Tackling traffic, fixing the T, and saving the planet
Innovation economy attempting to take on the challenge
THE TRANSPORTATION CHALLENGES facing the Boston region have come to feel like an existential threat on more than one level. Business leaders, including Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce chief Jim Rooney, have sounded the alarm that roadway gridlock and a transit system that limps along from one problem to the next are threatening the regional economy. While drivers and MBTA riders gnash their teeth over commutes-from-hell, the transportation woes pose a far bigger existential threat, as they contribute mightily to increases in climate-changing carbon emissions.
Can some solutions to the fix we’re in come from the innovation economy, whose rapid growth is one of the pressure points that is stressing our transportation infrastructure?
That’s the idea behind a new initiative the Globe’s Jon Chesto reports on. The Kendall Square Association, which represents the tech-heavy business community in the Cambridge innovation hub, has drawn together nearly 20 area employers to mount an 18-month campaign to brainstorm and test ideas to tackle the region’s transportation problems. The association’s CEO, C.A. Webb, highlighted the urgency of addressing transportation issues recently on The Codcast.
One approach already in place by Kendall’s flagship institution that perhaps others will emulate: MIT underwrites the full cost of MBTA subway and bus passes for all 11,000 university employees. It’s not exactly the same as the call by Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu for free fares on the T — an idea Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone is getting behind — but it’s a variation on that theme designed to pump up transit ridership.
The alternative to transit use for many workers is commuting by carbon-spewing automobile. Today’s New York Times reports on a detailed national analysis by researchers at Boston University documenting changes in transportation emissions from 1990 to 2017. As the Times reports, transportation emissions from automobile and freight traffic represent the largest source of “planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions in the United States today.”
