Boston Globe business columnist John Chesto is intrigued by Northland’s proposed shuttle bus system:
…Northland would pay for shuttle buses to bring residents of the complex to nearby train stations, and even to Boston and Cambridge. The big twist: The public, not just tenants, would be able to hop on board.
and this…
… its unusual approach could also serve as an intriguing model for other developers eager to strike gold with properties in Greater Boston that aren’t on the T. Much of the prime land within Route 128 is spoken for already, thanks to the hot real estate market. Northland’s bus concept offers a potential solution, with a promise to rewrite the definition of “transit-oriented” while reducing suburbanites’ reliance on their cars.
For those Newtonites who remember, this shuttle is Nexus 2.0 on steroids, with different routes. It has no economic sustainability other than with the temporary outside support — generating financial loss after financial loss in subsidizing the limited ridership, and merely clogging traffic more with the empty or nearly empty buses. Newton should require something else from Northland, with structure and permanence.
@Jim and Brian: It’s been at least two decades since the Newton Nexus bus came and failed.
Times have changed, technology has changed and the public’s desire and openness to moving around without a car has changed. The Newton Nexus lesson should not be: “We’re never going to do that again” it should be “Let’s learn from the past and do it better.”
@Michael: Please read Chesto’s column and the proposal. Northland’s shuttles will be open to the public. This a very different system from the employer funded 128 Shuttles that run into Needham.
Also, it’s an asset that Tibbits-Nutt both leads the 128 Business Council and has an unpaid position as an advisor to the MBTA because we need advocates for our region advising the T on transportation here. We all know how behind the T is on upgrading its antiquated system.
@Mike Striar: The most recent projections from the school department say we don’t need another school. But we all know we need to provide more alternatives to single passenger cars.
Public-private transportation solutions are the only way we’re going to begin addressing our traffic needs. Doing nothing while we wait for MBTA to provide robust service in and out of Newton makes no sense when a private entity is offering a solution to our residents and workforce now.
We need new transit options more than we need another school building.
It’s depressing that a privately outsourced scam like this – a glorified limo service for multi-billion-dollar companies, their employees, and their customers – is gaining any currency.
The 128 Business Council’s shuttles aren’t used by the public at all, and that’s quite by design.
They’re unaffordable to most public transit regulars, they’re designed exclusively to accommodate the needs of a handful of corporations while ignoring the needs of the general public, and are kept secret in such a way that the public has absolutely no idea how to use them. All according to plan.
What’s even more depressing is that the Executive Director of the 128 Business Council, whose vested interest is improving the success of the council’s shuttle services, also serves as the Vice Chair of the MBTA’s Fiscal and Management Control Board.
So there she was last month, appearing before the Needham Select Board after being invited to present the case for improved “regional transit,” but instead proposing ways for “high capacity vehicles” (read: her private shuttles) to “queue jump” and better get their VIP passengers through rush hour traffic. With queue-jumping infrastructure paid for by the town, of course.
Meanwhile, the MBTA struggles against all odds to keep the serpentine, banker’s-hours 59 bus route moderately useful for its many inner-city service worker passengers who trudge out to Needham St. and the nursing homes on Highland Ave. every morning, while the 128 Business Council steals away the high-net-worth passengers who are actually in a position to make the Baker administration care about funding MBTA service improvements.
This concept has already been tried and failed leaving the T and the Metrowest Regional Transit Authority to pick up the pieces. The former Framingham-Newton Corner MBTA bus route that ran through Lower Falls (Newton Wellesley Hospital, Woodland Station, Washington Street through Auburndale, West Newton, Newtonville, ) was privatized despite the staunch opposition of Alderman Richard McGrath. As predicted by Alderman McGrath, the service collapsed leaving a big chunk of Newton as well as our neighborhoods to the west without bus service . The MWRTA has done a credible job of resurrecting the service in its constituent communities and even extending service back into a piece of Newton. Let’s not make the same mistake twice just because there’s virtually no institutional memory among city decision makers and the expensive consultants who have no knowledge of what has happened in the past in the city. Novelty entranced columnists have even less knowledge of the city’s history or ability to learn from it.
If Northland wants to show its good faith, it should offer to double the service on the existing Route 59A at its expense. Until that offer’s on the table, Northland’s gargantuan new structure should not even be seriously considered.
Is there currently a mechanism for third-party contributions for localized MBTA service improvements? A policy was proposed in 2018 but doesn’t yet seem to have been adopted.
https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2018/03/20/Third-Party-Contributions-Policy-Presentation.pdf
Regardless, I agree with Brian that if Northland were genuinely serious about transit improvements, the 59 bus would be the only legitimate way to do it.
Ditto for the 128 Business Council, although I’m sure it would be a cold day in hell before they make any contributions to a service that would benefit the entire public.
And it’s not even worth discussing the union-busting, tax-break-grubbing folks over at TripAdvisor HQ – I’m sure they’re quite happy with their underpaid shuttle chauffeurs, thank you very much.
Does the public include a mob of high school students headed to 5 guys burgers? A group of nannies holding onto a toddler with one hand pushing a stroller with the other heading to the library? Residents in transitional or half-way housing going to the City Hall food pantry? Will the Newton Circulator be designed for Newton residents or Newton-Northland residents?
I am pro responsible development. I supported Amy Sangiolo’s last minute deal that saved Austin Street. I supported Washington Place. But if Newton’s elected officials allow Northland to develop this project without a new school, it would be a tragic, missed opportunity for this city.
I agree with Mike Striar, I support the Notthland proposal but only if it includes a new elementary school that the impact of the project will obviously require.
Rev. Haywood: Newton Public Scools says we don’t need another school.
@Jim: you should study the plan. There are other traffic mitigation measures and community give backs proposed and undoubtedly will be additions as always happens during any large special permit process.
I’m personally excited about the proposed village green, offering just under an acre of open space (large enough to hold about 1,000 people standing or 380 yoga mats). There’s also a planned 3,000 square foot multi-purpose community building and playground further and they’re opening up the brook that runs under Marshalls Plaza now to make it more of a public feature.
The proposed Northland Newton Circulator is simply promoted by the 128 Business Council and Chamber of Commerce and would let Northland developers off the hook. I agree with those demanding permanent structural/physical returns to the City, not some ephemeral, largely useless Nexus 2.0 further clogging traffic and requiring continuing subsidy.
Jim: 128 Business Council is Northand’s paid consultant and vendor. Wisely, Northland has hired experts that understand transportation and run shuttles across the region to design and operate this system (and they collaborate with the MBTA), just as Northland would and should hire licensed electricians to wire their buildings.
As for me, I’m enthusiastic about Northland’s proposal because it addresses a specific, vital, need for our region. I am not paid by Northland. And for the record, the chamber’s board of directors does not have a position yet on Northland’s special permit application because the proposal is still being revised as happens with all significant special permit applications.
@Greg, I’d already read the Chesto column before you’d posted it here, and my comments were regarding both the existing 128 Regional Council and proposed Northland shuttles.
The Northland shuttle proposal is not a very different system from the 128 Regional Council’s shuttles, which are also open to all users but are designed to minimize the general public’s use.
For the record, Chesto consistently makes some of the silliest statements you’ll ever read in the Globe.
This week’s winner: “The bus fare likely would be cheaper to the public than at another new privately financed transit option — the new ferry from North Station to the Seaport…The public will be allowed on board starting in late February, but for $12 a trip during peak times.”
Phew, likely cheaper than $12 a trip!
Actually, it’s substantially different. The existing 128 Shuttles only go from Newton Highlands to the Needham Crossing section of the N-Squared Innovation District. These four different shuttles will go to downtown Boston, Cambridge, Needham Heights and Newtonville (and will be coordiated with the commuter trains at Newtonville too). Anyone who wants a ride can logon to the app and find out exactly when and where the next bus will arrive and pay using the same app that the MBTA will soon roll out to ride the Green Line, commuter rail or one of these shuttles.
Greg, thanks for the clarification. Bottom line remains that some permanent physical/structural improvements should be extracted from the Northland developer, not an ephemeral subsidized plus fare shuttle service. I’m aware that some improvements are going to be made to Needham Street Corridor; it would seem the City could and should get even further improvements defrayed by Northland at Needham Street and connecting thereto, to benefit the traffic situation.
Since you raise “times have changed, technology has changed” since the failed Newton Nexus buses making them more desirable today, I would say the exact opposite is the case. Today we have the technology of Uber and Lyft, which did not exist in the Nexus days — affording travelers that tremendous option and flexibility not afforded for time scheduled/route limited shuttle buses. Travelers can use Uber caravans etc. More an more younger adults are already ditching owing cars in favor of ubering. And Uber etc. is environmentally advantageous since the same car is used much more maximally rather than wasting resources on cars just sitting around. People I know would simply take Uber/Lyft (to the proposed shuttle bus stops) rather than restricting their schedule and/or wasting time waiting for a shuttle bus.
Or what about a Greenline spur from the Northland Project to the existing D Greenline simply on the Upper Falls Greenway?
Seems like a perfect solution — keeps traffic off Needham Street and a desirable ready rail connection to the Greenline.
What Jim Epstein said is accurate from my observations – all of the young adults I know use Uber and Lyft. It’s inexpensive, and they come/go on their own schedule. But they still own cars for when they need a car of their own.
The need to improve local public transportation and the overcrowded schools that have outlived their usefulness shouldn’t be conflated. They are two separate issues – both are important and one should not be prioritized over the other.
Adding one school in one section of the city isn’t going to address the citywide problem of the dilapidated buildings that don’t have appropriate spaces to provide for a 21 century education for all Newton children. Nor will a report that says we have a couple of hundred fewer students than last year make up for the 10 years when enrollment increased by two thousand students.
I wish you would please have your discussion about transportation on your own time and in your own space and leave NPS out of it.
Uh. You realize Jane this IS a transportation thread? But I agree with your larger point, these issues should not be conflated. (P.S. I wrote this on my own time!)
I too don’t see why this is coming down to shuttle bus vs. new school. Certainly there are other physical/structural transportation improvements which can be required from Northland in the Needham Street Corridor area, including road connections thereto, rather than IMHO some ephemeral shuttle (requiring subsidy and fare while likely still losing money and further clogging existing streets — I well remember sitting in my car behind smelly empty Nexus buses only making traffic worse).
Greg. If that is the case then every thing possible should be done to make this project a reality which will benefit the City for years to come.
Greg, I think the traffic mitigation measures and community give backs you cite are terrific. What I’m talking about is some additional measure, give back, or improvement specifically in lieu of the shuttle bus expense otherwise required of the developer.
I too am concerned about a privately-funded competitor to existing MBTA service, planned and managed by an organization whose goals are not necessarily perfectly aligned with the neighborhood’s, the city’s, or the general public’s.
How about this instead: Northland should provide an annuity, funded in perpetuity (or for a defined suitably long period, such as 50 or 100 years) and indexed for inflation, and the City should direct how it is to be spent on localized transportation needs. To get the ball rolling this money could be used for exactly the described shuttle system. But if & when it does not meet current transportation needs — largely running empty, not serving the greater good, replicating MBTA service, etc — the City would have the power to reshape it, or spend that money on an entirely different transportation solution.
Otherwise, I predict that after some number of years it’ll be declared a failed experiment and just go away.
Oops – so many threads, so little time. I meant my post to go on the other transportation thread. This one only includes two comments about the schools.
Jim – The Nexus is a bad example. If buses aren’t frequent and reliable, people won’t take them. Newton is different from 20+ years ago when Nexus ran 6 times a day.
Along the #59 you have multiple developments going up – Haywood House, Orr, Austin St., Northland and maybe something at 4 corners. Plus it passes NNHS, City Hall, the Library, Needham St., Newton Highlands T and ends at the Needham Commuter Rail.
Greg.
The Newton Nexus is not the example I cited/ The privatization and collapse of the Framingham-Newton Corner is a separate example of a failed program that does bode ill for the Northland shuttles.
For some reason, you continue to pose a false set of alternatives solutions to two separate problems that overlap to a small degree. 800 units on Northland property would generate enormous amounts of traffic and school children that would need to be accommodated on Newton’s roads and in Newton schools.
The solution to one should include Northland’s commitment to pay for a doubling of service on MBTA Bus Route 59A from Newton Highlands to Pettee Square in Upper Falls along Needham Street. (It should ;robably also include the better bus shelters along Route 59 that the T proposes for the entire systeme, but I digress.)
You cite the School Enrollment study as proving the lack of need for new school space. The appalling failures of the past studies to anticipate changes in demographics in the city beyond the short term should show the folly of relying on such studies to anticipate the needs for capital improvements that should last for decades.
You can’t document the needs for children to be born beyond a relatively short period in the future. When elderly residents are replaced by younger residents in the future, you can’t be sure how many of the new residents will want children and in families of what size.
When unique opportunities like the Northland development present themselves, it is foolish not to try to undo to a minor degree the mistakes of the past. If Emerson and Hyde were still around, both the school space needs and traffic needs we currently face would be much more manageable. At the very least, the community meeting space on Oak Street that you anticipate so eagerly should be made available to the city for a school space for free. If the site is grotesquely overbuilt, the developer should pay the cost of the need that it has generated.