Transportation
Recent
Memo to Governor Healey on Ways to Ensure Effective Implementation of the Fair Share Amendment
As Massachusetts voters have amended the state constitution to include a 4 percent surtax on taxable income over $1 million, MassBudget would like to offer policy suggestions to assist the Commonwealth in protecting this revenue and ensuring that it is directed to education and transportation, as specified in the amendment.
A Bridge Too Far: Sagging Investment Leaves 644 Massachusetts Bridges Structurally Deficient
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation maintains a database tracking 7,880 bridges across the Commonwealth. This paper examines the condition of these bridges and the impact of bridge disrepair on communities. It analyzes how some regions and populations are harmed more than others, and how these problems could be helped by investing more public resources in transportation.
Brief for Amicus Curiae on the Gig Worker Ballot Question
MassBudget’s brief to Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court asking to dismiss the ballot question exempting gig companies from providing employee benefits and protections. The brief outlined how excluding these workers from labor protections and failure to contribute to social insurance funds for them would hurt these workers and more broadly erode labor protections and employment-based social supports across the Commonwealth.
ALL TRANSPORTATION REPORTS
Driver’s licenses for immigrants without status – how would it affect Massachusetts?
This series of briefs examines the potential effects of licensing undocumented drivers in Massachusetts. The briefs look at the effects on public safety, child health, law enforcement efficiency, and the economy and state finances.
FY 2021 GOVERNOR’S BUDGET: Transportation – Governor proposes more funding, partly reversing past cuts
The Governor’s FY 2021 budget proposal is notable for acknowledging the need for more transportation investment to improve our current road and transit systems. This brief details how the proposal would partly reverse some earlier cuts to transportation programs that have likely held back performance.
The Gas Tax: What it is and Who Pays
This two-page fact sheet explains the gas tax and why it tends to fall hardest on those with low and moderate incomes.
FY 2021 BUDGET PREVIEW: Will the Transportation Budget Reflect New Realities? 6 Things to Look Out For
Will the Governor’s FY 2021 budget proposal indicate his commitment toward improving public transit, developing regional rail, reducing traffic congestion, and other priorities?
The Pros and Cons of Higher Gas Taxes, and How They Could be Offset for Lower-Income Families
As the Commonwealth seeks to improve our aging transportation system, policy makers have considered raising the gas tax. This paper assesses the gas tax along several well-established criteria for evaluating taxes: efficiency, fairness, and reliability. Based on these criteria, the gas tax receives mixed grades. Offsetting the tax with low-income tax credits could help.
Funding Improvements for Schools, Roads, and Public Transit with Tax Reforms that Improve Fairness
A ballot question has been proposed that would support investments in education and transportation with revenue from an additional 4% tax on income over a million dollars a year. This factsheet examines this proposal and how it relates to longer term economic and policy trends in Massachusetts.
How Slow Sales Tax Growth Causes Funding Problems for the MBTA
Almost 20 years ago, a penny of the sales tax was dedicated to the MBTA to be a steadily growing source of revenue for the transit system. But despite some help from the Legislature, the sales tax transfer has grown slower than the economy, creating a persistent gap between the projected funds and actual sales tax transfers. Sales taxes have underperformed for the MBTA as a result of a shift to services, some transactions moving online, and exclusion of fast-growing meals tax revenues from the MBTA. An appendix explains the formula for determining the MBTA sales tax transfer and how other sales taxes are allocated.
