Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Blogging the future of transportation in MA

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Part of the Gov’s transportation reform plan is to make the whole process more transparent and at least somewhat interactive.  The website devoted to this purpose — You Move Massachusetts — is up and running, and Secretary Aloisi has got his first couple of blog posts up (including one about the still-controversial VMT plan).

Check out the site and let us know what you think.  The transportation folks are anxious for feedback, and they will be checking in here.

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  1. I only briefly reviewed the website, but I am impressed with what I have seen.  The part I looked at was the “themes”, and to that I would add the following consideration.

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    p>The most cost effective road is the one that does not have to be built.  Currently, there are too many areas of high-density housing that do not contain appropriate jobs, entertainment and shopping options within their district.  As we renew urban areas throughout the State it would be wise to pay close attention to establishing a nearly-complete package to reduce the need for vehicle travel.  And when travel is required, proximity to public transportation hubs should be enhanced with pedestrian and bicycle ways to lessen the burden on the roadways.

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    p>It may not be obvious to link urban policy to transportation policy, but whereas a high percentage of the population live in Cities and large towns we could make a significant contribution to transportation effectiveness by coordinating the planning, and considering walking and bicycling as part of the overall transportation system.  

    • the best neighborhood is one with retail at street level, office space on levels 2+, and housing at the top of the building.  Could be a 3 story building or a 30 story building.  Same concept.

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      p>Neighborhoods like this ensure that people don’t need to drive to get basic needs like food, clothing, cleaning, etc.  They also provide opportunity to work near home, again eliminating driving.  They allow consolidation of parking lots, the spaces used during the day by employers and stores are used in the evening by residents, and vice versa.  Finally, they allow a density which allows efficient mass transit for cases where one wants to go more than a few blocks from home.

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      p>Of course, neighborhoods like these need good sidewalks and bicycle facilities to be great neighborhoods.  They also need street trees, parks, good schools, and places of community like teen/senior centers, churches, and the like.

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      p>But, this is zoning.  Zoning is a tough fight for even incremental changes.  That doesn’t mean the effort should be avoided, but simply that it’s really difficult when the status quo is a developer buying a tract of land and building a cul-de-sac neighborhood, which is antithetical to smart growth.

      • In Massachusetts wants to live in an urban or semi-urban environment.  Urban-centric transportation “solutions” happily ignore most of the Commonwealth by default.

        • Actually, most people in Massachusetts do live in urban or semi-urban environments.  Doe most people live in buildings with mixed use, or even within 200 feet of mixed use?  Nope.

          • Until the entire physical area of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is put under the bulldozer’s blade and turned into a quaint downtown Melrose district or an urban chic Ladder District, any urban-centric transportation “solution” ignores the rights, needs, and other what-have-yous of people who don’t wish to live in an urban or semi-urban environment.  Tyranny of the majority and all that.  Part of what makes Massachusetts such a wonderful place to live are those parts of it that still retain some of their bucolic charm, and operate on a pace somewhat more subdued than the pace of a city or a city suburb.  Some people actually enjoy living in the country . . . I know this is a difficult concept for liberals/progressives to comprehend, but some people just prefer a different lifestyle to the sort of lifestyle you insist upon with all your crazy public policy plans.

            • on certain issues.  It’s the people of the Commonwealth that matter.

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              p>Take a look at which counties voted McCain and which Obama.  McCain won something like 75% of the land in the USA… but lost the popular vote.

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              p>Land doesn’t matter.  People matter.  Most people in Massachusetts live in urban or semi-urban settings, and that’s the point.

      • We’re building more of these mixed use buildings with open space in the Hamilton Canal district, which will extend downtown, and make a nice, dense city experience for new residents and existing ones alike. RIGHT near the Gallagher terminal where the buses and commuter rail meet, and the plans include extending rail for the trolley system which right now is just a cutesy “historic ride” sort of system but which could be transformed into real local transport.

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        p>It’s a totally underused/abandoned section of town so the zoning changes needed were easy to effect, relatively speaking, and the project is a go.

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        p>As someone who’s art studio/office is right on the cusp between where downtown ends and Hamilton development begins, I am wicked excited!

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        p>Yeah, I’m becoming a cheerleader. Sorry!

          • (before reading it…) my hope is that it jumps the hurdle from “cutesy/touristy” to functional at a local level.  Of course, that will depend on a wide number of factors, many mentioned in Lynne’s post.

        • will migrate south and encompass the Gallagher terminal.

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          p>I noticed there seems to be lots of parking garages in the area… 4 and a 5th under construction.  Generally speaking, lots of parking garages doesn’t mix well with ped-friendly areas, but perhaps this will play out differently.

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          The City typically requires one parking space per residential unit for Downtown housing and does not impose regulatory parking standards on Downtown commercial developments.

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          p>It would be nice if the City worked with the developers to use mixed use parking — the same parking during the day at Gallagher or elsewhere could be used at night by local residents to satisfy the 1 space/unit requirement.  The result is fewer spaces overall, but higher utilization per space.  Given that parking garage spaces cost $10,000 – $20,000 each to build, this is a very real savings.

  2. Don’t have the TOC links spawn a new tab (or a new browser window) when you click them.  Brutal for the user; makes the site look like it was designed by an i . . . well, not a professional.

    • Ok I don’t have a life currently so I went to the site and I looked at the VMT info and I downloaded and printed the 101-page report from Oregon. Interesting read here is the url to the pdf

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      p>http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY…

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      p>I also went to FAQ link and below you will find two points I find interesting and worth comment and daylight I bolded the sections that caught my interest and would love to see comments the first I was not aware of that the sensors are already being place in our cars. I must have missed that Bush intrusion and the second is for alternative fuel vehicles and that the tax will be collected when they renew the registration. Brings me back to the previous comments of why not use the system of Car annual inspections that record mileage through the onboard computer (OBDII) to then mail you out a tax bill 30 days later seems like we then do not have to reinvent the wheel.

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      p>Maybe I missed something take a crack at it

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      p>http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY…

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      Even if the pilot program works, isn’t it going to be really expensive to put on-vehicle devices in all cars in Oregon?All of the technologies used in the pilot program were already being manufactured in cars today. Car companies are already announcing that key components will be standard equipment on all models within the next few years. Federal Highways and standards organizations are working to adopt universal standards for the same technologies used in the pilot. Therefore, it is very likely, in the not too distant future additional hardware would not need to be installed in vehicles, but a software upgrade would likely be necessary.

      What about vehicles that don’t need to visit gas stations, like electric cars?  How do you plan to collect a mileage fee from them?
      Because these vehicles need to recharge on a regular basis it is possible to read the mileage during the recharging process similarly to how the mileage is read at the service station. Instead of the mileage fee being added to the fuel bill at the pump, in this instance the mileage fee could be added to the homeowner’s electric bill.

      For vehicles that are recharged “off the grid”-meaning that the location is not serviced by a power company-the mileage could be read and the mileage fee collected when the vehicles are up for licensing renewal.

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      p>As Usual just my Opinion

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      p>PS one of the reasons they went to try this system was no one in Oregon would vote for an increase in the gas tax sounds like Massachusetts but then why would they vote for this and then why would they vote to increase it. Logic seems scetchy here!

  3. and listened to the interviews lined there.

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    p>It’s great for government official and agency to be more open and and in touch with the public through a blog, but it’s not great if it’s just a veneer of openness- it remains to be seen what this is.  Since this one says all comment must be approved by the blog owner and there are exactly zero comment showing now, I’m skeptical that a real dialog will be allowed.  IMHO, faux openness is even worse than old-fashioned stonewalling, because it makes a mockery of what should be a given from public servants and devalues real openness.

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    p>The four Aloisi interviews from yesturday linked there are quite strikeing when listened to/watched in one sitting.  He gives a veritable tour-de-force of lawyerly double talk non-sequiturs in his defense of highest in the nation gas tax and his own shaky have credibility.  He repeatedly states that the gas tax has not been raised since 1991 and challenges the audience to come up with one thing that has not gone up in price since that time- ignoring the reality that the price of gas has gone up (and up and up and down and up)in that time, as have (as Aloisi well knows) numerous tolls/taxes/fees that contribute to the already large cost of owning a car in Massachusetts.  Why we need the largest gas tax in the country the is left unsaid and unexplored.

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    p>In three of the four interviews, Aloisi gives us a classic example of the non sequitur in defense of his own credibility.  He uses the same illogical argument each time.  Aloisi tries to establish chis own credibility by noting that he took a pay cut for the job of Transportation Sec and he didn’t do that to lie- which is a classic non sequitur, as there is no natural relationship between the relative salary or your current job to your past job and whether or not you are lying.  This was particularly strange since no interviewer even insinuated he was lying and only one of the interviewers (Jim Broudy) even asked Aloisi about his well-known past as big dig lawyer and attack dog, and didn’t follow up when Aloisi basically wouldn’t address the question.

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    p>Whether or not this is actual openness, or just another part of a pr blitz, will be clear soon- but I’m not optimistic.

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