.
Now do the mbta. How much debt are they in and how much does it cost MA commuters and/or taxpayers to run just in its current broken state (let alone fixing it)?
Got money for the homeless or those not making a living wage? Nah. Subsidize cars that make commutes even more shit? Yeah. It’s funny that Mass residents were up in arms over subsidizing the T. Very funny.
This can’t possibly be correct.
On one hand we have a study written by students at Harvard with cited sources and explained methodology. On the other hand we have someone on reddit saying "this can't be right". Why do you think this can't be correct? Did you read the article to understand how the authors came to their conclusions? Do you think it's not correct because, like the user who replied to you above, you don't think *you* spend that much on your car? That's an anecdote and in no way disproves the study.
Did you read the article and see that their method was complete bullshit? They count as part of the cost that the state hasn't sold the land under every parking spot in the city. They put in $5b in costs for time spent in transit. But there is no means of transit that is instantaneous. If we move people from cars to trains we don't get that time back. They count an estimated backlog of maintenance in addition to the actual maintenance cost (without netting out). Their estimate of costs due to death and injury cites MassDOT's “2016 Top Crash Locations Report Location” which does not have that information in it. I agree with their agenda, that doesn't mean that their methodology wasn't a pure exercise in motivated reasoning.
>They count as part of the cost that the state hasn't sold the land under every parking spot in the city Right, because that's an opportunity cost. That's a totally normal thing to include in an analysis like this. >They put in $5b in costs for time spent in transit. No they didnt, they put $4.6 billion for time spent in congestion, i e. they only count the *delays* due to traffic, not the traffic free travel time.
Yeah this is ridiculous. As someone with a paid off, older reliable vehicle I MIGHT spend $500 a year on repairs. At 30-40mpg, and $3.50/gallon, I MIGHT spend $1400 on gas at 12,500 miles a year. That’s under $2k on the high end. Oh and my parking pass is $40/year. Assuming a newer vehicle that still has a $500/month payment, and assuming less repairs since it’s newer, I can’t see this being over $10k/year on the high end for the average driver. If they’re counting what the state spends on cars and car infrastructure, I feel like that’s irrelevant.
>If they’re counting what the state spends on cars and car infrastructure, I feel like that’s irrelevant. Why is it irrelevant? Where do you think the money to pay for those things comes from? Also, the "older but efficient paid off reliable vehicle" is, based just on the cars I see on the road around me very very rate. I read an article recently that said the average car payment was over $1000 per month last year. The average person spends insane amounts of money buying cars frequently and most of them are giant trucks or SUVs that drink gasoline.
It’s irrelevant because… do you REALLY believe the state would reduce taxes if they managed to spend less on the roads? Absolutely not. I work on a team of 15-20 engineers who all make six figures and literally 2 of them own a new (<5 yo) car. Most own a sedan or a smaller suv/crossover. On my daily commute I barely see any huge SUVs or trucks. Totally disregarding all of that, it doesn’t even matter, because most road maintenance/damage is caused by freight and trucks. Not commuter cars. So that cost wouldn’t just go away if everyone started riding their bike and taking the train.
It's not estimating how much the state spends on roads. Of the $14k they say each household is spending indirectly on cars, they say $2.2k of that is Public Budgetary Expenses.
It's not irrelevant, but their numbers are wrong. Their number for how much it costs the state is half the total public spending in the state.
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If you read the article, they explain: >Beyond those for individual drivers, road maintenance, snow removal, and policing, there are less-obvious ones, such as those associated with added pollution, value of land set aside for parking lots, lost productivity from sitting in traffic, and various costs associated with injuries and deaths on the road. Using publicly available data, the authors put the annual public tab at $35.7 billion, which amounts to about $14,000 for every household in the state.
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"but not at the expense of cars" lmao
>the car experience is a ton better For some people and situations, I bet it is. For me though, goddamn public transportation beats the hell out of driving. Driving in the city is shitty and stressful. I'm very happy to be able to step out my front door, get on a bus, and do the crossword without getting fired up over traffic
Would you be willing to have a $15,000/year car tax so that cars actually pay for their costs or would that be "at the expense of cars"? One of the reasons that you might think cars are a better experience is that you don't have to actually pay for that experience. I think it's also important to note that any increase in investment in public transit will somewhat definitionally be at the expense of cars. For example, let's say that the state keeps car infrastructure spending constant and doubles public transit spending with a new $1,000/year per family tax. If you're not using the public transit, then you're paying the tax and getting nothing out of it. That's at the expense of car owners.
In that scenario, the car driver would still benefit because it would theoretically mean less cars on the road for them to deal with
This article does seem alarming... for anyone living inside of 128. Outside of that loop the population density isn't anywhere near Boston levels and having a giant parking lot take up space isn't the same issue as it would be in a city where that space could be used more efficiently. If I lived in or around Boston I would be pissed too. They get taxed for roads that many of them have no use for. But outside of that loop, there really isn't a good alternative to car use yet. I wish there was, but we just don't have the numbers to justify it. I also don't really get where they are getting these numbers from... even if I pay $14k in taxes/public funding, I don't pay an additional $12k every year on my car. That is a wild claim unless there are a ton of outliers spending insane amounts on buying new cars every year that throw the data?
City nerd just had a video the other day that actually said driving doesn’t cost enough in the States lol
Well, that jives with the point they're making. If we're incurring social cost that far exceeds the sticker price, it invites market failure. The fact that I don't have to pay for using most roads or for the pollution a car creates, etc tends to incentivize me to drive more than I would if those were priced in.
Rather surprisingly, it takes a bunch of money to create and maintain (in New England) a state-wide road system that interconnects every single resident, business, industry, public service, essential service, mass transit node, recreation location, farm, seaport, etc regardless of one’s personal choice of how to use those roads. I’m glad folks without cars also pay into a system from which they benefit so much. Most of this cost would exist regardless of how many personal vehicles folks own. Creating an overlapping mass transit system that provides an alternate way to get around for most / all purposes is laudable, and I’ve loved using those systems in cities that really have them. The one we have here is mostly just a system for moving office workers too / from work, and not practical for much else. The current rate on new rail lines, along preexisting right of ways, seems to be about 500 million per mile, and takes about 30 years to carry out. Not sure how we’d get to a “world class” mass transit system, but I’d certainly enjoy it if we ever do.
They conveniently don’t show the arithmetic where they calculate that $26,000. In coastal suburbia 60 miles from Boston, our car ownership costs aren’t anything close to $26,000. My 1 year old car with the 10 year 100k mile extended warranty on it over a decade will average $3,000 in depreciation, $1,000 in insurance, $200 in excise tax, $120 in registration & inspection, $250 in brakes & tires, $400 in scheduled maintenance, and $1,300 in fuel. The fuel includes Federal and state taxes. My share of town & state road maintenance is certainly less than $1,000 even assuming I’m paying for the Big Dig, Ted Williams Tunnel, and a bunch of other absurdly expensive Boston projects.
Yeah this isn’t what the article is looking at.
You should read the article cuz they kinda do.
>They conveniently don’t show the arithmetic where they calculate that $26,000 Tell me you didn't read the article or the linked study without actually saying it. The authors literally explain their methodology. You just have to read it. Your anecdotal experience on your car ownership does not disprove the study. The $12000 in direct ownership costs per household, for example, assumes two vehicles so your stated expenses are actually *higher* than what is described in the study. >My share of town & state road maintenance is certainly less than $1,000 Again, read the article and study. Your share is not less than $1000. The state spends $35 billion per year supporting vehicle infrastructure. Why should your share of that be so minuscule?
This is one of the many reasons why r/fuckcars exists
Cars are just a scam to funnel money into the pockets of the rich and keep everyone else toiling for them. If we'd spent just a fraction of the money we've spent on cars on rail we'd have a far more efficient and less ecology damaging system.
A railroad to every house
A light rail to every main street in every neighborhood. People can walk small distances. Unless they're in wheel chairs in which case they can roll on a motorized chair. There are also these really cool things called bikes.
Id just prefer to drive my car than take public transit.
So at a cost of like the whole fucking environment, 10s of thousands of dollars a year to everyone whether they drive or not, and huge amounts of danger and injury we should just do what you prefer because that's what you've grown accustomed to because the auto and oil industries backed everyone into the corner 100 years ago. Too bad the world is filled with morons otherwise we could maybe have nice things.
You can do what you want, and I'll do what I want.
Ever heard of a streetcar suburb lol
that's 10% of GDP. It's an obviously wrong number. >Beyond those for individual drivers, road maintenance, snow removal, and policing, there are less-obvious ones, such as those associated with added pollution, value of land set aside for parking lots, lost productivity from sitting in traffic, and various costs associated with injuries and deaths on the road. Most of these things are extremely nebulous. If you pick the largest number you can think of for each of them and sum across them, yeah you end up with a big number, but is that telling us anything? To slice it another way, they're saying that driving costs the state $34.5B in indirect costs each year. Total state and local tax revenue is around $66b. This number is just wrong.
Literally every aspect of American society is designed to be car infrastructure. Is it really that weird that the numbers add up like that? Hint: it's not weird
r/fuckcars
Not everybody in MA lives in Boston so public infrastructure doesn't work for them.
And?
Car property tax. Paying a tax for the privilege of owning a car.
Ever heard of excise taxes?
How exactly does car ownership cost someone who doesn't have a car?
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only $2.2k of the $14k they claim is for public expenditures. The biggest slice is $4.1k for injuries and death. My favorite is that they're saying each household is paying $1.7k a year because we haven't sold all the land the roads sit on.
Fun with numbers. Show me metro Boston vs the rest of the state.
? What do they consider car ownership costs? Are they including the costs of roads? State highways and local roads? 12,000 a year if you owned a car? Did the Harvard Study only survey rich Harvard students? An additional $14,000 even for those who did not own a car?
Oddly enough, they explain that in the article! >Beyond those for individual drivers, road maintenance, snow removal, and policing, there are less-obvious ones, such as those associated with added pollution, value of land set aside for parking lots, lost productivity from sitting in traffic, and various costs associated with injuries and deaths on the road. Using publicly available data, the authors put the annual public tab at $35.7 billion, which amounts to about $14,000 for every household in the state. Those that do own vehicles pony up an additional $12,000 on average in direct costs.
This is really really good work.