XL

1. A detailed outline of a plan to revitalize urban transit and encourage a safer, more health-resilient public realm. You have the choice of being a planner working for the Boston Transportation Department or the MBTA. Your outline will make an initial attempt to identify policies and interventions (short-term measures and longer term capital investments) that achieve the stated objectives. 

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2. A significantly more developed narrative that begins to detail each element of your plan. This rich outline is the document that begins to flesh out the details of your proposals,  including their efficacy, cost, funding viability, impacts on each mode and proposals to mitigate 
negative impacts, likelihood to gain necessary stakeholder and political support, impacts of 
any alterations to MBTA service plans, uses of and synergies among various transport 
modes, and potential or likely impacts on a broad spectrum of residents and stakeholders.

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3. The final recommendation memo which should be a well-reasoned and fully developed memorandum to either the Mayor of Boston or the Chairman of the MBTA Board, making the case for a set of policies and interventions that help the city move toward a “new normal”.  You should identify the broad range of stakeholders impacted by your recommendations and include recommendations regarding how to generate political will and develop consensus or buy-in among the various stakeholders. 

Overview: Status Quo
 

Here are two illustrations from Go Boston 2030 to give a brief overview of the status quo. One is the walking access that a dense transit network is easily accessed by foot in only some parts of the city; the other is the growth of bicycling with fragmentized bicycle facilities. As shown in Fig. 1. Both the pictures reveal the underlying challenge that might undermine transport justice in the long run. In other words, less respect is given to the active transportation and thus the tragedy of the commons occur. It is responsible for the authorities to prioritize the non-car users and encourage transit mode share.

To strive to a more sustainable mobility future in Boston, we need to shift from the conventional auto-centric mode to a way that joins together mobility with more resilient public realm. It is urgent to strike a balance among accessibility (connectivity), safety (protectivity), and affordability (equity). In the following sections, we propose and detail our plan of reshaping smart and resilient transit mode share for Boston 2040.