BOSTON -- Advocates for clean transportation are fighting a proposed ballot initiative, which would prevent Massachusetts from taxing gas and other fuels.

The ballot initiative is in response to the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI) supported by Gov. Charlie Baker, a multistate commitment to a "cap and invest" policy in which fossil-fuel-emitting power plants, gas and diesel suppliers pay for the emissions they generate.

Josh Ostroff, interim director of Transportation for Massachusetts, said dropping the gas tax would do more than reject the TCI program, and contended it would put a huge portion of the Commonwealth's transportation funding at risk.

"If this ballot question takes away that revenue source, then we're going to have to find another way to repair our roads and bridges, to fund public transportation, and to make the kinds of repairs and upgrades in the face of climate change," Ostroff pointed out.

Environmental groups have also criticized TCI for not going far enough, and not focusing on communities on the front lines of the climate crisis.

But Ostroff argued there are other ways to bypass TCI, without wiping out a billion dollars in transportation funding. Backers of the initiative are now gathering signatures, after the Attorney General cleared it as technically constitutional.

Ostroff added powerful interests are supporting the ballot initiative, including the petroleum industry, but he asserted it is important to limit fossil-fuel emissions, especially on the heels of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's recent report calling climate change a "Code Red for humanity."

"The 90-degree-plus days we've had across Massachusetts, or the amount of rainfall that we've had and the catastrophic storms that we've experienced, show that human-caused climate change is truly a crisis that threatens the well-being of every community and every person," Ostroff remarked.

He noted many areas have structurally deficient bridges, hundreds of miles of substandard roads and inadequate bus service, and warned losing the state's gas-tax revenue would only allow problems to worsen.

Wisconsin's largest city has seen recent debate over highway expansion plans amid environmental concerns, and a new study suggested for similar projects, some effects could be limited if narrower traffic lanes are prioritized.

The expansion plan in Milwaukee involves a stretch of Interstate 94. Research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health was more focused on urban roadways with speed limits of around 35 miles an hour.

Shima Hamidi, director of the Center for Climate-Smart Transportation and assistant professor of public health at Johns Hopkins University who helped lead the study, said switching from lane widths between 11 and 12 feet, long the norm, down to 9 feet helps reduce traffic collisions. She pointed out it also leaves more room for options not involving vehicles.

"It will help many people to switch from driving to other modes of transportation, such as biking and walking," Hamidi explained. "Which could result in greenhouse gas emission reductions from transportation."

The study contended with narrower lanes, people will not feel compelled to drive as fast and will be more alert. Hamidi acknowledged while the approach might slow traffic, past research shows minimal effects, which means the changes would not cancel out environmental benefits. Other studies have shown expanding the number of lanes, in general, does not reduce congestion.

Hamidi also noted transportation planners and engineers have expressed liability concerns, but she emphasized her team's study is one of the first to give cities and states firm data, on the traffic safety side, showing skinnier lanes are more effective.

"We are getting more and more interest from transportation planners, mostly at the local level," Hamidi observed. "Cities are eager and interested to really see how this could be implemented."

Hamidi added the next steps involve more research to quantify some of the other impacts, including air pollution. The study issued this month analyzed nearly 1,200 streets in seven cities around the
U.S. The findings come amid a gradual increase in pedestrian fatalities over the past decade.


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A Connecticut Department of Transportation study has outlined plans to make Hartford a walkable city.

The Greater Hartford Mobility Study proposes projects to increase safety and reduce highway congestion in Connecticut's capital region.

One proposal in the study calls for burying portions of I-84 and I-91. Moving sections of the highways underground would call for the building of new bridges crossing the Connecticut River for people to use bikes or e-scooters.

Jay Stange, coordinator for Transport Hartford Academy, said despite the benefits of this study, there are some deficiencies.

"This project also continues to route very high volumes of interstate traffic right through the center of the neighborhoods in the north end of Hartford," Stange pointed out. "All of the air-quality impacts are going to continue with this project as it's conceptualized."

Data Haven's 2023 Community Well-Being Index found Hartford residents are almost 2.5 times more likely to go to the emergency room for asthma compared with residents of nearby towns.

Although a timeline for the projects is uncertain, there has been some opposition to the I-84 rerouting. Stange is confident as the project continues in the development phase, it will shift into a project all people can get behind.

As the project gets underway, there have been differences on how to approach it. One recommendation is a bottom-up approach, meaning slower work to remove I-84 on ramps, reconnecting the North End of the city, and implementation of bus rapid transit. Stange described the other approach being considered.

"On the other end, we have a top-down approach; a very large transformative approach that approaches the double-digit billion-dollar price tag," Stange observed.

He noted people are wary of how to proceed given large-scale projects from the 1960s had negative impacts on Hartford. Stange added people are looking to combine both approaches to get the best version of this project for the city.

New York advocates want to see changes made to MTA's 20-year needs assessment.

Along with infrastructure modernization work, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's assessment proposes making most New York City Subway and Long Island Railroad stations handicap accessible by 2045. However, policy experts feel it's missing certain elements.

Rachael Fauss, senior policy advisor for Reinvent Albany, said they need a cost estimate for bringing the entire New York Subway system up to a state of good repair.

"Without having an estimate of the cost, both in the short term, so over a five-year period, and then also a 20-year period, there's nothing to measure the forthcoming capital plan against," she said. "You can't know if the right investments are being made if you don't have a place to start from."

She added that previous needs assessments have included cost estimates, but the repair and service needs were highlighted more.

Along with Reinvent Albany, the Citizens Budget Commission is also calling for transparency in the price of the assessment and upcoming Capital Plan. While the assessment talks about such expansion projects as the Second Avenue Subway and the Interborough Express, Fauss said she feels full system repairs must be a priority.

She's also concerned about spending overruns on long-term projects that can develop even when costs are laid out in detail. The East Side Access project, bringing the Long Island Railroad to Grand Central Terminal, saw billions of dollars in cost overruns in 2018. But, Fauss noted that unforeseen circumstances make developing costs estimates harder.

"I think there is some understanding that inflation and factors the MTA can't control," she said, "supply limitations, vendors to do the job; there are things that are out of their control."

In spite of this, Fauss is insistent on at least having a cost estimate for the first five years of the capital plan and needs assessment. Although MTA has implemented cost estimates on projects that had significant cost overruns, she noted it can serve as a benchmark for progress.


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