A flawed highway construction project has put the Massachusetts Bay Transport Authority nearly $9 billion in debt. The costly project forced MBTA officials to answer two fundamental questions about their 100-year-old system: Who benefits from it and ultimately, who should pay for it?
Despite robust and rising ridership, many transit systems around the country are deeply mired debt, and Boston’s MBTA is a prime example. But there is a way out, according to Christopher Leinberger, a developer and professor at George Washington University. He has a plan called “value capture” that would use transit-related real estate profits to solve the MBTA’s fiscal problems and reduce Boston’s carbon footprint to boot.