Yesterday, I joined with my colleagues in the Massachusetts State Senate to pass a new bill. The bill authorizes $200 million for municipal roads and bridges through the chapter 90 program and $100 million to support statewide projects to address congestion, support electric vehicle infrastructure, and improve public transit.
The bill includes the following components:
- $200 million in chapter 90 funding for cities and towns for projects to maintain, improve, and repair roadways, bridges, sidewalks, and bikeways.
- $25 million for the Municipal Small Bridge Program to support replacement or preservation of structurally deficient local bridges critical to local communities and not eligible for existing federal aid programs.
- $25 million for the Local Bottleneck Program to address localized traffic bottlenecks and invest in infrastructure to reduce congestion, improve traffic flow, and reduce idling and greenhouse gas emissions.
- $25 million for Electric Vehicle (EV) infrastructure to support municipalities and regional transit authorities in their efforts to install EV infrastructure and purchase EVs and zero-emission vehicles.
- $25 million for Transit-Supportive Infrastructure to create dedicated bus lanes, enhance bus stops and train stations, support passenger safety, upgrade technology and modernize infrastructure to meet demand and increase frequency of public transit services, and improve access to public transit.
Infrastructure investment is a well-proven generator of economic activity, both in the jobs it creates in the construction and repair and in the boost it gives to all economic sectors that rely on the movement of people and goods. This legislation will prove to be crucial to jumpstart our economy as we re-emerge from the pandemic.
The legislation must now be reconciled with legislation passed by the Massachusetts House of Representatives.