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MAPC >> Transportation

MAPC

Smart Growth & Regional Collaboration

Accessible, frequent, and fast public transit gets people to their destinations without contributing to traffic and is an important factor to lowering carbon emissions. Connected, well-maintained, and extensive trails, bike lanes, and sidewalks encourage active transportation, health, and recreation. Making roadways safe, comfortable, and accessible for users of all ages, abilities, income, and travel modes leads to healthier and stronger communities.

MAPC’s Transportation Department promotes sustainable transportation and strong infrastructure throughout the region in many ways, including transportation corridor planning, parking and land use studies, participating in projects to build bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, coordinating transportation funding programs, and advocating for transportation finance reform. MAPC is one of 22 members of the Boston Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), which carries out comprehensive and cooperative transportation planning in the region.

To find a comprehensive library of our past transportation work, visit MAPC’s Publications Library.

Explore the categories below to learn more about the multi-faceted ways MAPC works to improve connectivity in the region.

Transportation PRIORITIES

Technical Assistance

Research & Resources

Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization

Transportation PRIORITIES

Technical Assistance

MAPC’s Transportation team works on a wide range of projects with cities, towns, and other partners. How can we work with your community?

Visit MAPC’s publications library to see past parking studies, complete streets work, transit-oriented development solutions, and more.

If you’re interested in working with MAPC, contact Transportation Director Eric Bourassa at ebourassa@mapc.org.

Parking

Parking is the link between land use and transportation planning, and the way we set parking policies has an enormous impact on the built environment and how we choose to get around. MAPC is available to help municipalities diagnose their parking problems and recommend solutions with downtown parking occupancy and turnover studies, zoning recommendations, and more.

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Parking Meter Collective Procurement

MAPC led a collective procurement in Fall 2014 for that Massachusetts Association of Regional Planning Agencies (MARPA) that will allow any municipality in Massachusetts to directly purchase smart parking meters or pay-by-phone services from selected vendors. The selected vendors are thoroughly vetted and are offering discounts of up to 60%.

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Equitable Transit-Oriented Development (E-TOD)

Equitable transit-oriented development concentrates on constructing affordable residential and commercial developments in places accessible by public transit. MAPC can help with financing tools, zoning, and TOD plans to help municipalities achieve equity goals, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, boost transit ridership, and mitigate congestion.

  • Growing Station Areas: The variety and potential of TOD MAPC conducted an analysis to define the need for different financing tools or prioritization of investments in the Metro Boston region.
  • TOD Finance Summit
    This summit on December 6, 2012, explored the reasons why transit-oriented development is important now, where it can be located, ways it can be funded, and the challenges to getting TOD built.
  • TOD Funding Gap Analysis
    This report investigates the sources of funding gaps for TOD in Metro Boston and the types of capital (both public and private) that may be available to help fill those gaps, and reviewed best practices in similar metropolitan jurisdictions.

Complete Streets

MAPC aims to make roadways more accessible for all travel modes and users of all ages, abilities, and income. Improving our roadways can increase safety, improve a community’s health and well-being, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and advance economic development. MAPC has technical assistance funding to assist our communities adopt Complete Streets policies and develop and implement bicycle and pedestrian network plans.

Bike Sharing and Hubway

MAPC serves as the regional coordinator for the Hubway bike share system, negotiating and overseeing a regional agreement between operator Motivate and the municipalities of Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, and Brookline.

Bike Parking

MAPC encourage communities to install bike racks in business districts, downtown areas, and at public buildings to encourage active transportation in their downtowns. We offer a joint-purchasing program with discounted pricing and a full selection of bike parking equipment. Learn more on the Collective Purchasing page.

Placemaking

MAPC can help communities integrate elements of placemaking into their communities, creating healthy, safe, active, and useful public space. In transportation planning, this means making streets and roadways useful and enjoyable by including complete street elements such as handicap accessible sidewalks, visible and safe crosswalks, benches, trees and plants, street lighting, bike lanes, and signage.

LandLine: Regional Greenway and Trail Planning

Landline is MAPC’s vision to connect our greenways and trails into a seamless network. Our complete database of trails and bicycle facilities can be found at trailmap.mapc.org.

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Making the Connections in the MAGIC Subregion

Communities in the MAGIC Subregion have joined together to develop on-demand transportation pilots to help fill the gaps in the region’s transit network. The program, called Making the Connections, focuses on connecting seniors, people with disabilities, financially vulnerable residents, and veterans to health services, community resources, and economic opportunities with on-demand transportation services.

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Transportation PRIORITIES

Research & Resources

Looking for more information about something transportation or transit-related?

You’ve come to the right place. Check out the pages below for in-depth material on our research, reports, partners, and more.

The Potential Impacts of Ride-Hailing on the Brockton Area Transit Authority

The Brockton Area Transit Authority (BAT) commissioned this study to evaluate whether BAT’s declining ridership in recent years is due to the growth in ride-hailing services or to other factors.

This study explores whether the growth in ride-hailing is having an impact on BAT ridership, whether changes in BAT services might address the decline in transit ridership, and what potential partnerships BAT should consider with ride-hailing providers to boost the overall performance and coverage of transit.

Read and download the full report here

Perfect-Fit Parking

Parking is a point of contention in communities across Metro Boston, yet there’s little hard data about how much parking we have and how much we need. MAPC’s Perfect Fit Parking initiative is developing the data and tools that communities need to establish informed, sustainable, and economical parking policies. Visit the Perfect Fit Parking site to learn more about where parking spaces are going unused. 

The Growing Carbon Footprint of Ride-hailing in Massachusetts

Ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft have seen rapid and widespread growth across Massachusetts. These services provided 81 million trips in the state in 20181, a 25 percent increase over the prior year. The explosive growth of this new form of mobility raises important concerns about impacts on congestion, safety, transportation finance, and Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHGs) across the state.

Using data recently released by the MA Department of Public Utilities (DPU), MAPC estimates that ride hailing had a net carbon footprint of nearly 100,000 metric tons in 2018, adding about 0.5 percent to the total carbon emissions for all passenger transportation across the state. If growth in ride-hailing emissions continues unchecked, it will make it very difficult for the state to meet its emissions reduction targets.

Read and download the full report here.

Fact Sheet: An Act to Reduce Traffic and Encourage Shared Rides

This proposal increases the current 20-cent per-trip surcharge on Transportation Network Companies to bring MA into parity with cities and states nationwide. Through including a reduced fee for shared trips, the proposal incentivizes shared trips which would contribute to a reduction in traffic.

Read and download the fact sheet here

Read and download the proposed legislation here:  https://malegislature.gov/Bills/191/S2063

Fact Sheet: TNC Per-Ride Assessment Funds

Funds Disbursed to Cities and Towns by the Transportation Network Company Division of the Department of Public Utilities

State statute requires transportation network companies (TNCs) such as Uber and Lyft to pay a per-ride assessment of $0.20. One-half of that is distributed to the city or town in which the ride originated, and the other half goes to a Transportation Infrastructure Enhancement Fund.

Communities receiving funds are required to submit a spending report to the Department of Public Utilities’ TNC Division by December 31, 2019.

Click here for more information about what the funds can be used for, reporting requirements, and a summary of funds received by each city and town in the MAPC region.

Share of Choices: Further Evidence of the Ride-hailing effect in Metro Boston and Massachusetts

For every five people who get on an MBTA bus or train in the Inner Core, one person hops into an Uber, Lyft, or other ride-hailing vehicle. In Boston itself, among all transportation modes – driving, biking, walking, and transit – one of every 25 trips ending within the city is taken using a ride-hailing service.

Those are the estimates that MAPC researchers came to by analyzing Massachusetts rideshare data released on May 1, 2018 (fulfilling a condition of “An Act Regulating Transportation Network Companies,” which included provisions for Massachusetts to collect trip data from companies such as Uber and Lyft). Staff supplemented the information with data from a regional travel demand model, the Massachusetts Vehicle Census, and “Fare Choices,” MAPC’s February 2018 ride-hailing report, in a brief entitled “Share of Choices: Further Evidence of the ride-hailing effect in Metro Boston and Massachusetts.”

Read and download the full report here.

Fare Choices: A Survey of Ride-Hailing Passengers in Metro Boston

The ride-hailing industry, led by Uber and Lyft, has seen explosive growth in recent years. As more and more travelers choose these on-demand mobility services, they have the potential to transform regional travel patterns.

In an effort to begin filling gaps in our understanding of the ride-hailing industry and its users, MAPC surveyed nearly 1,000 ride-hailing passengers in late 2017 and asked about their demographics, the nature of their trip, and why they chose ride-hailing over other modes of transportation. The results confirmed many common assumptions about ride-hailing users; they also provided striking new insight into the ways that the services are changing travel behavior and affecting our existing transportation system. 

Read and download the full report here.

Autonomous Vehicles

MAPC recognizes the transformative benefits that autonomous vehicles can have for Massachusetts’ economy, environment, and quality of life – as well as the challenges that could result from disruption to existing forms of mobility. Autonomous vehicles will affect not only our transportation system, but also our economy, safety, workforce, environment, land use, and energy use.

PARC: An Act Relative to Parking Advancements for the Revitalization of Communities

Parking technology and parking management best practices are rapidly developing, but our state laws haven't kept up. MAPC has developed legislation to give communities the tools that they need to make the most out of the parking they have. This bill also enables communities to establish Parking Benefit Districts, where parking revenue is reinvested directly into the neighborhood where it is raised. This bill has been filed by Senator Kathleen O’Connor Ives (D-Newburyport) and Representative David Linsky (D-Natick).

Learn more about the bill. 
Read about the bill.

Transportation Demand Management

Transportation demand management focuses on increasing transportation and transit system efficiency by understanding how people are using existing infrastructure. Read case studies and learn about measures already implemented by municipalities here.

Boston MPO

MAPC is one of 22 members of the Boston Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), which carries out comprehensive and cooperative transportation planning in the region. Learn more about the MPO’s work here.

TrailMap

This online resource is a comprehensive online map of trails for cyclists, walkers, and others engaging in active transportation and looking to explore the trails and other amenities throughout the MAPC region and beyond. Users can access the interactive map from their phones or desktop computers. Start exploring now!

Transportation PRIORITIES

Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization

The Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) is responsible for conducting the federally-required transportation and planning process for the Boston region. MAPC and the Central Transportation Planning Staff (CTPS) provide planning support for the MPO and for the region’s communities.

THE MPO develops a vision for the Greater Boston region and uses the plan to allocate federal and state funds toward transportation projects such as roadways, transit, pedestrian, and bicycle projects. This work includes developing regional bicycle and pedestrian plans and providing alternative land-use analyses for upcoming projects.

MAPC is one of 22 members of the MPO charged with carrying out comprehensive and cooperative transportation planning. The MPO is responsible for the development, review, and approval of three key planning projects:

Regional Transportation Plan

Every four years, the Boston Region MPO develops a new Transportation Plan. The Plan is the MPO’s long-range, comprehensive transportation-planning document. It defines an overarching vision of the future of transportation in the region, establishes principles and policies that will lead to the achievement of that vision, and allocates projected revenue to transportation programs and projects that reflect those principles and policies.

Transportation Improvement Program (TIP)

The TIP lists all transportation projects that are slated to receive federal funds over a five-year horizon, as well as all projects programmed with federal and state highway funds that are expected to be available.

Unified Planning Work Program (UPWP)

The annual UPWP describes all regionally significant surface-transportation planning projects expected to be undertaken in the region in a federal fiscal year. It also lists funding sources, from federal to state and local, for each planning project.

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