From the Atlantic (where Massachusetts innovation is on a roll this week!), New Balance has taken the wise approach of linking public transit to its exoanded headquarters and new development in Brighton. Working with the local community to create a more sustainable transit solution for its workforce, its commercial real estate development, and the community it’s called home for over 40 years.
From the article:
So when athletic company New Balance decided to expand its headquarters and build retail, a hotel, a track, and skating rink in one Boston neighborhood not served by public transit, it didn’t wait for the city to agree to build new train stations or add bus routes, which could have taken years. Instead, it decided to build a commuter rail station itself.
Today, the company is breaking ground on the new Boston Landing station, starting a process that will add another stop on the commuter rail line between Boston and Worcester by the fall of 2016. New Balance is paying to build the station, which will cost between $14 million and $16 million, and will then pay for its maintenance costs for at least the first decade after the station opens.
From a community representative:
“The MBTA can barely manage what they have—building new stuff is almost impossible,” said Ali Carter, the executive director of Brighton Main Streets, a neighborhood-revitalization group. As for New Balance, she said, the company has been proactive, asking for community input about its building plans and making sure the transit station would be accessible for people who could walk from nearby, but that it also wouldn’t overload the neighborhood with cars.
“I couldn’t imagine having a better multinational corporation to be in your backyard,” she told me.
This isn’t a solution to our problems, but it seems like a win win for the company and the community it is located in. And I give them significant props for wanting their workforce to commute in a more sustainable fashion. It would be nice if the rest of the Boston business community could jump on board, if the all powerful biotech community can rapidly kill the tech tax, surely it can pony up some political and financial capital to fix and maybe even expand (!) the Red Line so that suburban workers can commute to Kendall and Southie without having to drive. Surely other businesses can do this as well.
Lastly, sweet proof that getting transit is neither a Herculean nor an Olympic effort, it just requires willpower and leadership.
My one concern would be that I really think infrastructure should be a public responsibility.
Does New Balance get extra ad space in their station?
Amortized as advertising, the constructions costs would justify it.
And the article mentions the infamous Chicago parking deal as well. I think it confuses public-private partnerships with privatization. In this case, the MBTA will be running the station, on it’s trains, as a public service.
The only difference between this station and any other one, is that New Balance made the initial up front investment and will cover the first 10 years of operations costs. They are basically agreeing with Sen. Warren that ‘we didn’t build this’ and are giving back to their community in a big way, and choosing to offer their workers and their commercial partners a sustainable alternative to yet more cars cramming the Pike.
In many ways its the opposite of the parking deal, where a company got a public good and turned it into a private revenue stream with hidden administrative fees and higher costs for the public. New Balance pays for a public improvement that nets it a benefit but also nets the broader public a wider benefit.
New Balance built a commuter rail station. That’s really helpful to make sure your employees can go live in suburbia and still get the employment benefits that Boston provides. The MBTA as a system is (presumably) better for it, but it just might be that this commuter rail station encourages sprawl outside of Boston rather than harmonize with urban transportation.
The nearest subway station is a 16 minute walk away. You can take the 64 from Kendall or Central. You can take the 57 or 57A all the way down Comm Ave.
New Balance could have built their new site in any number of places within Boston, and nearly all of them would have had better subway/bus/bike/ped access than the place they chose. I’m glad they built a commuter rail station. Still, I can’t shake that they developed that site to ensure convenience to their suburban employees, and to hell with their urban ones. It’s relatively hard to get to the New Balance site if you live in most parts of Boston/Cambridge/Somerville/Quincy/Brookline/Newton and aren’t driving to the New Balance site.
I used to be a big fan of New Balance, and they were my standard “street shoe” for years.
The company redesigned the shoe I wore in order to make it fail more quickly (and it did). The original design had plastic reinforcements at the last two shoelace holes to withstand the higher stress there. The new design removed that, so that the shoelaces pulled through the unprotected shoe within 2-3 weeks. Other changes were similar. An affordable shoe that I could buy at Sears and that easily handled more than a year of daily wear was transformed into a more expensive shoe that failed within the first month. Classic and venerable “planned obsolescence” — it turned a generation of Americans against our domestic automobile producers, and I don’t like to see it in a home-grown employer that is often held up for acclaim.
I think this commuter rail station is built for the benefit of New Balance — their suburban employees and their PR. Like stomv, I suppose I’m glad that they located in Boston.
It doesn’t make them a socially-conscious hero who can do no wrong.
I for one would prefer not to pack things into where they are already packed. I think it’s good to make sure suburbs are served and Brighton is, after all, part of Boston anyway.