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Assessment of Community Planning for Mass Transit: Volume 3—Boston Case Study

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Assessment of Community Planning for Mass Transit: Volume 3—Boston Case Study Assessment of Community Planning for Mass Transit: Volume 3—Boston Case Study February 1976 NTIS order #PB-252681 OFFICE OF TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT DIRECTOR’S OFFICE Emilio Q. Daddario, Director Daniel V. De Simone, Dcputy Director URBAN MASS TRANSIT ADVISORY PANEL George Krambles, Chairman, Chicago Transit Authority Walter J. Bierwagen Bernard M. Oliver Amalgamated Transit Union Hewlett-Packard Corporation Robert A. Burco Simon Reich Oregon DOT Gibbs and Hill Jeanne J. Fox Thomas C. Sutherland, Jr. Joint Center for Princeton University Political Studies Frederick P. Salvucci Lawrence A. Goldmuntz Massachusetts DOT Economics and Science Planning Dorn McGrath Stewart F. Taylor George Washington University Sanders and Thomas, Inc. OTA TRANSPORTATION PROGRAM STAFF Gretchen S. Kolsrud, Program Manager Mary E. Ames Larry L. Jenney V. Rodger Digilio Bev Johnson Thomas E. Hirsch, 111 Teri Miles CONTRACTORS Skidmore, Owings and Merrill System Design Concepts, Inc. 111 PREFACE This report on urban transportation planning in the Boston, Massachusetts metropolitan area is one of nine case studies undertaken by the Office of Technology Assessment to provide an information base for an overall assessment of community planning for mass transit. The findings of the overall study are reported in the summary document, An Assessment of Community Planning for Mass Transit, which forms the first volume of this series. The assessment was performed at the request of the Committee on Appropriations of the U.S. Senate, on behalf of its Transportation Subcommittee. The study was directed by the Office of Technology Assessment’s Transportation Program Staff with guidance and review provided by the OTA Urban Mass Transit Advisory Panel. The firms of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and System Design Concepts, Inc., were contractors for the study. This assessment is a joint effort, identifying different possible points of view but not necessarily reflecting the opinion of any individual. INTRODUCTION This report assesses how one of nine major The assessment of transit planning in each of the United States metropolitan areas made its decisions nine metropolitan areas has been an inquiry into an about the development or modernization of rail evolving social process. Consequently, the study transit. results more closely resemble historical analysis The assessment of the nine cities attempts to than classical technology assessment. identif y the factors that help communities, facing This study employs a set of evaluation guidelines critical technological choices, make wise decisions to orient the investigation in the nine metropolitan that are consistent with local and national goals for areas and to provide the basis for comparative transit. The study investigates the following issues: judgments about them. The guidelines were derived from issues identified during preliminary • Are there major barriers to communication visits to the metropolitan areas, a review of Federal and cooperation among governmental requirements for transit planning, and an in- agencies involved in transit planning and vestigation via the literature into the state-of-the- operating ? Do these barriers interfere with art in the field. making sound decisions ? The evaluation guidelines cover major topics which were investigated during the case assess- ● Do transit decisions reflect the combined ment process. They deal with the character of the interests of all major public groups, in- institutional arrangements and the conduct of the cluding citizen organizations, trade unions, technical planning process. the business community, and others? ● Does the planning process provide enough information about the advantages and GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSMENT: disadvantages of alternative courses of INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT action to provide a solid basis for making decisions ? Some of the most significant influences on ● Does the availability or lack of financing, or transit planning are exerted by the organizations the conditions under which financing has responsible for conducting the planning and been provided, unnecessarily limit the making the decisions. Three guidelines were used range of options that are considered? to evaluate the institutional arrangements in the nine metropolitan areas: The ultimate purpose of the work has been to cast light on those prospective changes in national ● Agencies responsible for various aspects of transit policy and administrative programs which transit decisionmaking should cooperate might improve, in different ways and to different effectively in a clearly designated “forum”. extents, the way communities plan mass transit systems. The nine cities were selected to represent ● The participants in this forum should have the full range of issues that arise at different stages properly designated decisionmaking in the overall process of planning and developing a authority, and the public should have transit system. formal channels for holding decision- makers accountable for their actions. San Francisco, for example, has the first regional rail system built in decades, while Denver is ● Citizens should participate in the transit planning an automated system, and voters in planning process from its beginning and Seattle have twice said “no” to rail transit funding should have open lines of communication proposals. with decision makers. vii GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSMENT: representative of the transportation planning TECHNICAL PLANNING PROCESS institution and other main participants in the local planning process. The visits were supplemented by interviews with UMTA officials in Washington. The technical planning process provides the Pertinent documents—official plans, reports, information that public officials and their con- studies, and other material—were reviewed in each stituents draw upon in making plans and decisions. case. Four guidelines were used to assess the technical The information thus collected was used in planning process in the nine metropolitan areas: compiling a history of the transit planning process in each case area, organized around key decisions ● Broad, explicit goals and objectives should such as the decision to study transit, the selection of guide technical planning and decision- a particular transit system, and public ratification making. of the decision to pay for and build the system. The main political, institutional, financial and technical ● A range of realistic alternative solutions characteristics affecting the conduct of the plan- should be developed. ning process were then assessed in light of the ● The evaluation of these alternatives should evaluation guidelines. give balanced consideration to a full range The same set of guidelines used in assessing each of goals and objectives. case metropolitan area was employed in making a ● A practical and flexible plan for financing generalized evaluation of the metropolitan ex- and implementation should be developed. perience. The results of the generalized evaluation are summarized in the report, An Assesstnenf of Community Planning for Mass Transit: Summary Report, During visits to each of the nine metropolitan issued by the Office of Technology Assessment in areas, the study team interviewed the principal February 1976. Vlll .— CONTENTS SUMMARY AND HIGHLIGHTS . 1 METROPOLITAN SETTING . 3 General Characteristics . 3 Existing Passenger Transportation System . 6 Transportation Planning Institutions . 8 CRITICAL HISTORY OF TRANSIT PLANNING AND DECISIONMAKING . 11 Decision to Reevaluate Highway Plans: The Moratorium . 11 Decision to Recommend Transit Improvements: The BTPR . 14 Steps Toward Implementing Transit Improvements . 18 CHRONOLOGY OF THE TRANSIT PLANNING PROCESS . 21 ASSESSMENT OF THE PLANNING AND DECISIONMAKING PROCESS . 23 Institutional Context . 23 Technical Planning Process . 26 SUMMARY CASE ASSESSMENT . 33 ix Summary and Highlights New light rail vehicles operate test runs on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s Green Line . Boston’s rapid transit system is one of the ● Unlike recent highway and airport oldest and most extensive in the country. controversies—both of which have arous- Because of its age and pattern of ed vigorous and polarized debate piecemeal growth through evolutionary throughout the Boston area—proposals stages, the Boston transit system incor- for expansion and improvement of the porates a melange of technologies: rapid transit and commuter rail system have not transit, streetcar trolley, trackless trolley, engendered significant organized op- commuter rail, and bus. In addition, position on basic ideological grounds. tunnels and vehicles in the four subway The consensus in favor of transit has been lines have different dimensions and both an asset and a liability. On the one operating characteristics. These physical hand, opposition to increased capital features constrain the operating efficien- investment in transit has been minimal. cy of the total system. On the other hand, proposed transit projects and new approaches to the ● Boston’s transit work force is among the highest paid in the country, with a delivery of transit services have not minimum annual salary for unionized received the same degree of critical workers totaling $14,000. The transit analysis and evaluation as have other unions, which have strong supporters in modes. the State legislature, have been . The Boston Transportation Planning successful in negotiating favorable con- Review (BTPR) changed the Boston area tract agreements. transportation planning process by 1 creating an
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