Benefits of Good transit-oriented Infrastructure
With well-funded, large-scale infrastructure and transit projects:
We’ll create tens of thousands of construction, engineering, and designing jobs to design and build these public spaces, train lines, houses, roads, and utilities - which is a good thing.
We’ll have better transit systems of more train routes which will reduce car traffic and congestion, which stops people wasting time and life in traffic, and instead gives people more time for family, friends, and leisure, and improving quality of life.
We’ll increase our housing supply with options at various price points, styles, and sizes, including single family homes, apartments, and “missing middle” housing (eg. townhouses, duplexes), which will better address our housing needs and stabilize housing costs.
We’ll make our state so more economically efficient by moving people faster on better roads and transit/rail systems, simultaneously increasing productivity and improving quality of life - which better serves people and businesses.
We’ll prepare our state for economic and population growth, especially since MA is expected to have 800,000 more people in our state in the next 25-50 years - which is a good thing.
We’ll increase environmental sustainability by promoting trains, bikes, and walking, which leads to fewer cars on the roads and shorter drive times; less idling in commuter traffic - all which results in fewer CO2 emissions, less air pollution, and less energy used per capita for commuters.
We’ll improve public physical health with larger segments of our population choosing to walk to their daily activities, such as to train stations and to amenities, such as restaurants and grocery stores.
We’ll improve both physical and mental health with more people enjoying walking and moving outside with other people in a downtown’s vibrance and green spaces, which leaves fewer people stressed out in their car, angry they’re wasting time in traffic.
We’ll improve public mental health with mid-density, mixed-use downtowns and neighborhoods that create convenient “third spaces,” that allow people to socialize, enjoy different activities, and meet new friends and different groups of people, which brings joy and combats issues such as depression, tech-isolation, loneliness, and political polarization.
We’ll invigorate under-utilized land and turn it into useful and valuable areas for housing and businesses, which will generate more economic activity and tax revenue per acre than our current, sparse, car-centric cities.
We’ll improve the success rates of small businesses because the population density and high foot traffic of walkable cities brings more customers and helps small businesses and restaurants thrive, whereas our car centric cities with low foot traffic inhibit their success.
We’ll open up pockets of underutilized land for housing, innovation hubs, and economic vitality throughout our state, which will help businesses with lower rent costs while still fast transit maintains a close proximity to Boston/Cambridge, and it decentralizes our state’s economic center, which will decongest rush hour traffic to and from Greater Boston - helping businesses and people’s quality of life.
These projects, together with our institutional infrastructure programs, will make MA the most desirable state in the country - and we will all be proud our state is truly a leader in every way.