Transportation Solutions News

State’s Use of Stimulus Dollars for Public Transportation Improvements in Boston and Western Massachusetts will Add Jobs and Mobility

BOSTON, May 4, 2009—Governor Patrick announced plans Monday to use approximately $54 million in federal economic stimulus funds to transform existing bus service from Mattapan to Dudley Square into bus rapid transit with dedicated bus lanes, longer buses, and more frequent service running down the middle of Blue Hill Avenue. The Executive Office of Transportation also plans to extend the existing Silver Line on Washington Street to South Station via a dedicated bus lane on Essex Street that will replace on-street parking spaces.

Last month Patrick joined Congressman John Olver at a groundbreaking ceremony in Greenfield for the $12.8 million Franklin Regional Transit Center that will support public and private transit services, with the goal of encouraging future passenger rail along the Connecticut River corridor from Connecticut to Vermont.

Projects will have particularly high rates of high job-creation

Both projects will maximize the available federal money to create the most jobs possible and substantially improve public transportation. Both projects are funded from the federal “Surface Transportation Program” (STP). The STP is often misnamed the “highway” program, but, notes the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group (MASSPIRG) Transit Advocate Eric Bourassa, can be spent on just about any surface transportation project—not just highways.

“Bottom line, public transportation projects create about 30% more jobs per dollar than new roads and bridges,” said Bourassa, pointing to a 2009 University of Massachusetts-Amherst study showing that public transportation is at the high end of possible uses for the STP funds:

Table 2.1. Employment Impacts per $1 Billion in Infrastructure Spending

Source: Heintz, Pollin, Garrett-Peltier (2009), Tables 3.1 and 3.7.

Projects will add mobility to places that need it

Bourassa also noted that in the case of the Blue Hill Avenue project, the funding will benefit a part of Boston underserved by rapid transit connections, with a large low-income transit dependent population.

“This investment will create jobs at both ends,” said Bourassa. “By building better transportation systems as well as improving the way people get to work and home every day, these projects will go a long way toward improving our economy and giving commuters real options.”

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