For Massachusetts, transportation funding takes center stage

Through an ambitious funding plan, announced last week, Gov. Maura Healey set her sights on stabilizing and improving transportation across Massachusetts.

At a press conference, Jan. 14, held at Worcester’s Union Station, Healey and other state leaders announced a plan to make $8 billion in investments into the state’s roads, bridges and regional transportations systems over the next 10 years.

“This is about funding, but it’s about so much more,” Healey said at the event. “It’s about management, it’s about transportation, it’s also about the vision.”

Healey also highlighted increasing funding and reliability for the state’s transportation as a priority in her State of the Commonwealth address Jan. 16.

As currently structured, the Healey administration’s plan, which will be filed as part of the governor’s budget proposal for the next fiscal year, does not rely on any new taxes. Instead, it plans to leverage existing funds, including those brought in by the Fair Share Amendment, the 4% surtax on income over $1 million, passed by Massachusetts residents in 2022. Under that amendment, funds raised are directed toward transportation and education efforts.

That surtax has seen higher-than-expected collections. In the 2024 fiscal year, the state collected $2.2 billion from the surtax, up from the $1.7 billion in revenue it had previously estimated.

Already, those funds have been used for transportation efforts like allowing the state’s regional Transit Authorities — the organizations that handle public transit needs outside of the reach of the MBTA — operate fare-free.

Through the new state plan, funding is in no small part aimed at restoring infrastructure in Massachusetts to a state of good repair in order to maintain and improve on it further down the line.

“If we don’t deal with stabilization, if we don’t deal with the foundation, which has been crumbling for decades, we won’t be able to build anything meaningful,” Healey said at the press conference.

A prominent piece of that foundation is directed at stabilizing the finances of the MBTA. The transit agency is set to face a $800 million funding gap in the next fiscal year. If Healey’s plan is successful, it could avoid massive service cuts that the system might otherwise have to take.

But at the event, MBTA General Manager Phil Eng said that under the plan he expected service on the T to become more reliable and frequent.

Alongside the state funding plan, the transportation infrastructure in Massachusetts is set to receive federal support as well. On Jan. 9, the state announced over $102 million in federal grants from the United States Department of Transportation aimed at projects across the state.

For Bostonians, some of that work will come close to home.

In Mattapan, $2 million will be directed toward supporting transportation work tied in with the city’s efforts to revamp Blue Hill Avenue. That federal funding comes as part of the federal government’s Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program — a funding initiative formed under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — aims to provide support with a focus on communities harmed by past transportation infrastructure decisions.

At Mattapan Square, the federal funding will contribute to the ongoing city efforts to make the major roadway that cuts through the neighborhood, before continuing on through Dorchester and part of Roxbury, safer and more supportive of multimodal transit. Designs developed by the city and MBTA would prominently add a center running bus lane, as well as incorporate separate lanes for cyclists, and increase greenery and pedestrian safety measures.

Fatima Ali Salaam, chair of the Greater Mattapan Neighborhood Council, said that traversing the area from one side to the other, safely, can take up to 15 minutes, not because of the distance but because of the way the roadway is set up.

She said the Greater Mattapan Neighborhood Council supports reconfiguring sidewalks for more easy crossing, a change that she said she views as universally helpful.

“Everyone is a pedestrian first,” she said.

Critics of the Blue Hill Avenue project more broadly have expressed concerns that the changes — which will reduce the number of lanes for cars — will increase congestion and travel times for drivers, but supporters and the officials working on the project tout estimates of faster bus times for the estimated 37,000 daily bus riders, and more travel options up and down the corridor.

Ali Salaam said that the criticism of the effort largely is focused on pieces like the center running bus lane, not efforts to improve pedestrian experience. The Greater Mattapan Neighborhood Council supports sidewalk changes and pedestrian supports but does not support the bus lane changes.

“No one is against the improved safety,” she said.

For her, the issue comes from how the city and MBTA talk about the project — with a focus on transit and bus changes but not enough focus on improving economic development on Blue Hill Avenue.

The new federal funding at Mattapan Square specifically supports efforts to design a connection to Cummins Highway into the square, the city’s Streets Cabinet said in a statement to the Banner.

Vivian Ortiz, a Mattapan resident who was named Boston’s “bike mayor” by the Amsterdam-based cycling nonprofit BYCS in 2020, said the funding will help make it easier to traverse Mattapan Square, especially getting from one side of Blue Hill Avenue to the other.

“This is the fact, that traveling through Mattapan Square, however it is that you do that, can be really complicated,” she said. “An opportunity to make changes to the way that we’re able to share the space and travel through our neighborhood in a more comfortable way. I’m really happy that that’s happening.”

An official blurb describing the project said the initiative will increase multimodal transportation networks, improve access to natural resources and create a more generous public area that’s safer and easier to navigate.

It’s one of five projects across Massachusetts that received funding under the Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program.

In Dorchester, the MBTA also received $2 million that will go toward repair and improvement work at the JFK/UMass Red Line Station to increase accessibility and connectivity to the surrounding neighborhood, as well as improve environmental resilience and generally bring the station into a state of good repair.

Nearby, a project in Revere will receive $400,000 to support a feasibility study to plan for paved multi-use paths to support walkers and cyclists who currently are limited by highways and commuter rail tracks.

And in Somerville, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation is receiving over $43 million — the largest of any of the federal grants announced by the state — to remove the viaduct over which McGrath Highway runs, replacing the road with a ground-level multimodal boulevard.

When it comes to this sort of federal funding, Ortiz, who supports cycling advocacy work through the League of American Bicyclists, where she’s a board member, said she thinks it’s important to make sure that legislators hear the voices of residents, especially those who use modes of transportation other than cars.

“They have to hear different perspectives. And then this topic, in particular, what they hear, especially at the state level, is, ‘We didn’t ask for this; we don’t want this,’” Ortiz said. “They need to start hearing from other voices. … The responsibility that we have as members of the community in this country is to better inform them — our elected officials — and we need to make sure that we do.”

When she feels like those voices are heard, it’s a victory, she said.

“Any funding that we get in my neighborhood to be able to give people the opportunity to travel differently or feel better traveling the way that they are is, to me, always a win,” Ortiz said.