Part II/Boston: Past, Present and Future

Part II: Boston Present

Neither Whitehill nor his friends at the University of Oklahoma could have imagined that such a volume may have better been entitled Boston in the Age of Tom Menino and Marty Walsh, for Boston fifty years later is far more prosperous than in 1965. I expect Whitehill would be quite upset that men would go to work downtown without ties, their shirts untucked, sometimes wearing jeans and sneakers and that women would wear yoga pants in public, even to church. He could not have imagined that on a warm day, Boston might be overflowing with tourists from the four corners of the earth, speaking a host of languages. He would be amazed that cigarettes are now sequestered, behind the counter, while condoms are on the shelf! “O Tempora, O Mores” Whitehill would have muttered through his ample white mustache!

This lecture provides me with an opportunity to elaborate upon topics I have been studying for some time. Boston is a world class city, perhaps more the hub of the universe today than when that phrase was coined by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Before the Civil War and certainly more than in the Age of John F. Kennedy. Boston has become a bustling almost 24-hour city, international beyond anybody’s imagination in generations gone by. Many of the old barriers of race and religion, sex and sexual preference are history. Looking at the Boston of today, I see great stability, as reflected in its rapidly increasing tax base. As Boston continues to grow, however, with 20,000 new jobs/year, will we become victims of our own prosperity? 

I will focus on five topics which I understand well enough that I feel comfortable discussing – finances, housing, transportation, traffic and the city’s soul. I will share some facts, some opinions and a few recommendations and make reference to some history, some economics, some arithmetic and even some physics.

I.       Finances

No one could have predicted that what most of us thought of as a trifecta of disasters – the Tregor Decision overturning Boston’s assessing practices, the Sudbury decision mandating 100% valuation of properties and especially prop. 2 ? might have resulted in a city which is financially in a far stronger position than it was 40 or 50 years ago. Under Prop. 2 ? - which many of us tried without success to defeat – a city or town benefits from new construction. As a result, Boston’s tax base has increased robustly, and so has its tax levy, by over 40% in the past six or seven years, far in excess of inflation. No one could have predicted that the city tax base would be far superior to that of the Commonwealth, which has been impacted by the changing retail market. Sales tax revenues have not grown along with the state economy because many residents of Massachusetts do not shop in stores. This year, e commerce sales could top $500 billion nationally. As a result, Boston has a better bond rating than the Commonwealth, an unthinkable concept 40 years ago, after New York City had defaulted and all the old cities like Boston were placed on watch lists. 

II.      Housing

Our prosperity does not result from our weather, but from our workforce. Large multinational corporations have decided to locate in Boston because of our educated population, but all these people need a place to call home. 

Anachronistic local zoning restrictions, both in the city and the metropolitan area, limit our ability to construct housing for those working in Greater Boston. 

I co-chaired the Commonwealth Housing Task Force for many years. We were the principal advocates of transit—oriented development – Chapter 40R. That legislation was not enough. We need greater incentives to encourage the development of multi-family housing near MBTA and commuter rail stations; that is where people want to live, especially younger people who are participants in the knowledge economy; they want a sense of community and an environmentally sensitive domicile. And, they rent. The number of rental units across the nation has increased from 11-16 million in recent years. There are housing programs such as the LIHTC which work and other which do not. Play your strength; feed those programs which produce results. 

A local zoning code is not a sacred text. The state has amended the General Laws on many occasions, including the Dover Amendment and 40R. We have rules regarding parkland and open space and farm lands. At this point in our state’s history, doing nothing is not an option. 

My prior research has suggested that, as a result of changing housing patterns, Boston is on the brink of becoming an urban Disneyland with a third of the population somewhere between 20 and 34, nearly none of them married with children. They compete for housing with those who have children. It is simple arithmetic – families with children lose that competition.

I would hope that Boston can remain a city where housing is available for three generations who choose to live under one roof, as well as for a single person who chooses to live in a micro unit.

III.     Transportation

At this point in our city’s history, incrementalism with respect to transportation planning is quite unacceptable. We require bold thinking. We have neglected our public transportation system, resulting in its customers seeking out alternatives. We treat our inheritance of an underground system differently than we would of a cottage near the shore which has been passed down through the years. A bridge recently collapsed in Genoa; bridges have also collapsed in our own nation. A bridge, like a roof, doesn’t last forever. It needs upkeep or it will need replacement. Deferring such work only means it will cost more, and imperil more people. 

MBTA ridership has almost doubled in 20 years, most especially commuter rail. When will we invest in additional transit capacity? Believe it or not, the trolleys in Messina, Sicily, considered by some to be a backwater, are far superior than those on our Green Line and, I expect, they don’t break down as often. 

I do not understand why most of our leaders have all but forgotten about the proposed Silver Line tunnel, which for a relatively modest expenditure could provide easier access for people from Dudley Square and all along Washington Street via a singular system to South Station, the Seaport and the airport. It would connect people who want to work with the locations where there are jobs. Such an infrastructure expenditure would benefit hundreds of thousands directly and indirectly and simultaneously help diminish income inequality. I would argue that even more than the Red-Blue Connector [which could be achieved by a subterranean airport-like moving sidewalk] and the North-South rail link, the Silver Line tunnel would be the easiest way to get people underground and to help unclog some of our city streets. Perhaps, we could also find a way for South Boston-bound buses, which currently clog streets Downtown, especially when taking a left turn from the right-hand lane, to also use this tunnel to get across Fort Point Channel.

A great city cannot have a public transportation system which features crumbling garages and trains which stop functioning, stranding passengers in tunnels. We are no longer a poor city and we are no longer a poor state. In times of prosperity, government must invest in its future. 

This requires that the business community step up and support new revenue sources which can pay for these needed changes. It requires political courage. I use the word “courage” quite purposely, not only because many of us read Profiles in Courage when we were younger, but also because this is the 40th anniversary of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s speech at Harvard commencement on what I recall was a very rainy day. He suggested among other things that “[a] decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the west…such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite.”

I know from personal experience that business leaders in Boston banded together to save the city from bankruptcy, rehabilitate Quincy Market, build a new highway system and create Norman Leventhal Park at Post Office Square. And that is only part of what I expect is a much longer list.

Gas taxes and auto excise taxes – classic user fees – are now insufficient to repair the roads, contrary to the intent when they were passed some 100 or so years ago. We must look to various sources of revenue so that those who use the roads should pay for their upkeep.

A few years ago, the fee for deed stamps was doubled to pay for the Community Preservation Act. The world did not end. 

Why not a $1.00 fee for each departure and arrival at Logan?

Why not return the auto excise tax to its pre-Prop 2 ? level?

What about revisiting the gas tax?

What about peak pricing on highways?

Rhode Island now tolls tractor trailers – should Massachusetts do likewise? 

We should also review the option of assessing vehicle miles traveled. 

Massachusetts is no longer a high tax state. Our business climate is far superior to that of Connecticut or Illinois or other states with which we were compared and with which we competed fifty years ago. 

Another idea is incorporated in a bill which would enable local communities to band together and ask voters to support new regional taxes to pay for local transportation projects. These so-called “regional ballot initiatives (RBIs)” [not to be confused with runs batted in], are already available in 41 states. Should community benefit districts be another option? One does wonder, however, whether RBIs would, not unlike CPA and Prop 2 ? Overrides, permit wealthy communities to spend more, while distancing themselves even more from poor communities.

A study on which I worked decades ago – Boston Unbound – reminded us that Massachusetts cities and towns have extraordinarily limited options to assess taxes other than property taxes. 

This must change.

IV.     Traffic

In Boston, traffic congestion is disrupting daily life and is damaging the environment. Traffic congestion and damaged roads are facts of life in today’s Boston. A recent study has confirmed that the average commute time in greater Boston is the fifth longest in the United States, longer than it was at the beginning of the decade. In that volume written over fifty years ago, Whitehill reminded us that “the streets of Boston are conspicuously unsuited for automobile traffic.” I see no reason to disagree with that statement fifty years later. Boston will never be confused with a modern sterile city such as Los Angeles, with wide streets constructed on a grid. The city street, however, has now become a driving school - like experience for GPS-directed drivers who are told to “turn around” and then do so in the middle of the street. 

I know that in the modern era that many encourage people to bicycle and to travel via other alternative mechanisms, but I also know from personal experience that if one has three young children, still in car seats, going to the zoo, or if one is approaching 70 and is arthritic and it’s five degrees outside, driving may be the best option.

Traffic Downtown is no longer a result of bad weather, construction sites and Red Sox games, but delivery trucks with orange parking tickets accumulated on the windshield, “not in service” MBTA buses idling and gypsy buses shuttling gamblers to Foxwoods and Twin Rivers. There is no constitutional right for any driver to park on a sidewalk, to double park, taillights flashing, wherever one sees fit, and block lanes of traffic, bus lanes, bike lanes and crosswalks, imperiling pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers! No stopping anytime should mean no stopping anytime. Should there be designated drop off and pick up sites? There are simple laws of physics at work here. If we have fewer lanes of traffic available, but more cars, it is quite likely that congestion will increase, and it has.

We need to proactively manage traffic at Beacon and Arlington, Herald and Albany, Melnea Cass and Tremont, Congress and High, Summer and Kingston, and in Forest Hills, among other locations. 

We also need to revisit, as New York City has recently done, the regulation of transportation network companies and their ride hailing apps. 

How should such for-profit users of our city streets pay their fair share for the upkeep of our roads and the managing of traffic congestion? 

One recommendation is to increase fees on transportation network companies. Currently, a $0.20 fee is assessed on each ride. If Boston could receive $.50 for each of the 34 million rides which occurred in 2017, those fees can provide the revenue to hire the personnel necessary to manage traffic and alleviate traffic congestion. Chicago is now at $0.67 per ride, which does not seem to be dramatically impacting business, given that the principal consumers have significant disposable income. On this issue, the city and the state must work together. 

A study by MAPC suggests that transportation network companies are actually damaging our public transportation system by drawing away passengers and revenues, and also are responsible for the extraordinary increase in traffic of which so many complain. A study in New York City found likewise, as did another in San Francisco. A recent study by Bruce Schaller, as reported in Commonwealth Magazine, confirms that what many thought would be part of the solution has become part of the problem. “About 60% of ride-hail car users in large, dense cities would have taken public transportation, walked, biked or not made the trip,” Schaller writes in The New Automobility: Lyft, Uber and the Future of American Cities.

Recently, we have seen the arrival of Bird electric scooters which, I am told, are too fast for a bike lane, too slow for a street assumed to be reserved for automobiles and too treacherous for travel on a sidewalk. Who can drive this new vehicle? Will there be mandatory driver education? Should they be registered? Who is in charge of regulating where and how they travel? What about the Segway Drift W1 – which appear to be motorized roller skates. Who should wear a helmet and when?

The new economy 100 years ago was dominated by the automobile. Today’s new economy is dominated by technology. How should government respond to be sure that those who benefit shall reimburse the public for governmental investments in support of which all of us have been taxed? 

In our goal to be accepting of technologically-driven change, we cannot permit the disruptive economy to disrupt solely for the benefit of the few. We must tame technology. Encouraging competition cannot enable chaos. Not unlike Air BNB, there is no right not to be regulated.

V.      The City’s Soul

The August 2018 Boston magazine cover read “Old Boston v. New Boston.” The lead article suggests “The struggle for the city’s soul is underway. Which side are you on?” Is Boston becoming a city where a Starbucks is more important than the Legion post or the local church? Does our widely professed tolerance cover up a new intolerance? What is the message when a newly arrived affluent condo owner requests the abutting social services building to shut off their lights at 8 p.m.? Is this message any different than “whites only” or “no Irish need apply” or the falsehoods spread about Eastern and Southern Europeans by those who succeeded in radically restricting immigration a bit more than a century ago?

I cringe at the thought of a city where the acceptance of some results in the exclusion of others. As we look around the Ink Block or the Seaport, there may be dog parks, but there are no softball fields. I don’t see many basketball courts. I don’t see playgrounds for children, or at least not very big playgrounds. To some extent that sends a message to families with children that they are not welcome.

Will Boston soon become a city of those without roots, those who are “not from here” and who have little sense of our history and no connectivity to their neighbors? Many of them will stand in line outside a bar on a cold night, but neglect to stand in line to vote, except perhaps once every four years!