How to change the future

Page 2 of 3 -- Invest billions in transit. Lots of debate centers on stemming sprawl that devours the region's classic New England landscapes. But there's need for a vital, companion strategy: to "remagnetize" the region's array of cities, either grand today or potentially grand tomorrow -- Boston to Lowell, Somerville to Worcester, Lawrence to New Bedford to Providence. These are the communities where critical answers to the region's housing crisis will emerge. And they're where business increasingly needs to locate and relocate operations. More development along I-495 and beyond just feeds congestion, imperils water supplies, saps cities' strength. Let Nevada specialize in sprawl; let New England be itself, and rebuild on its grand urban tradition.

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Commonwealth investment practices -- channeling money, skill, and ideas to the cities -- can do a lot to make this happen. Public transportation is critical -- improvements in a creaky and overextended MBTA on one hand, commuter rail improvements on the other. The Conservation Law Foundation is on the right track, we'd guess, in pressing the state to fund the MBTA extensions and rail service to T.F. Green Airport in Rhode Island it promised in 1990 as a condition for building the Big Dig.

But a bigger commitment is needed: to channel significant new capital into the MBTA, now operating beyond design capacity. The region needs to shake off its post-Big Dig exhaustion, the belief that one mega-project a century is sufficient. The proposed Urban Ring (emphasizing suburb-to-suburb travel) is a potential national model for adapting transit to the realities of modern commuting.

Would the Ring cost billions? Yes. Could the money be found? It's easy to say no, certainly to outright government appropriations. But how about tapping the minds and skills of the region's extraordinary set of super-economists, lawyers, and consulting firms?

For example: Several universities and major hospital complexes would be served by the ring's proposed line, touching Boston University's main campus, the Longwood Medical Area, Northeastern, BU's Medical Center, and -- depending on the precise route finally selected -- MIT, Harvard, and Tufts. Can these institutions contribute ideas or support? How about Harvard exercising leadership by offering a large bonding guarantee out of its endowment? What are creative financing possibilities that build on the value of MBTA-held lands near stations?

If the Boston region can't deploy its world-class set of legal and financial minds to solve these critical mobility problems, maybe throw in a measure of its fabled political acumen to get the strategic approvals, one fears for the region's future. Solutions aren't just optional: They're critical for the region's economy and viability.

It's worth noting that a successful Urban Ring would also be a godsend for such neighborhoods as Roxbury and Dorchester, and possibly later Chelsea and Everett, providing their low-income residents transit access to downtown, the hospitals, universities, and other job-rich locations.   Continued...