As horrendous as the coronavirus pandemic has been for so many in Massachusetts, it also represents an opportunity to build better infrastructure. The real estate community has an important role to play in making that happen.
Municipal leaders around the commonwealth deserve credit for trying to put visions of more transit-, pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly into practice.
In Boston, Mayor Marty Walsh and city staff have created processes to install bus lanes and take parking spaces or even whole lanes of parking to create more sidewalk space. It’s a move that echoes even bolder actions being taken in other American cities and cities around the world, adapted to New England’s particular political culture, where significant public consultation is believed to be necessary for many changes.
Even suburban towns can take a page from this approach, or more aggressive moves favored by some towns that use pilot programs as a process for gathering public feedback on an idea. Using little more than traffic cones and paint, wider sidewalks, protected bicycle lanes and bus facilities can be added to commercial and residential districts, alike.
It is a widely accepted fact that we must adapt our physical environment to deal with very real public concerns about the coronavirus. Restaurants need space to maintain enough capacity while ensuring physical distancing between tables. Stores will need extra sidewalk space for lines as indoor capacity will be limited during parts of the state’s reopening phases.
Exploding public demand for bicycle travel, as seen by the 60 to 121 percent spike in bicycle sales across all categories in the last three months, according to market researchers N.P.D. Group, will also need to be safely accommodated with new facilities. Encouraging more short trips to be made on bicycles instead of in cars will also be a key part of adapting our communities to the demands of heading off climate changes’ worst effects.
But where does the real estate industry fit into all this? More than passive observers of how the public roads around their properties change, landlords can and should play a constructive role as cheerleaders, fountains of ideas and more.
Many towns don’t have staffs as big as places like Boston or Worcester; they may need help thinking through the challenges of implementing “parklets” in parking lanes for restaurant tables while still ensuring access for deliveries. Landlords also have important, close relationships with their tenants – they can use those to gather information about what their tenants might need and use that information to advocate with local officials for changes to public streets.
Lastly, they can adapt their own properties for the challenges of our time: marking off wider pedestrian walkways and bicycle routes in parking lots, adding bicycle racks near entrances and more.
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