Public Transportation on the North Shore

Access to public transportation continues to play an important role in the decision process of home buyers. Owning a car, maintaining it, insurance costs, and parking are eating up the earnings of most people at alarming rates. Add the wasted hours stuck in traffic have potential buyers looking to use public transportation.

New Apartment Complexes in Beverly and Salem

This is obvious when you review several towns on the Northshore of Massachusetts such as Beverly and Salem. Over the past several years massive apartment complexes have been built within close proximity of the train station that takes commuters into Boston. Apartments or private homes that are within walking distance of the train station will receive a premium price.

Communities will need to provide adequate parking facilities with reasonable pricing. The other major factor is the frequency of service. Cities that offer subway services are very attractive because of the high frequency of service. Commuters would obviously prefer to wait as little as possible.

What is surprising is why the Blue Subway line that currently runs from Boston to Wonderland (Revere) does not continue all the way to Newburyport rather than the Boston & Maine train. The traffic in and out of Boston is hideous and is only going to get worse in the years ahead. It will become mandatory to make some major infrastructure changes. Simply repairing the roads is not enough.

A Reason to Increase Gas Tax

Our recommendation is to increase the gas tax at the state level to fund public transportation initiatives. The state gas tax is long overdue for an increase. It is also going to be important to develop a means of collecting a tax on electric cars as they will play an increasing percentage of cars on the road in the future.

Public Transportation Real Estate Trends

Another trend we're seeing is potential buyers are looking for properties that are not only within walking distance of public transportation, but to the complete menu of services such as grocery stores, restaurants, and shops. They’re tired of getting in their cars to do simple errands, fight traffic, and struggle to find a parking spot.

In spite of all these signals, we continue to see developments being built with virtually no access to public transportation. These types of decisions will only cause more traffic congestion and pollution.

True government leadership should be thinking and preparing our communities for the future.