The Urban Ring is a planned public transport service to encircle central Boston, connecting the existing subway line ‘grid’ so as to allow quicker routes around Boston’s center. It is expected to move 40,000 passengers each day in phase I, to about 275,000 per day in phase III in 2025, speeding commutes and relieving central Boston’s transit system congestion.
Because most business doesn’t know now what to do with capital, interest rates are near historic lows, so it’s a great time to raise building capital via municipal bond sales.
And it is a great time to hire transit system builders, amidst this seemingly endless recession, and to thus stimulate the greater Boston economy.
The land-owners of the to-be-connected new stops on the Urban Ring stand to gain tremendously in financial terms from the Ring’s connecting these sites right to the existing subway and busway system, and it would thus be fair to partly fund Urban Ring construction by taxing the increase in land value created at and near these new stops with special taxation zones. This funding method is addressed at: http://www.vtpi.org/smith.pdf
Continue reading Now is the Time to Start Building the Boston Urban Ring Transit Line.