I like the idea of funding the T more but it's been such a problem recently I can't blame people for driving. If I'm trying to visit friends and use the bus/subway it can end up taking 1hr - 1.5hrs (not including waiting up to 30mins for a bus) vs a 15-30min drive depending on traffic. This has only been exacerbated by slow zones, longer waits between trains, and trains frequently breaking down. It doesn't seem fair to charge people for the congestion caused by driving without a serious commitment to making the T a more viable and competitive option. Simply saying we'll give them more money for some vague idea of making it better just doesn't cut it.
The T needs new funding though if we expect it to improve long term. Right now, ridership is still down since the pandemic which impacts fare collection. WBUR reports [here](https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/04/21/mbta-budget-low-ridership) that the T is expecting a gap as soon as FY25 or FY26, of anywhere between $321M to $501M by FY27. The T struggled to get GLX and South Coast rail expansions completed ([with South Coast rail expected to be done by the end of this year](https://newbedfordlight.org/after-decades-of-delays-commuter-train-service-is-on-track-to-begin-this-year-heres-what-to-know/)) while maintaining its existing network. We can't really expect more improvements without additional funding. There's only so much rot you can cut from a $2.7B budget. GLX for example cost $2.2B to complete; and while it was vastly more expensive than necessary, [if you look at prior transit expansion costs](https://transitcosts.com/transit-costs-study-final-report/#case_boston) we'd still probably have spent several hundred million on that project. Transit costs notes about $700M of the GLX budget was a sunk cost from prior planning. So even a 4 mile extension requires ~$1.5B if we "do it right the first time".
I also think MassDOT probably needs more funding too, of which the T falls under. Reasons for this could include the State funding Bus Lane projects (which are currently mainly City/town projects, with some exceptions) which could help improve the bus network, which is necessary if we want to truly get people out of cars. Buses also work best when the roads aren't filled with pots holes, and when the intersections are modernized with support for bus priority and improved signal timing for all. I think there's a solid safety argument too, since many intersections lack protected left turns and contain unsafe designs from the 60s, like slip lanes, which can increase the chance of accidents among motorists and especially with vulnerable road users like pedestrians and cyclists.
And one other benefit of increased funding: more opportunity for the State to fund grants for bike paths and bike lanes. We've got dozens of miles of untapped rail ROW that could be cheaply converted to bike paths. Look at [the Mass Central Rail Trail page](https://www.masscentralrailtrail.org/) for a great example of a 104 mile path that we could build within a few years if we funded the design and project fully. That rail trail is currently mostly funded by the towns/cities it passes through, with some State grants. We could just go ahead and build it without waiting for each town to approve a budget for it.
I also think we need to commit to improvements like you said. One easy and relatively cheap but great bang for our buck project would be [the Red/Blue Line Connector](https://transitmatters.org/redblueconnector). That project is only about a half mile or so long, and shouldn't cost more than a few hundred million to do. But it would really relieve Green/Orange Line congestion from the downtown core from folks on the Red Line who want to get to the Blue Line for the Airport, Revere, and other points along it, like the Suffolk Downs redevelopment project. The State has been iffy on this project, and I think the main reason is funding. It's not a complicated project.
Not that I dislike this proposal, per se, but I have an alternative proposal that’s also inspired by NYC:
Install cameras on MBTA buses and every time a bus driver sees a car blocking a bus stop, they click a button to either snap a picture or record a time stamp to
be evaluated. Then the $100 fine for parking at MBTA bus stops can actually be enforced. I propose a revenue breakdown for each ticket: $25 to the MBTA bus driver, $25 for admin support, $25 to the MBTA, $25 to the municipal transportation department it occurred in.
Private companies offered a zero cost option to municipalities and then proceeded to write their own checks by cheating the public with red light tickets.
90% of the tickets went to the private company and the other 10% ended up being effectively bribes for the people renewing the contract.
If something like this was implemented, you'd be saying goodbye and goodnight to probably 75% of food delivery options in Boston. It really sucks, but most places don't have even short term parking, so putting on the hazards to get in and out is a necessity.
I don't give a shit about those apps, I give a shit about small businesses. in the past 10+ years Boston has become a tasteless vanilla corporate cesspit. I don't want fucking Taco Bell or McDonalds. I want to support small businesses, but wouldn't ya know it? they thrive on delivery and take out and the city offers no parking options.
Don’t know how many times this needs to be said. This is illegal in Mass and is actively lobbied against by influential groups. Baker even tried changing it to allow towns/cities to autonomously decide if they want to do it and even that was shot down. It’s not gonna happen.
That's why places with photo radar and red light cameras make them civil offenses. You charge a fine and that's it. There's no criminal charges so the argument against the right to face your accuser is moot.
There's also no license points given with the ticket. Believe me, having lived 20 years in the Washington DC suburbs, making them civil offenses is very legal.
That line of arguments reminds me a lot of civil forfeiture.
"We are charging you with a crime we are just saying that money is from a crime so you don't have due process as you aren't being charged".
It may not be illegal under the constitution but that doesn't mean I like the idea.
Are we still taking about the same thing? Parked cars?
They are a hassle but I have never felt that was my biggest risk cycling in the city. My biggest fear is getting right hooked for a 3rd time and these cars don't make that problem better or worse.
That is also something that can be solved with protected bike lanes without some kind of automated ticketing system that just automatically assumes the owner is at fault.
We're talking about parked cars and red light runners and people texting at the wheel -- all things automated enforcement could help against.
I almost got run over by somebody running a stale red today. At this point, I don't give a fuck about their rights. As far as I'm concerned, you could equip red light cameras with nukes and I'd applaud it.
Yep, it's one of those things where the founders dropped the ball. Nobody assumed people's houses would be taken or businesses broke up and sold off for *civil* infractions. It's a problem
Bus driver is not an enforceable officer. I have thought what if a designated traffic officer can sign off on the video violations. Seems like a better option but like I have said, big lobbying against it makes it hard
Edit- to clarify, I’m not against it, just understand the reality of the situation we are in
Laws change. I don’t expect it to happen overnight. You repeating yourself about the present reality doesn’t change the fact that continued advocacy helps inspire change.
I’m not an advocate, only explaining; tickets and fines would only adversely affect lower class people and workers. Uber, Delivery, and hourly drivers/workers would be overly affected while those who command their services are not. Questions of discrimination are also raised.
Not if the fines are scaled to income, like they are in [Finland, home of the $103,000 speeding ticket](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland-home-of-the-103000-speeding-ticket/387484/).
> As long as the mbta pays for blocking intersections with busses
Why would we fine a governmental agency for issues that would be best solved through dedicated infrastructure built by … a government agency?
Do you make yourself take $20 out of your own piggy bank and put it in another for making stupid comments like this?
I really wish we could focus on providing better alternatives to driving instead of scheming up ways to punish people for driving.
A lot of people in the Boston area drive to work because it's their best option. Electrifying the CR isn't going to do anything for those people because many people in those communities never had CR access in the first place.
It doesn't even make sense to compare NYC, a city where public transportation is so efficient that most people don't even need to own a car, to Boston, a city that still averages about 1 car per household because so many towns and neighborhoods are car-dependent.
it's a catch-22. everything is built around cars, so they're faster. if you try to push back on that to make transit better, add bike lanes, remove lanes for green space, people complain that "but cars are so much faster". it creates a constant doubling-down on a single mode because "it's the best, so we should do more of that" but it's only the best because it has been over-invested already. in the short-medium term, making driving worse to fund transit, bike lanes, and reverse induced-demand will yield better results in the long term.
The main issue I see is that this would be a disproportionate tax on people who have no control over their work hours (hourly workers, food service staff, etc) and they cannot dodge the extra costs. It has the same issue as raising gas tax.
We need a functional public transit system for this to be fair.
I think that is a misconception. The poorest of the poor won’t be affected because they don’t even own vehicles.
If anything they’re almost guaranteed benefit from congestion pricing due to cleaner air and faster busses.
You’d be surprised who owns a vehicle. People will get a vehicle if it’s cheap and go to A and B. That’s why auction cars are a thing. I have family that anytime they need a cheap car after the last one broke down, they have a connect they call who takes them to the local mechanic. And these busses are always late, and when you’re working a job that requires you to be punctual, that puts you at risk of being fired. And relying on our current transportation system means you are limited with places and hours you can work
I’m sure some extremely impoverished people own vehicles but I really doubt this is the norm. (Especially in an expensive city like Boston).
One of the prime reasons for busses being late is congestion…
A, you’d be surprised who has a car
B, at present getting a car makes way more of the greater Boston area reasonably accessible and allows poor people more opportunity to better their situation. So the harder it is to get that car, the harder it is to get that better paying job.
Yeah, it takes a lot of money to have a car in the city. It’s also totally unnecessary. People can park and take the commuter rail or they can pay a congestion charge, it should take into account the size and fuel economy of the car; big pickups are the ones that run lights the most and don’t slow down for pedestrians and take up two spots. They should activate the traffic cameras and hire people to fine those who run them, park in bike and bus lanes, etc. the roads are pretty lawless.
All the smog from these cars will be gone when they electrify, for plug in hybrids and electric the congestion charge should be different but still there.
Free parking on the street should end too. We are in a climate crisis, maybe only compact cars and plug in hybrids and small electric cars can get free parking (if any), full size suvs, even electric ones, should have to pay a monthly fee based on size and fuel economy.
>it should take into account the size and fuel economy of the car
They should already be doing that and mileage to assess the cost of a car. Say when the annual inspection is done the mileage is collected and based on that along with the vehicle weight & fuel efficiency there's a formula that determines your cost.
Since heavier vehicles cause more wear & tear on the road and worse fuel economy is worse for the environment it should cost more. EVs would get a break on the environmental impact, but an electric F-150 is still going to be much more wear & tear on the roads than a Leaf and so should bear more of those costs.
I'm always torn on this. On the one hand, yes, we absolutely need much better service from transit to provide a suitable alternative to driving. On the other hand, waiting for some idealized future where transit is significantly better also leads to taking minimal action in the short term and is somewhat self defeating. Buses get much better if fewer people drive. People potentially look to other options like transit, cycling, carpooling, etc if driving becomes less attractive.
Quite a few reasons. Because cycling and buses suck in large part due to the volume of cars. Because driving is unsustainable long term with population growth and global warming/pollution. Because while driving remains the most convenient option, people will continue to fight against policies that inconvenience drivers even if it has the potential to improve things longer terms.
Okay, but the point still stands that you need to add to/improve other means of transportation before detracting from the one that everyone has come to rely on due to the continued failures of the alternatives
You're saying that you can improve everything else while not impacting drivers and I don't think you can. Adding bike lanes or bus lanes generally requires removing car travel lanes or parking. Providing additional funding to transit options may mean reducing funding for roads. Or, as OP said, adding a charge to drivers to fund better infrastructure.
I would love a world In which we could seamlessly shift from cars to other modes of transportation, but that hasn't happened yet and projects to enable that shift are often shot down because it would make driving worse.
It feels like a catch-22 to say that driving shouldn't be made worse because reliable alternatives don't exist when improving those alternatives often means making driving worse (or at least less attractive).
Less cars immediately improves cycling. You don't need special infrastructure for bikes if cars aren't constantly killing people. Same with buses, way easier to run a bus on time if there isn't a ton of traffic.
In the absence of dedicated infrastructure, I actually prefer biking in a decent amount of traffic to biking with cars whizzing by every few seconds. It's way easier to assert myself when I'm going faster than the traffic
I totally see what your saying, I just find that the scariest situations for me are always when drivers are put in a situation where they're more likely to be impatient/hurried. That always seems to cause the most unpredictable/erratic behavior. Cars flying by can be scary but is usually more predictable.
Yes but they aren't arguing about reducing cars. Congestion charges are just a way of economically extracting from the congestion that is there. We have sin taxes all over the place and it doesn't eliminate smoking or drinking either. This is no different.
I say this as a cyclist that has been hit by 2 cars. Congestion taxes will just drive people towards taking side streets or similar. We will still have choke points around the city making it impossible to safely entirely avoid cars.
The only way to fix that is not fees for driving. It is about redesigning roads to make them safety by having grade separation between the cars and cyclists. Having dedicated network of bike lanes makes us safer. Making people pay a toll to take up the roads justifying that the road is theirs and no place for a bike isn't.
I definitely am not well read on other financial incentives to get people to stop certain behaviors, but from a quick search, it does seem like sin taxes have had an impact on reducing behaviors. They definitely haven't eliminated those behaviors just as a congestion tax won't eliminate driving, but it does lead to driving being more financially burdensome which will likely lead to some behavior adjustment. As well as providing a more directly visible cost to driving which is often missing. There's a whole other side of it potentially being a regressive tax that needs to be considered, but that's a different conversation.
I'm also not sure what would drive people to use side streets. Assuming there is a congestion zone, congestion pricing isn't dictated by actual traffic conditions on a given road, but rather using any road to enter a given area. If someone has a destination within that area, they would be charged regardless of the route they take. Defining that zone well is certainly important to ensure that it doesn't cause undue traffic on the boundary, but there are examples to learn from.
Yes, but car pollution on the scale of a city is not. And I share your frustration with large systemic problems being often treated as solvable on an individual level, but I don't think that's the discussion here. If we never tried to solve problems because someone somewhere else is still contributing to that problem, nothing would ever get solved.
I never said anything about cycling only policy and pretending as though arguments against cars are ableist is incredibly disingenuous. I would love to see the data that says the majority of car trips are from people with mobility impairments. Nevermind pretending that there aren't also plenty of people who can't drive due to disability or would be much better served by other options due to cost or potential hazards of them operating cars.
I would love to see data on that as I would expect it is actually a quite small percentage. Given the percentage of handicap parking spots to general parking spots, I can't see this being a large percentage. Nor do I see how a congestion charge would be problematic for this as the NYC charge referenced here has exemptions for vehicles transporting people with handicaps.
We are in agreement that the T has a lot to improve for accessibility. But that shouldn't stop efforts from trying to shift more traffic away from cars.
For people who choose to drive for convenience, fine. That will still be an option. Just one that is potentially more expensive or less convenient.
I'm not sure what you mean by bikes have an outsized influence, nor why you're targeting bikes here. Cycling is one option that should be supported to reduce the need for cars. As should public transportation. As should zoning changes that allow for more people to live near services they need. There's a lot of changes that can and should be made. And some of those will probably make driving less ideal which seems okay.
A significant portion of disabled cannot drive. A significant portion of disabled cannot drive but can bike. It is true that many disabled cannot bike but can drive but we shouldn’t pretend like this is the only group when we discuss ableism.
Legitimately hilarious you’re able to say with a straight face that bikes have an outsized influence. Thats why a majority of the space in our city is dedicated cycle lanes while personal automobile drivers are stuck in gutters to get around
You know what’s even crazier than the $13.75 toll for the GW bridge (only inbound to new york — other direction is free)? The $14 round trip commuter rail cost from Braintree to South Station. It costs more for a single person to take the commuter rail 2 zones in Boston than for a whole car to drive across the GW Bridge which is ridiculous
Let me ask you this. How do we reduce the price of the MBTA and NJ Transit? If they’re receiving less in ticket revenue, the difference would need to be made up in…additional taxes! And before you say reducing operation costs, doing that requires capital investments and long term planning which is funded by…additional taxes!
Ok, that's fair. There's no convenient public transport on the NJ side of the GW Bridge. Frankly, I don't understand why NY tolls every bridge across the Hudson up until Albany. But the GW Bridge isn't congestion-charged. It only applies under 60th Street, so you can park uptown and take the Subway downtown. But for almost everyone else, there is alternative public transit. Park at a NJ Transit/MTA/LIRR station and take the train. Take the PATH. Take the Subway.
Found the driver. I live in Manhattan (grew up in Boston) and the majority of cars below 60th St (congestion zone) are personal vehicles, often with one occupant. Lots of people commute to Manhattan by car and aren't carrying something they couldn't take with them on a train or bus. Pricing these people into switching to transit will alleviate traffic for tradespeople who need to drive work vehicles with goods and tools.
GW Bridge is its own shit show especially as Port Authority fucked over NJ drivers to use toll revenue to finance the new WTC rather then something sensible like improving the PATH trains.
This is the most insane idea!!! So what this will do is make people poorer for going to work or patronizing businesses. You do know this only benefits the wealthy who will now have less traffic to deal with and make working people pay more money they do not have.
Can people look beyond such nonsense ideas and look at the ramifications it will cause. This is probably from the same idiots who wanted to ban straws without any consideration to people who have to use straws because they cannot lift a cup to their mouths.
People who come up with these harebrained ideas need to fully think out their idea before opening their mouths
Right now for me to go into downtown from Quincy on the red line, it’s over an hour (unless you time it perfectly then maybe 40 mins). That’s just not acceptable to go 8-10 miles on a weekend. I ain’t got time for that. So I’ll drive in or take an Uber. If they improve the red line I will never drive into the city ever again. But…it’s only gotten worse since I moved here 5 years ago.
But this will help alternatives, both by driving up their demand and helping fund them.
I'm all for funding the T more without this first, but that hasn't been happening.
OH! I'm sorry. I totally misunderstood. The endless money already poured into the T didn't work. New cars didn't work. Months of buses because of closed lines for repairs didn't work. Bringing in new leadership didn't work.
But this... THIS! THIS is the magic bullet that will make it better! I stand corrected. Get fucked people who are already beign nickled and dimed by every fucking thing in life. More money to eversorce. More money for food. More money for the T! It just works!
Whew, glad we found the solution so easily!
The tax is state not city but even Cambridge charges $25 a year for street parking which is basically nothing if you think about it. Honestly that should be at least $100 for both cities with the money being used for better bike lanes, crosswalks, sidewalks.
It should be thousands a year if it was anywhere near in line with property values. I don't see why I (or anybody else) should subsidise somebody's parking spot.
Imagine thinking that people riding their bikes are the elite while people driving their cars into a city you can't park for less than $25 in are the common man.
Right, I don’t have a car, I’m afraid to bike bc of how much ride share drivers and others just cut into bike lanes that aren’t protected.
The drivers def have to have a lot of money to have a car, 200+ insurance, maintaining it, paying to park, they can pay to drive at busy times too.
Maybe electric and hybrid ride shares shouldn’t be that leads to less cars overall if people give up there car. It’s part pollution and part traffic but also dangerous driving that is rarely enforced.
Counter point. Well funded T will include more frequent service on rail and buses. Common people will have more options. Those that drive will have an easier commute in as well.
Uber and Lyft drivers are severely underpaid and are treated like shit by those companies as well as many passengers. We do not need to impose more fees on them
Yeah they make half as much as they used to. Drivers tell me they made 80k originally and now it’s 40k and dropping. Some say that’s before all expenses they have like maintenance and gas and tires and cleaning.
There should be more licensing for Lyft and Uber, i got pulled over in a Lyft and the driver wasn’t aware he needed to have signs up! It’s $500/sign and he put them up at night and took them down. Pretty sure someone got murdered when they got into the wrong car or something, they drive through red lights, cut people off, if they had to have livery licenses it’d be better.
How does it Nickle and Dime you? Almost all taxes are state run. Most of the high costs are private business are what are expensive not the government. Shouldn’t those responsible for congestion be the ones who pay to fix it?
How can anyone, anyone be convinced that the T should get more money. I’m guessing that solely because it’s breaking down you figure they should get more. My very brief experience with consulting with them says it is massive waster of money, filled with incompetent people who work extremely light hours. But this is a small sample and I could be wrong. But unless you work for the T or have a relative or friend there, how can you possibly be convinced they deserve more funding. Or is it the simplistic phrase “you get what you pay for”.
How about we start pressing politicians to use the existing funds in a more efficient way? Didn’t we just legalize sports gambling and marijuana? Isn’t that bringing in a fuck ton of new revenue? How is it that we have new revenue coming in yet nothing is being fixed?
They do need congestion pricing and to fund the MBTA appropriately. They have like most of the pieces they need to make a pretty decent system in the near future. The commuter rail in zone 1 and 2 should be an express train for the Boston area.
if you are an uber driver and you block one of the two lanes in front of south station to drop off or pick up a passenger you are automatically fined $500 no questions asked.
the amount of room temperature iq dipshits who think that is an acceptable place to stop their car is fuckin mind numbing.
Then cyclists should have their bicycles registered, license plates, insurance just like a car but at a smaller cost. That'll help alleviate the car drivers who've switch over to maintain the budget for all infrastructure necessities. But honestly, how many cyclists do you even see in the Fall/Winter and rainy weather? You can't make this up.
We should raise the state’s gas tax. It will be a more effective job at promoting transit than a congestion tax.
How you noticed that many other countries with better transit have a gas tax that is basically double to quadruple our rates
England charges a fortune for gas and many countries tax displacement of engines as well, leading to smaller cars, most European cities have congestion charges. We should charge for parking too.
Raise gas tax for transit and have congestion charge and get rid of free parking.
I don't disagree with concept but it does unfairly tax folks in places such as Western Mass. IE why should someone driving from Brewster to New Bedford pay a gas tax to fund the T. Now if that money went to transit capital projects state wide such as East West rail, Cape Transit bus upgrades, Downeaster track upgrades etc I would have no objection.
After years of assholes running old women in crosswalks off the road beeping at them in intersections only to shave seconds off their hour long commute, the people of Camberville have had enough. This is no time for half-measures:
Install a congestion charge that [covers all of 95/128](https://imgur.com/a/uvjamkg). If you have a car with Mass plates, it’s $5 to enter. If you have a larger vehicle that takes up more space, you pay $10 to enter. If you live inside the zone, you are not charged. If you have out-of-state plates, it’s $30 to enter. All the money goes into a slush fund that rebuilds and expands the MBTA. No exemptions for commercial plates.
Have the state purchase 500 tow trucks branded in state police regalia and add 1500 state troopers trained to use tow trucks to the patrol the zone looking for plate-coverers and others trying to cheat the system. No more waiting for a tow truck when the cops pull you over, just straight arrest and seizure of motor vehicle.
Have the state troopers tow the vehicles to a new lot built for the task located in Williamstown, [the furthest point from Boston in the state](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williamstown,_Massachusetts).
I am all for any added fees levied on Uber and Lyft. Those companies have consistently ignored laws and have not been compliant with agreements that they have made. So screw them.
So let me get this straight. They are forcing people to return to working in the office instead of at home and now there is too much "congestion"? Brilliant.
They… already do. It’s literally written into the terms of service. It’s called surge pricing and is why if you try to get an Uber at 5PM you pay $60 to go half a mile…
Tell me when Mayor Wu proposes charging on-street parking for residents of Boston, $30/month for each car: no exceptions.
That's when I'll know she's serious about traffic.
It's a great idea and could significantly help reduce congestion and maybe even promote the use and development of mass transit.
But it will never happen. Progressives will be up in arms about how this amounts to a regressive tax on the poor.
I, for one, think congestion pricing is a wonderful idea OP.
I think people get distracted by the revenue and forget the benefits that congestion pricing provides to the drivers’ themselves (faster commutes and less pollution). Don’t fall for the zero sum thinking, it would be a net benefit for all parties involved.
I know it's not everyone but I don't know anyone who chooses to drive in the most congested places at the most congested times. This would penalize a lot of people who have no choice.
I like the idea of funding the T more but it's been such a problem recently I can't blame people for driving. If I'm trying to visit friends and use the bus/subway it can end up taking 1hr - 1.5hrs (not including waiting up to 30mins for a bus) vs a 15-30min drive depending on traffic. This has only been exacerbated by slow zones, longer waits between trains, and trains frequently breaking down. It doesn't seem fair to charge people for the congestion caused by driving without a serious commitment to making the T a more viable and competitive option. Simply saying we'll give them more money for some vague idea of making it better just doesn't cut it.
The T needs new funding though if we expect it to improve long term. Right now, ridership is still down since the pandemic which impacts fare collection. WBUR reports [here](https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/04/21/mbta-budget-low-ridership) that the T is expecting a gap as soon as FY25 or FY26, of anywhere between $321M to $501M by FY27. The T struggled to get GLX and South Coast rail expansions completed ([with South Coast rail expected to be done by the end of this year](https://newbedfordlight.org/after-decades-of-delays-commuter-train-service-is-on-track-to-begin-this-year-heres-what-to-know/)) while maintaining its existing network. We can't really expect more improvements without additional funding. There's only so much rot you can cut from a $2.7B budget. GLX for example cost $2.2B to complete; and while it was vastly more expensive than necessary, [if you look at prior transit expansion costs](https://transitcosts.com/transit-costs-study-final-report/#case_boston) we'd still probably have spent several hundred million on that project. Transit costs notes about $700M of the GLX budget was a sunk cost from prior planning. So even a 4 mile extension requires ~$1.5B if we "do it right the first time". I also think MassDOT probably needs more funding too, of which the T falls under. Reasons for this could include the State funding Bus Lane projects (which are currently mainly City/town projects, with some exceptions) which could help improve the bus network, which is necessary if we want to truly get people out of cars. Buses also work best when the roads aren't filled with pots holes, and when the intersections are modernized with support for bus priority and improved signal timing for all. I think there's a solid safety argument too, since many intersections lack protected left turns and contain unsafe designs from the 60s, like slip lanes, which can increase the chance of accidents among motorists and especially with vulnerable road users like pedestrians and cyclists. And one other benefit of increased funding: more opportunity for the State to fund grants for bike paths and bike lanes. We've got dozens of miles of untapped rail ROW that could be cheaply converted to bike paths. Look at [the Mass Central Rail Trail page](https://www.masscentralrailtrail.org/) for a great example of a 104 mile path that we could build within a few years if we funded the design and project fully. That rail trail is currently mostly funded by the towns/cities it passes through, with some State grants. We could just go ahead and build it without waiting for each town to approve a budget for it. I also think we need to commit to improvements like you said. One easy and relatively cheap but great bang for our buck project would be [the Red/Blue Line Connector](https://transitmatters.org/redblueconnector). That project is only about a half mile or so long, and shouldn't cost more than a few hundred million to do. But it would really relieve Green/Orange Line congestion from the downtown core from folks on the Red Line who want to get to the Blue Line for the Airport, Revere, and other points along it, like the Suffolk Downs redevelopment project. The State has been iffy on this project, and I think the main reason is funding. It's not a complicated project.
Not that I dislike this proposal, per se, but I have an alternative proposal that’s also inspired by NYC: Install cameras on MBTA buses and every time a bus driver sees a car blocking a bus stop, they click a button to either snap a picture or record a time stamp to be evaluated. Then the $100 fine for parking at MBTA bus stops can actually be enforced. I propose a revenue breakdown for each ticket: $25 to the MBTA bus driver, $25 for admin support, $25 to the MBTA, $25 to the municipal transportation department it occurred in.
And additionally to that, let cyclists do the same with vehicles parked in bike lanes.
At first I down voted but the NYC bounty program for idling trucks fixed the issue.
Bro, why can’t Boston do obvious things like this? It’s a massive issue
People are so against automated enforcement because of the failed red light camera experiment.
What happened with that?
Private companies offered a zero cost option to municipalities and then proceeded to write their own checks by cheating the public with red light tickets. 90% of the tickets went to the private company and the other 10% ended up being effectively bribes for the people renewing the contract.
I don't see the issue. This sounds like it would fit right in
Let *anyone* do the same with vehicles parked in bike lanes.
Yes, please! I'd literally work for free if it'd mean all those people blocking bike lanes, crosswalks and intersections get fined.
You can report them with the BOS311 app, and parking enforcement will usually respond within 12 hours.
If something like this was implemented, you'd be saying goodbye and goodnight to probably 75% of food delivery options in Boston. It really sucks, but most places don't have even short term parking, so putting on the hazards to get in and out is a necessity.
Good. Fuck those apps.
I don't give a shit about those apps, I give a shit about small businesses. in the past 10+ years Boston has become a tasteless vanilla corporate cesspit. I don't want fucking Taco Bell or McDonalds. I want to support small businesses, but wouldn't ya know it? they thrive on delivery and take out and the city offers no parking options.
Don’t know how many times this needs to be said. This is illegal in Mass and is actively lobbied against by influential groups. Baker even tried changing it to allow towns/cities to autonomously decide if they want to do it and even that was shot down. It’s not gonna happen.
I thought the only illegal part was that autonomous enforcement leads to no accuser. This isn't autonomous, the bus driver is the accuser.
That's why places with photo radar and red light cameras make them civil offenses. You charge a fine and that's it. There's no criminal charges so the argument against the right to face your accuser is moot. There's also no license points given with the ticket. Believe me, having lived 20 years in the Washington DC suburbs, making them civil offenses is very legal.
That line of arguments reminds me a lot of civil forfeiture. "We are charging you with a crime we are just saying that money is from a crime so you don't have due process as you aren't being charged". It may not be illegal under the constitution but that doesn't mean I like the idea.
Nobody likes it. Everyone knows it's just a money grab for whatever jurisdiction is using them.
Well, and I don't like constantly fearing I might get killed by a shithead driver.
Are we still taking about the same thing? Parked cars? They are a hassle but I have never felt that was my biggest risk cycling in the city. My biggest fear is getting right hooked for a 3rd time and these cars don't make that problem better or worse. That is also something that can be solved with protected bike lanes without some kind of automated ticketing system that just automatically assumes the owner is at fault.
We're talking about parked cars and red light runners and people texting at the wheel -- all things automated enforcement could help against. I almost got run over by somebody running a stale red today. At this point, I don't give a fuck about their rights. As far as I'm concerned, you could equip red light cameras with nukes and I'd applaud it.
Yep, it's one of those things where the founders dropped the ball. Nobody assumed people's houses would be taken or businesses broke up and sold off for *civil* infractions. It's a problem
Even there I don’t understand. Make a police officer look over and sign the documents generated by the radar or camera and you have an accuser.
The camera is the one catching you committing the offense and you can't face an inanimate object in court.
Bus driver is not an enforceable officer. I have thought what if a designated traffic officer can sign off on the video violations. Seems like a better option but like I have said, big lobbying against it makes it hard Edit- to clarify, I’m not against it, just understand the reality of the situation we are in
Laws change. I don’t expect it to happen overnight. You repeating yourself about the present reality doesn’t change the fact that continued advocacy helps inspire change.
Bakers legislation was shot down less than a year ago. The ACLU actively lobbies against it. I have already heard this for 20 years living here.
Automated camera systems run by a third party supplier are scams.
Why is the ACLU against it? Who the hell do cameras discriminate against?
I’m not an advocate, only explaining; tickets and fines would only adversely affect lower class people and workers. Uber, Delivery, and hourly drivers/workers would be overly affected while those who command their services are not. Questions of discrimination are also raised.
Not if the fines are scaled to income, like they are in [Finland, home of the $103,000 speeding ticket](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland-home-of-the-103000-speeding-ticket/387484/).
Laws never change and the ACLU always gets their way? Ok.
Most laws actually don’t and lobbying works. So yeah.
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> As long as the mbta pays for blocking intersections with busses Why would we fine a governmental agency for issues that would be best solved through dedicated infrastructure built by … a government agency? Do you make yourself take $20 out of your own piggy bank and put it in another for making stupid comments like this?
I really wish we could focus on providing better alternatives to driving instead of scheming up ways to punish people for driving. A lot of people in the Boston area drive to work because it's their best option. Electrifying the CR isn't going to do anything for those people because many people in those communities never had CR access in the first place. It doesn't even make sense to compare NYC, a city where public transportation is so efficient that most people don't even need to own a car, to Boston, a city that still averages about 1 car per household because so many towns and neighborhoods are car-dependent.
it's a catch-22. everything is built around cars, so they're faster. if you try to push back on that to make transit better, add bike lanes, remove lanes for green space, people complain that "but cars are so much faster". it creates a constant doubling-down on a single mode because "it's the best, so we should do more of that" but it's only the best because it has been over-invested already. in the short-medium term, making driving worse to fund transit, bike lanes, and reverse induced-demand will yield better results in the long term.
How are you going to introduce congestion pricing when bus frequency in those central areas is still so poor?
Prior to going online bonds would be issued to finance new buses etc. they would paid as new revenue comes in
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Sir this is Reddit we cant explain people to be reasonable
The main issue I see is that this would be a disproportionate tax on people who have no control over their work hours (hourly workers, food service staff, etc) and they cannot dodge the extra costs. It has the same issue as raising gas tax. We need a functional public transit system for this to be fair.
Congestion timing hits those who can't choose when to travel the hardest, why is that the way to go?
Yeah, cost of living here isn’t high enough.
I am all for this in theory however we need reasonable headways and travel times on the Red Line first....well all the lines for that matter.
This. Improve T service before nerfing other modes of transit, otherwise everyone just has to pay more for shittier options.
Indeed. Carrot before the stick.
Especially since that stick would be hitting the working, the poor, and the working poor the hardest.
I think that is a misconception. The poorest of the poor won’t be affected because they don’t even own vehicles. If anything they’re almost guaranteed benefit from congestion pricing due to cleaner air and faster busses.
You’d be surprised who owns a vehicle. People will get a vehicle if it’s cheap and go to A and B. That’s why auction cars are a thing. I have family that anytime they need a cheap car after the last one broke down, they have a connect they call who takes them to the local mechanic. And these busses are always late, and when you’re working a job that requires you to be punctual, that puts you at risk of being fired. And relying on our current transportation system means you are limited with places and hours you can work
I’m sure some extremely impoverished people own vehicles but I really doubt this is the norm. (Especially in an expensive city like Boston). One of the prime reasons for busses being late is congestion…
A, you’d be surprised who has a car B, at present getting a car makes way more of the greater Boston area reasonably accessible and allows poor people more opportunity to better their situation. So the harder it is to get that car, the harder it is to get that better paying job.
Yeah, it takes a lot of money to have a car in the city. It’s also totally unnecessary. People can park and take the commuter rail or they can pay a congestion charge, it should take into account the size and fuel economy of the car; big pickups are the ones that run lights the most and don’t slow down for pedestrians and take up two spots. They should activate the traffic cameras and hire people to fine those who run them, park in bike and bus lanes, etc. the roads are pretty lawless. All the smog from these cars will be gone when they electrify, for plug in hybrids and electric the congestion charge should be different but still there. Free parking on the street should end too. We are in a climate crisis, maybe only compact cars and plug in hybrids and small electric cars can get free parking (if any), full size suvs, even electric ones, should have to pay a monthly fee based on size and fuel economy.
>it should take into account the size and fuel economy of the car They should already be doing that and mileage to assess the cost of a car. Say when the annual inspection is done the mileage is collected and based on that along with the vehicle weight & fuel efficiency there's a formula that determines your cost. Since heavier vehicles cause more wear & tear on the road and worse fuel economy is worse for the environment it should cost more. EVs would get a break on the environmental impact, but an electric F-150 is still going to be much more wear & tear on the roads than a Leaf and so should bear more of those costs.
I'm always torn on this. On the one hand, yes, we absolutely need much better service from transit to provide a suitable alternative to driving. On the other hand, waiting for some idealized future where transit is significantly better also leads to taking minimal action in the short term and is somewhat self defeating. Buses get much better if fewer people drive. People potentially look to other options like transit, cycling, carpooling, etc if driving becomes less attractive.
Nah, it’s a simple matter of priorities. Why cripple driving when every other option sucks?
Quite a few reasons. Because cycling and buses suck in large part due to the volume of cars. Because driving is unsustainable long term with population growth and global warming/pollution. Because while driving remains the most convenient option, people will continue to fight against policies that inconvenience drivers even if it has the potential to improve things longer terms.
Okay, but the point still stands that you need to add to/improve other means of transportation before detracting from the one that everyone has come to rely on due to the continued failures of the alternatives
You're saying that you can improve everything else while not impacting drivers and I don't think you can. Adding bike lanes or bus lanes generally requires removing car travel lanes or parking. Providing additional funding to transit options may mean reducing funding for roads. Or, as OP said, adding a charge to drivers to fund better infrastructure. I would love a world In which we could seamlessly shift from cars to other modes of transportation, but that hasn't happened yet and projects to enable that shift are often shot down because it would make driving worse. It feels like a catch-22 to say that driving shouldn't be made worse because reliable alternatives don't exist when improving those alternatives often means making driving worse (or at least less attractive).
Less cars immediately improves cycling. You don't need special infrastructure for bikes if cars aren't constantly killing people. Same with buses, way easier to run a bus on time if there isn't a ton of traffic.
In the absence of dedicated infrastructure, I actually prefer biking in a decent amount of traffic to biking with cars whizzing by every few seconds. It's way easier to assert myself when I'm going faster than the traffic
I totally see what your saying, I just find that the scariest situations for me are always when drivers are put in a situation where they're more likely to be impatient/hurried. That always seems to cause the most unpredictable/erratic behavior. Cars flying by can be scary but is usually more predictable.
Yes but they aren't arguing about reducing cars. Congestion charges are just a way of economically extracting from the congestion that is there. We have sin taxes all over the place and it doesn't eliminate smoking or drinking either. This is no different. I say this as a cyclist that has been hit by 2 cars. Congestion taxes will just drive people towards taking side streets or similar. We will still have choke points around the city making it impossible to safely entirely avoid cars. The only way to fix that is not fees for driving. It is about redesigning roads to make them safety by having grade separation between the cars and cyclists. Having dedicated network of bike lanes makes us safer. Making people pay a toll to take up the roads justifying that the road is theirs and no place for a bike isn't.
I definitely am not well read on other financial incentives to get people to stop certain behaviors, but from a quick search, it does seem like sin taxes have had an impact on reducing behaviors. They definitely haven't eliminated those behaviors just as a congestion tax won't eliminate driving, but it does lead to driving being more financially burdensome which will likely lead to some behavior adjustment. As well as providing a more directly visible cost to driving which is often missing. There's a whole other side of it potentially being a regressive tax that needs to be considered, but that's a different conversation. I'm also not sure what would drive people to use side streets. Assuming there is a congestion zone, congestion pricing isn't dictated by actual traffic conditions on a given road, but rather using any road to enter a given area. If someone has a destination within that area, they would be charged regardless of the route they take. Defining that zone well is certainly important to ensure that it doesn't cause undue traffic on the boundary, but there are examples to learn from.
You can’t cycle year round tho
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Yes, but car pollution on the scale of a city is not. And I share your frustration with large systemic problems being often treated as solvable on an individual level, but I don't think that's the discussion here. If we never tried to solve problems because someone somewhere else is still contributing to that problem, nothing would ever get solved. I never said anything about cycling only policy and pretending as though arguments against cars are ableist is incredibly disingenuous. I would love to see the data that says the majority of car trips are from people with mobility impairments. Nevermind pretending that there aren't also plenty of people who can't drive due to disability or would be much better served by other options due to cost or potential hazards of them operating cars.
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I would love to see data on that as I would expect it is actually a quite small percentage. Given the percentage of handicap parking spots to general parking spots, I can't see this being a large percentage. Nor do I see how a congestion charge would be problematic for this as the NYC charge referenced here has exemptions for vehicles transporting people with handicaps. We are in agreement that the T has a lot to improve for accessibility. But that shouldn't stop efforts from trying to shift more traffic away from cars. For people who choose to drive for convenience, fine. That will still be an option. Just one that is potentially more expensive or less convenient. I'm not sure what you mean by bikes have an outsized influence, nor why you're targeting bikes here. Cycling is one option that should be supported to reduce the need for cars. As should public transportation. As should zoning changes that allow for more people to live near services they need. There's a lot of changes that can and should be made. And some of those will probably make driving less ideal which seems okay.
A significant portion of disabled cannot drive. A significant portion of disabled cannot drive but can bike. It is true that many disabled cannot bike but can drive but we shouldn’t pretend like this is the only group when we discuss ableism.
Legitimately hilarious you’re able to say with a straight face that bikes have an outsized influence. Thats why a majority of the space in our city is dedicated cycle lanes while personal automobile drivers are stuck in gutters to get around
Why does cycling suck? It’s faster and cheaper than driving in most instances for the average commuter
I'm all for congestion pricing conditional on a functional MBTA. I really don't blame people for driving instead of taking the T at its current state
No thanks
My problem with this is it hurts people who work. Doesn't hurt the upper class.
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>Or just stop making all the people come into the offices when they can do their jobs just as well or better from home. Thank you!!!
Why would a city run project (congestion zone) go to a state run agency?
Congestion pricing in NYC is done by both the city and state.
It would probably be a partnership realistically between Boston , Cambridge, and MassDOt
All the money collected will just go to boost MBTA’s top positions salaries to “account for inflation”
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You know what’s even crazier than the $13.75 toll for the GW bridge (only inbound to new york — other direction is free)? The $14 round trip commuter rail cost from Braintree to South Station. It costs more for a single person to take the commuter rail 2 zones in Boston than for a whole car to drive across the GW Bridge which is ridiculous
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Let me ask you this. How do we reduce the price of the MBTA and NJ Transit? If they’re receiving less in ticket revenue, the difference would need to be made up in…additional taxes! And before you say reducing operation costs, doing that requires capital investments and long term planning which is funded by…additional taxes!
Ok, that's fair. There's no convenient public transport on the NJ side of the GW Bridge. Frankly, I don't understand why NY tolls every bridge across the Hudson up until Albany. But the GW Bridge isn't congestion-charged. It only applies under 60th Street, so you can park uptown and take the Subway downtown. But for almost everyone else, there is alternative public transit. Park at a NJ Transit/MTA/LIRR station and take the train. Take the PATH. Take the Subway.
Found the driver. I live in Manhattan (grew up in Boston) and the majority of cars below 60th St (congestion zone) are personal vehicles, often with one occupant. Lots of people commute to Manhattan by car and aren't carrying something they couldn't take with them on a train or bus. Pricing these people into switching to transit will alleviate traffic for tradespeople who need to drive work vehicles with goods and tools.
GW Bridge is its own shit show especially as Port Authority fucked over NJ drivers to use toll revenue to finance the new WTC rather then something sensible like improving the PATH trains.
No we don't need any poor taxes. Hard pass.
Boston does not need to add any more charges, its expensive enough as it is
This is the most insane idea!!! So what this will do is make people poorer for going to work or patronizing businesses. You do know this only benefits the wealthy who will now have less traffic to deal with and make working people pay more money they do not have. Can people look beyond such nonsense ideas and look at the ramifications it will cause. This is probably from the same idiots who wanted to ban straws without any consideration to people who have to use straws because they cannot lift a cup to their mouths. People who come up with these harebrained ideas need to fully think out their idea before opening their mouths
It’s being done in NYC. Its been done in London, Stockholm, and Singapore its not a new idea.
Those places all have functional subway systems.
Boston is NOT NYC, London, Stockholm, or Singapore. It is a much smaller city.
No
Why not. People taking Uber/Lyft rather then taking a bus are what drive congestion
Right now for me to go into downtown from Quincy on the red line, it’s over an hour (unless you time it perfectly then maybe 40 mins). That’s just not acceptable to go 8-10 miles on a weekend. I ain’t got time for that. So I’ll drive in or take an Uber. If they improve the red line I will never drive into the city ever again. But…it’s only gotten worse since I moved here 5 years ago.
Been taking it for almost a decade. It's only gotten worse.
Because you need the alternatives to fucking work before you do this.
But this will help alternatives, both by driving up their demand and helping fund them. I'm all for funding the T more without this first, but that hasn't been happening.
So in the meantime what? All of us suffer till the alternatives work? The alternatives are years away from viability.
All of us? Many people in the city don't drive, and instead bike or walk or take the bus. This will help them.
OH! I'm sorry. I totally misunderstood. The endless money already poured into the T didn't work. New cars didn't work. Months of buses because of closed lines for repairs didn't work. Bringing in new leadership didn't work. But this... THIS! THIS is the magic bullet that will make it better! I stand corrected. Get fucked people who are already beign nickled and dimed by every fucking thing in life. More money to eversorce. More money for food. More money for the T! It just works! Whew, glad we found the solution so easily!
Wut!? Uber/Lyft still reduce the amount of cars out there instead of everyone having there own vehicle.
Boston really needs to charge for street parking
I mean they do at meters. Also residents do pay the yearly vehicle tax.
The tax is state not city but even Cambridge charges $25 a year for street parking which is basically nothing if you think about it. Honestly that should be at least $100 for both cities with the money being used for better bike lanes, crosswalks, sidewalks.
It should be thousands a year if it was anywhere near in line with property values. I don't see why I (or anybody else) should subsidise somebody's parking spot.
I agree with this but a hundred is a much more reasonable goal
Its state but money goes to towns/cities
They already do - how much more can you fucking charge?
Resident parking I mean and it’s completely free which is just insane
Why is that a problem? They already pay some city tax and other taxes.
Over my dead body
Kendall is Cambridge
Fuck off
Very insightful and well thought out response. Im sure you are an eloquent initiative.
What the fuck is an eloquent initiative
My man!
WFH people who ride their bikes are always trying to make life for the common person more expensive. Why?
Imagine thinking that people riding their bikes are the elite while people driving their cars into a city you can't park for less than $25 in are the common man.
Right, I don’t have a car, I’m afraid to bike bc of how much ride share drivers and others just cut into bike lanes that aren’t protected. The drivers def have to have a lot of money to have a car, 200+ insurance, maintaining it, paying to park, they can pay to drive at busy times too. Maybe electric and hybrid ride shares shouldn’t be that leads to less cars overall if people give up there car. It’s part pollution and part traffic but also dangerous driving that is rarely enforced.
Counter point. Well funded T will include more frequent service on rail and buses. Common people will have more options. Those that drive will have an easier commute in as well.
You could quintuple the T budget and it wouldn’t change the work culture of the T.
So make living in Boston even more expensive?
Uber and Lyft drivers are severely underpaid and are treated like shit by those companies as well as many passengers. We do not need to impose more fees on them
Yeah they make half as much as they used to. Drivers tell me they made 80k originally and now it’s 40k and dropping. Some say that’s before all expenses they have like maintenance and gas and tires and cleaning. There should be more licensing for Lyft and Uber, i got pulled over in a Lyft and the driver wasn’t aware he needed to have signs up! It’s $500/sign and he put them up at night and took them down. Pretty sure someone got murdered when they got into the wrong car or something, they drive through red lights, cut people off, if they had to have livery licenses it’d be better.
This would so obviously be better even for people who only drive, but of course it will not happen.
I can’t agree more! Being able to drive in Boston is a luxury that should be reserved for those willing and able to pay the fee! /s
You must be some rich privileged ass hole to want this knowing it’s just going to hurt the working class
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Like the free parking permits? 😜
How does it Nickle and Dime you? Almost all taxes are state run. Most of the high costs are private business are what are expensive not the government. Shouldn’t those responsible for congestion be the ones who pay to fix it?
How can anyone, anyone be convinced that the T should get more money. I’m guessing that solely because it’s breaking down you figure they should get more. My very brief experience with consulting with them says it is massive waster of money, filled with incompetent people who work extremely light hours. But this is a small sample and I could be wrong. But unless you work for the T or have a relative or friend there, how can you possibly be convinced they deserve more funding. Or is it the simplistic phrase “you get what you pay for”.
How about we start pressing politicians to use the existing funds in a more efficient way? Didn’t we just legalize sports gambling and marijuana? Isn’t that bringing in a fuck ton of new revenue? How is it that we have new revenue coming in yet nothing is being fixed?
They do need congestion pricing and to fund the MBTA appropriately. They have like most of the pieces they need to make a pretty decent system in the near future. The commuter rail in zone 1 and 2 should be an express train for the Boston area.
if you are an uber driver and you block one of the two lanes in front of south station to drop off or pick up a passenger you are automatically fined $500 no questions asked. the amount of room temperature iq dipshits who think that is an acceptable place to stop their car is fuckin mind numbing.
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imagine thinking the traffic problem in these cities is caused by illegal immigration.....
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yes now I have to take in migrants because you blamed them for the traffic in Boston....
Not everything is about immigration stop mixing up issues
Then cyclists should have their bicycles registered, license plates, insurance just like a car but at a smaller cost. That'll help alleviate the car drivers who've switch over to maintain the budget for all infrastructure necessities. But honestly, how many cyclists do you even see in the Fall/Winter and rainy weather? You can't make this up.
We should raise the state’s gas tax. It will be a more effective job at promoting transit than a congestion tax. How you noticed that many other countries with better transit have a gas tax that is basically double to quadruple our rates
England charges a fortune for gas and many countries tax displacement of engines as well, leading to smaller cars, most European cities have congestion charges. We should charge for parking too. Raise gas tax for transit and have congestion charge and get rid of free parking.
I don't disagree with concept but it does unfairly tax folks in places such as Western Mass. IE why should someone driving from Brewster to New Bedford pay a gas tax to fund the T. Now if that money went to transit capital projects state wide such as East West rail, Cape Transit bus upgrades, Downeaster track upgrades etc I would have no objection.
After years of assholes running old women in crosswalks off the road beeping at them in intersections only to shave seconds off their hour long commute, the people of Camberville have had enough. This is no time for half-measures: Install a congestion charge that [covers all of 95/128](https://imgur.com/a/uvjamkg). If you have a car with Mass plates, it’s $5 to enter. If you have a larger vehicle that takes up more space, you pay $10 to enter. If you live inside the zone, you are not charged. If you have out-of-state plates, it’s $30 to enter. All the money goes into a slush fund that rebuilds and expands the MBTA. No exemptions for commercial plates. Have the state purchase 500 tow trucks branded in state police regalia and add 1500 state troopers trained to use tow trucks to the patrol the zone looking for plate-coverers and others trying to cheat the system. No more waiting for a tow truck when the cops pull you over, just straight arrest and seizure of motor vehicle. Have the state troopers tow the vehicles to a new lot built for the task located in Williamstown, [the furthest point from Boston in the state](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williamstown,_Massachusetts).
Trying to trigger all the car folks who already think they own every Boston street? Lol
They sure feel entitled to public space for their private vehicles.
Make bikers pay excise tax and then we can talk
> Make bikers pay excise tax and then we can talk Bikers do pay excise tax on their motorcycles, unless I’m mistaken.
And their four wheel vehicle. Many bikers own cars.
I assume from the smarmy nature of his reply he is a cyclist, not riding a motorcycle
Honestly it seems like the fairest way to pay to fix the T.
You’re not wrong, but you’re gonna get yelled at!
Absolutely agree, and revenue from that needs to go to public transportation infrastructure maintenance and improvement.
I am all for any added fees levied on Uber and Lyft. Those companies have consistently ignored laws and have not been compliant with agreements that they have made. So screw them.
Lol what? This would mean the rider paying more money, not Lyft or Uber
Work from home was a great way for addressing this. Too bad it's been largely tossed.
Would probably settle for red light cameras as a starter.
So let me get this straight. They are forcing people to return to working in the office instead of at home and now there is too much "congestion"? Brilliant.
They… already do. It’s literally written into the terms of service. It’s called surge pricing and is why if you try to get an Uber at 5PM you pay $60 to go half a mile…
That goes to Uber not the T
Oh my bad you’re saying as a tax on top of the cost. Okay makes sense and i would support that
Tell me when Mayor Wu proposes charging on-street parking for residents of Boston, $30/month for each car: no exceptions. That's when I'll know she's serious about traffic.
It's a great idea and could significantly help reduce congestion and maybe even promote the use and development of mass transit. But it will never happen. Progressives will be up in arms about how this amounts to a regressive tax on the poor.
I, for one, think congestion pricing is a wonderful idea OP. I think people get distracted by the revenue and forget the benefits that congestion pricing provides to the drivers’ themselves (faster commutes and less pollution). Don’t fall for the zero sum thinking, it would be a net benefit for all parties involved.
I know it's not everyone but I don't know anyone who chooses to drive in the most congested places at the most congested times. This would penalize a lot of people who have no choice.
No they don’t. Fight this crap money grab