Another Wrong Turn
The new u-turn ramp on the Pike has made little impact. Why can't we get our transportation projects right?
(Illustration by Alex Nabaum)To downtown business groups that pushed it, the new U-turn on the turnpike would become the route to hospitality heaven, a badly needed link between Back Bay hotels, the new South Boston convention center, and Logan Airport. According to a 2003 study, about 1,500 vehicles a day would use the ramp by 2010, easing congestion on city streets while making conventioneers happy.
Ah, those studies. Since opening last October, the ramp - a 75-foot connector between east- and westbound ramps at the Allston turnpike interchange - has averaged barely 70 authorized daily users, i.e., vehicles with Fast Lane or EZ Pass. Originally limited to taxis, buses, and shuttle vans, the U-turn was opened to all transponder-equipped drivers on March 30. That move has helped - Memorial Day saw 164 vehicles legally using the U-turn. But that was still barely 10 percent of the projected figure.
To get a sense of the difference in time and money with and without the U-turn, I took a cab on a Friday during rush hour and rode in a loop - from the Westin Copley Hotel to the new convention center using the ramp, and from the convention center back to the Westin via city streets. The trip began at the Copley entrance to the turnpike and zipped past Fenway Park to the Allston exit. Traffic was light for this hour, and the cab easily bypassed the tollbooth backup and took the exit. After 16 minutes and 7.5 miles, we were at the convention center. The fare, including the $1.50 U-turn toll, was $22.10. The return to the Westin through the city took three minutes longer, but at $10.95, the fare was less than half. "Unless there is terrible gridlock downtown, why would I use [the U-turn]?" the driver asked. "Passengers will think I'm trying to increase their fare by driving them in a big circle."
While it's a lesson in transportation studies gone wrong, at least the U-turn is not a total failure - the ramp does take traffic off city streets, especially convention-bound buses and vans. And its $1.6 million price tag is small change compared with other projects. Still, the U-turn stands as a cautionary tale about the need to study at least twice to spend wisely once, especially as the Commonwealth faces not only a backlog of infrastructure repairs but also enormously expensive mass-transit projects still on the books.
"In a world where we've been building transit projects that cost twice as much as projected and have half as many users, you would hope people would systematically ask, 'Where were we wrong and how can we not make that mistake again?' " says David Luberoff, executive director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston. His doubts about the bang-for-the-buck returns of projects such as the MBTA Greenbrush commuter rail make some transit advocates see him as Darth Vader. But it's hard to deny his broader point: When it comes to big-ticket transportation projects, studies often not only turn out to be wrong, they frequently fail to consider what economists call "opportunity costs," or how the same money might be otherwise used to meet the same goals. Mass transit can be great in concept and practice, helping get cars off roads, people to destinations, and local economies in gear. But absent an epiphany on the gas tax or other revenue, the Patrick administration doesn't know how to pay for its $3.5 billion bridge repair program, let alone megaprojects, such as extending the Green Line and rail service to New Bedford and Fall River.
Governor Deval Patrick's $1.4 billion construction cost estimate for that long-promised South Coast project is double what it was a decade ago and doesn't even include hefty annual debt service and operating expenses. And for how many riders? Though the administration is already pumping money into the project, a spokesman says it's not sure, though previous studies suggest about 5,000 daily riders. Even if that estimate proves more accurate than U-turn predictions, does that justify such enormous costs? Even some supposed beneficiaries aren't so sureat a March 10 hearing, some South Coast residents suggested cheaper alternatives, like a dedicated highway lane for buses and other high-occupancy vehicles to Boston.
Such ideas may or may not work. But they should at least be considered before billions of dollars we don't even have are committed to what could become the next Big Oops.
Phil Primack is a freelance writer in Medford. Send comments to magazine@globe.com
