| Three important questions vaulted to the surface of public discourse in Greater Boston last week, all variations on the same theme: Who will pay for the investments on which our future relies?
The week began with a scathing report from independent transit experts that found the MBTA has a serious problem with its safety practices. Line workers fear retribution for reporting safety issues and top managers are more worried about sorting out messes with the authority’s capital projects and schedules. And an insistence on “reform before revenue” from many quarters on Beacon Hill has meant there isn’t enough agency staff to keep up with key inspections.
The report’s authors made clear more operating revenue and changes in management’s priorities are key to solving the problem. The legislature still needs to schedule a long-promised debate for how to fund the over $50 billion in repairs and upgrades the MBTA, smaller regional transit agencies and the state’s roads need over the next 20 years to support the state economy and curb greenhouse gas emissions. While a large chunk of the business community and state leaders agree on the broad outlines of a solution, a minority are arguing against key elements of this plan, like expanded tolls or a gas tax.
The next day, scientists released a report showing melting of the Greenland ice sheet, an important indicator of global temperatures, has sped up seven-fold, in line with the most severe predictions of climate change-caused sea level rise.
As Steve Adams reports in his story, Boston must figure out who will pay for $1 billion worth of fortifications to protect the city against these rising waters and the more intense storms they’ll bring. Valuable downtown property and its wealthy owners can easily foot the bill for nearby improvements but largely working-class areas like East Boston don’t have nearly the same ability for fixes in their neighborhoods.
Then, Boston became the latest of several communities to ask state legislators for permission to tax any real estate sale in Greater Boston over $2 million at 2 percent on Wednesday. The money would be spent paying to build affordable housing, a commodity desperately needed in a city with some of the highest home prices and rents in the nation.
The real estate industry cried foul, saying it would dampen the investment Boston relies on for its economic well-being and would only result in landlords passing the cost on to their tenants.
“Housing is a common responsibility and those that generate wealth in our community should be part of the solution,” City Councilor Lydia Edwards eloquently retorted, saying the average person was already paying their share through annual Community Preservation Act property taxes.
No easy answers exist in each case, but one thing is clear: these problems are all so large, no one group can be saddled with funding their solutions, alone.
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