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 transit 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 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. There’s an annotated bibliography about paying for public transit building with taxes of the increased land value created by the new public transit at: http://www.vtpi.org/smith.pdf
Boston's Urban Ring could be a step forward into a greener future for Boston, replacing private auto traffic, speeding many commutes, reducing air pollution and the resulting health costs for asthma, etc. in Boston, while helping to lessen greater Boston's Carbon footprint.
Here are some links to more information:
http://app1.massdot.state.ma.us/theurbanring/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Ring_Project_(MBTA)
http://www.abettercity.org/transportation/urbanring.html
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