>The high speed train they discussed seems like a no brainer to me. In my head i’m envisioning this rail extending into areas of MA that have not reached capacity (Western) & giving those areas access to higher paying jobs in or near the city: •less traffic/less people traveling on the roads. More people traveling by rail. •people can live further away and still work in a city. •more affordable housing

People in WMA hate this idea because it means getting priced out of neighborhoods they've been in for generations. They'd much prefer Boston unfuck it's own capacity. Build multifamily housing. Make rail accessible without cars. Make the T functional, or at least not insolvent. Make it connect to places other than main Boston to reduce the need for cars. Hell, develop other cities that aren't Boston instead of turning a coastal city into a hub to build residential spokes off of. There's options that don't involve crushing people.

Also, WMA never gets higher paying jobs from state policy. The state simply sucks them dry and destroys their industry and then whinges about paying for their mistakes.

Before spending money on a high speed train, we could look at denser housing options within 1 mi of commuter rail stations. You may be surprised by the lack of density not far outside the city. Just check out the google arial view around the stations

>It sounded like we are at the point where we either come up with new solutions or we may begin to become economically stagnant

Certainly but I don't think the right solution is to spend billions on a new high-speed rail.

First thing, we can't even agree on spending money to fix & maintain the MBTA. How are we supposed to build a new high-speed rail and fix the MBTA and maintain both of them when we can't even handle what's on our plate right now?

Second thing, we still have a ton of opportunity to add more housing and better public transportation closer to Boston in a smart, impactful way. We're nowhere near the point where we need to start tapping into the Springfield / Hartford area workforce.

I was listening to a podcast a few weeks ago about housing in America and they specifically mentioned that Boston has been behind on building housing since the 1970s. High speed rail won't fix that. They need to get more multifamily housing and make living in the city more feasible and affordable. I also don't see a highspeed rail working especially well until the T is in better condition.

>First thing, we can't even agree on spending money to fix & maintain the MBTA. How are we supposed to build a new high-speed rail and fix the MBTA and maintain both of them when we can't even handle what's on our plate right now?

This is such a good point. I’m surprised no-one called in and brought this up.

>People in WMA hate this idea because it means getting priced out of neighborhoods they've been in for generations.

I can certainly sympathize with that. We’re seeing the effects of Boston pricing people out all the way in Worcester. Good thing for home owners & landlords. Terrible for renters.

>Good thing for home owners & landlords. Terrible for renters.

Awful for families, too. You're not going to see each other as often when you're force to move to another county or another state by high prices. I think it contributes to the loneliness crisis, too. Being pulled away from your friends makes it hard to socialize again

MA hates any kind of change or basically, doing anything new.

We will see NY get highspeed rail long before MA. MA, is too moribund.

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, Authorities were the place where politicians stuffed their friends, donors and campaign workers and these were good jobs at good wages with pensions. And MA has to pay those pensions now. So the Authorities have one hand tied behind its back. My recollection is that MBTA ridership has been declining with more WFH. I looked at the vacancy rates for Boston office properties and I think that it's around 25%. So there certainly doesn't seem to be a need for high-speed rail. What would make sense is to turn that office space into residential units. Probably unpopular with the owners as office space is typically more valuable.

High speed rail... from where to where?

And overcrowding? Where? 40% of the city of Boston is still zoned single-family (with the rest of the state already heavily subsidizing Boston's public transit).

What we need is to require super-dense zoning (at least 5 story) anywhere near subway lines, multifamily zoning anywhere inside 128, and denser housing inside 495 and anywhere around commuter rail [edit; this last one - near commuter rail - is being partly implemented under a new law... but Boston got itself exempted]. With enough density we can have enough transit use to upgrade existing public transit and reduce the cars on the road. Spending billions on new transit in sparsely populated areas is just burning money - even worse, because you are wasting money that could have been put to better use.

Even with single-family housing, there are many 10s of thousands of existing lots inside 495 that could be subdivided if the state had more support for adding/expanding town water and sewer.

We don't need the forests and farms west of Worcester to be paved over with even more 1.5 acre subdivisions, and all the associated traffic and other sprawl - basically, we shouldn't aim to be another Houston/Dallas/Phoenix with metro areas literally as big or bigger than the whole state of NJ, and almost as big as all of MA (in area, but with much smaller populations). We can do better.

Rather than high-speed rail to nowhere, I would much rather pay even more for (as an example) a rail line from the Quincy Adams MBTA stop, up 128 to the Woburn intermodal transit station (basically I93 to I93), and have stations where it crosses MBTA lines, and also a bunch of big parking garages at major junctions (like 24, 9, 2, 3, etc). That would be an enormous economic engine for the state, without further intensifying the terribly Boston-centric hub-and-spoke MBTA system.

And then save the high speed rail money for upgrading Amtrak.

Note, WGBH is simply terrible on subjects like this, they assume all economic growth should only be in the city of Boston, and most of the rest of the state merely exists to be bedroom communities for Boston.

MBTA ridership is now back up to around 70%. Which is higher than other transit agencies. Just because some people can work from home, doesn't mean that everyone can. In fact most of the people that really keep the city functioning do not work from home.

https://www.wgbh.org/news/national-news/2022/12/05/boston-public-radio-full-show-dec-5-2022

Connecting the major hubs (Boston to NYC etc.). That would shorten the ride to NY from 4 hours to 90 minutes. Rather than me trying to recollect everything you can listen to the segment for yourself if you’re interested. I haven’t dug in enough to educate myself to the point where I can lean hard one way or the other — but I thought it was a really interesting discussion.

It starts in the segment with Seth Moulton around 15:20 and ending around 51:25 mark.

The only problem is, the commuter rail is a fucking joke running on ancient technology. Fix that first.

Also, and I know this will come as news to many....

Not everyone works in Boston!

Gasp!

To be fair, Beacon Hill thinks the exact same way.

A few comment:

- The high speed rail discussion had nothing to do directly with MA. It was a general US discussion, with a later talk about the north-south rail link. I didn't hear anything about something being overcrowded.

- The reason China can do rail like they do is because China can have someone knock on your door and tell you to get out by next week so they can tear down your house to make a rail line. It is disingenuous bordering on dishonest to randomly compare us to China on things like that without qualifying the comment. Around 1.5 million were evicted just to make space for the Beijing Olympics.

- Dukakis was a lying sack of crap in 1991 on the cost of the "big dig". Why anyone would believe him (or even bother to quote him) on lower cost estimates of a north-south link is eye-rolling. I'm no Republican, but I'll go with Baker's numbers.

- There are several good reasons to complete the north-south rail link. But so that someone in Salem can get a job south of Boston probably isn't one of those good reasons. In fact I think it is a pretty dumb reason considering the huge cost, but it was a north shore politician saying it. Yes, it may open up some job opportunities, but it won't reduce much car traffic. What it really does is allow the MBTA to shrink the rail yards at North/South stations, have better commuter rail scheduling, and allow Amtrak to connect NYC to points north much more easily. If Amtrak pays for half, it might be a good investment. If it is just for a few easier commutes, a regular free shuttle between north and south station will be $billions cheaper.

- I was a impressed that Moulton mentioned 500 mile rail distance for HSR. The "green new deal" numpkins go on about nationwide high speed rail. In the US, very few will ever use trains for any long distances. Concentrate on where it will really work, which are those places where HSR can be time-competitive with air.

- Unfortunately if they were being honest and competent about high speed rail, they would directly address the various articles (including in the NYT) of why train projects cost 3x-4x in the US vs. pretty much everywhere else in the world, including western Europe, rather than just "blame congress". The HSR mess in California is an example of that.

Good luck convincing the wealthier towns to build. Doesn't Wellesley have 3 stops?

It seems crazy to spend billions on a high speed train when it can routinely take an hour to get from Newton Center to South Station (8 miles) but whatever.

I’m a middle aged upper middle class white guy with glasses. I love NPR. I love it. But they screen the hell out of calls to fit an editorial narrative.

I'd be pretty happy if western Mass could get regular rail service to Boston.

I meant overcrowding in terms of car traffic. Although the HSR convo was about the US in general I was thinking about how the HSR running to Boston would help solve some of Massachusetts problems if it were to happen. Thanks for taking the time to listen and generate some solid feedback outlining why it’s not all that simple. It would be a much more balanced show if people like you would call in and challenge some of their talking points. I agree with all the points you make here. I’ll look into the NYT article that explains why it would cost 3X/4X more in the US.

Haha ikr. I think about this often.

The worcester commuter rail line worked well for me for 5yrs. There were some delays but nothing noteable or systemic. I don't work in Boston anymore but it was a fine commute into town once I moved out to the suburbs

Well, in recent years it hasn't been doing well. At all.

It is also insanely antiquated with zero willingness by the powers that be to electrify or expand the network. The hours are a joke. And it is expensive for what it is.

He'll, the whole MBTA is dysfunctional.

More rail, and more importantly, BETTER rail, would surely help.

Getting rid of this concept that everything has to be built in/around Boston would also help.