Spotlight On: Tegin Teich, Executive Director, Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization

Spotlight On: Tegin Teich, Executive Director, Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization

2023-06-06T09:03:31-04:00June 6th, 2023|Boston, Economy, Infrastructure, Spotlight On, Transportation|

3 min read June 2023 — Its status as a historic city is both a blessing and a curse for Boston, according to Tegin Teich, executive director of the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization. “Our main challenge is that the city is very old, meaning it has a lot of history but also some very old infrastructure,” she told Invest:. “We have lots of opportunities to address this but it is challenging to maintain its level of functioning to support a growing region.”

What have been the major highlights or milestones for your organization during the last year?

Over the last year, we’ve been working to evolve from the tenuous and uncertain pandemic period. The pandemic made us rethink how we do all our planning work, both in the short term and the long term and in a way that makes sense in the world that we’re currently living in. 

We have a 20-year vision and plan for what transportation should look like in the Boston region. We are now changing our shorter-term activities to get us closer to those longer-term goals. MPOs are responsible for approving all federal transportation dollars for infrastructure projects within the region. We have been looking at how we put forward the right projects and making sure that we’re identifying those that address some of the issues that are critical now but also those that help us get to what we’re planning for in 20 years. 

We must make sure that each project we take on has a strong sense of equity in that it not only considers the impacts to the public, including vulnerable populations, but also starts to work to undo the historic negative impacts of our transportation system. We have restructured how we assess our projects in the past year and we’re also restructuring how we think about our work. Transportation planning in the past has been very black and white so we are trying to introduce some nuance. We need to consider that people might make different choices on different days depending on their context. We also need to make sure that we’re working with data and tools in a smart way that will allow us to assess our work and plan for the future. We are facing a lot of uncertainty and we can’t just simply draw clear trend lines.

What is the biggest challenge for your organization now? 

Our main challenge is that the Boston area is very old, meaning it has a lot of history but also some very old infrastructure. We have lots of opportunities to address this but it is challenging to maintain its level of functioning to support a growing region. Our public transit system is one of the oldest in the United States, which is an amazing achievement, but we also need to acknowledge that it needs to be modernized to protect it.

The fragmentation in the Boston region is also rather challenging. Some other parts of the country have stronger regional governments or other mechanisms for communication and collaboration. There are 97 cities and towns in our region, all with their own individual interests. We are trying to work together to identify the joint needs for the region and then communicate those needs at a higher level because issues like climate change, equity and safety go far beyond our boundaries. 

How does your organization plan for the future?

Our long-range planning process is constantly evolving, with an updated plan drawn up every four years. We have an ongoing dialogue with MPO board members, elected officials, stakeholders and members of the public about what the priorities should be for investing transportation dollars. Historically, there has been a lot of focus on major highway infrastructure projects. Now we are seeing a significant shift toward a preference for multimodal transportation that gives people options and choices. We want to invest in improvements for the benefit of the entire community, not just maximize the convenience for drivers.

Those ideological changes have been reflected in the transformation of our long-range planning. We see a move toward capping highway-type investments at a certain point and emphasizing investment in corridors, complete streets and multimodal infrastructure projects that provide people more choice and safety and also consider the equity issues in the region. Our work is certainly becoming much more dynamic in terms of how we approach policy decisions.

How is your organization contributing to the climate change fight?

Transportation is one of the core areas we need to focus on to combat climate change as the sector is not only responsible for over 40% of the greenhouse gas emissions in the state, but it is also incredibly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. MPOs are trying to work in parallel with initiatives at the federal level, the state level and the local level. There are different geographical focuses there, but there’s also a lot of alignment. Two of the six goals in our long-range plan are directly related to this issue. We prioritize projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions or incorporate resiliency themes into their design, and we also work very hard to assess that impact in the long term. There is a strong focus on sustainable modes of transportation and shifting people into modes that move more people in more efficient, sustainable and safe ways.

What is your outlook for the Boston Region MPO and the transportation sector in the next two to three years?

Over the next year or two, we need to continue working on our long-range planning process to ensure we are more concrete about how we want to achieve our goals. The most relevant thing for us is to focus our resources on being able to incorporate our key themes. Right now, these are safety, resilience, uncertainty and equity. As planners and staff dedicated to this work, we are taking those themes and looking at how they apply across everything that we do at the agency. We are looking for an intentional way to advance that work at the agency. 

For more information, please visit:

https://www.ctps.org/

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