Episode 197: The Long Intermission
1/13/22--Today on The Horse Race, Jenn and Lisa discuss the biggest headlines of the week so far -- the continued issues around in-person schooling during a surge in COVID-19 cases, the newest entrant in the race for Lieutenant Governor (Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll), and the Boston's self-imposed deadline to clear tents from the Mass & Cass area wherein 140-plus people currently reside.
Executive Director of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Michael Bobbitt provides a glimpse into the arts and culture communities throughout Massachusetts--how are they navigating the ever-changing landscape that COVID-19 creates? As arts venues go from gearing up for reopening to welcoming back patrons to shutting down performances due to omicron infections, Bobbitt explains how arts consumption is changing, and people's expectations for art is evolving.
Finally, new data out today from The MassINC Polling Group finds Massachusetts voters are amenable to shifting the cost of public transportation away from riders and toward high-income taxpayers. Friend of the pod and MPG Research Director Rich Parr explains the majority support for what's known as the "millionaire's tax" bodes well for its performance on the November ballot. The poll also asked about registered voters perceptions on transportation's climate preparedness, low-income fare discounts, fare-free modes of transportation, and what kind of condition they find the state's transportation system.
Full transcript below:
Jennifer Smith: [00:00:28] Today on The Horse Race, we check in on the state of the arts. Two years into the pandemic, then we're hitting the roads and the rails to talk transit. It's Thursday, January 13th. [00:00:38][10.3]
Lisa Kashinsky: [00:00:51] Welcome back to The Horse Race, your weekly look at politics, policy and elections in Massachusetts. I'm Lisa Kashinsky here with Jennifer Smith, our co-host Steve Koczela isn't with us this week, but we do have is polling. [00:01:03][11.6]
Jennifer Smith: [00:01:03] See, here's the thing last week we talked about how much he loved, you know, polling from the year 2014 or so. And you know, everything is the 2016 election all over again. But I would like to direct everyone's attention to another very important year, which was 2018, when we apparently almost got a Ben Affleck run for Congress. [00:01:22][18.9]
Lisa Kashinsky: [00:01:26] Can you imagine a congressman? Affleck? But apparently, he said in a Boston Globe interview, Berry that has now been picked up widely by People magazine and talked about on the radio. Yeah. So apparently people wanted him to run against Capuano, and he was like, No, but then we all know what happened in twenty eighteen, which is that Ayanna Pressley, now Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, beat Capuano and knocked him out of office. So can you imagine what would have happened if that Affleck had run against Ayanna Pressley for Congress because he can't? [00:02:04][38.0]
Jennifer Smith: [00:02:04] Yeah, I know I love that he was saying it's such a good thing. I didn't jump into the race. She would have cleaned my clock, which I also have a pet theory on this one. Because, as we discussed ad nauseum at the time, Michael Capuano is the uncle of Chris Evans, who is Captain America, and Ben Affleck did play Batman. So I just like to think this could have been an extension of like a Marvel DC proxy war that tragically or fortunately, we will never have the opportunity to witness here in Massachusetts [00:02:35][31.0]
Lisa Kashinsky: [00:02:37] As a huge Marvel fan and particularly a Captain America fan. Chris Evans, if you're ever listening to this. Hi. Would love to meet you. [00:02:47][9.5]
Jennifer Smith: [00:02:58] I don't know. I think we just have a really strong deck of like whimsical slash broody superheroes from Massachusetts. So I think they should all run at some point in the future when all of the legitimate politicians are busy doing something else. But that moment is not yet here. Apparently, people are trying to do something, including how's this for a segue, pulling the governor in front of the Legislature to figure out what's been going on with COVID and schools? [00:03:25][26.9]
Lisa Kashinsky: [00:03:26] Yeah, I'm not sure how much they actually figure it out at this week's hearing, but Baker was back in the hot seat for another COVID legislative oversight hearing. This is actually a few weeks after members of his administration did not testify at the last meeting that they had in December, so they hauled in the governor this time and Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders and grilled him for about an hour each on school and mask mandates, vaccines and vaccine mandates. And as Erin Tiernan at the Boston Herald pointed out, she had talked to one of the co-chairs afterwards. They just didn't really feel like they moved the needle. One of the interesting things that did come out of this, though, was Baker admitting that getting kids vaccinated was a harder sell than he thought it would be than he is. Even in personal conversations, having a hard time convincing people to get their kids to get the shots, I mean, Jenn, you were listening into it too. What did you think? [00:04:20][54.0]
Jennifer Smith: [00:04:21] Yeah, I think the thing that really struck me was kind of the the the ongoing question of of exactly how safe is it to have kids in school right now? So I think a lot of people did sort of raise their eyebrows at Baker's sort of continued line that it's it's perfectly safe to have kids in school doesn't support like a state mask mandate, though obviously there is, you know, a school mask mandate at the at the state level. But it did kind of hit me as a little bit discordant your point there, where he's saying it's perfectly safe, but also we're having a really hard time getting kids vaccinated. And then this happened kind of in the context of a super cold week here in Massachusetts, and it was cold enough that Boston Public Schools were closed for basically snow day rationales. And there was, I will say, a bit of head scratching indignation at the idea that, you know, eight degrees is cold enough to cancel schools from plenty of people. And and the reason, of course, that this is a problem is is the ventilation system for most of these schools is just keeping the windows open. So if it's eight degrees outside, these kids are going to freeze. There was a lot of back and forth with with parents saying Why am I getting notifications from the schools, saying You're sending your kids in today, put them in multiple layers, they're going to be cold inside these school buildings. So. So, yeah, I think coming out of the hearing itself, I was left with a big sort of question mark of is it actually a good idea right now in the middle of winter as hopefully we approach, you know, post peak, but still a pretty high amount of COVID cases to have kids in school with no flexibility when we know that they're probably going to be freezing their poor little noses off. [00:06:14][113.5]
Lisa Kashinsky: [00:06:15] Yeah, and this is just something that I just don't think we're ever going to see. Some of the Democratic leaders in the state and Gov. Charlie Baker agree on, I mean, Mary Lou Sudders is the health and Human Services Secretary. She held that line, too, and they were both pretty indignant on it. But I mean, it is interesting, you know, for what it's worth it, um while democratic leaders here are really pushing for more school safety. You have Democratic mayors and governors across the country who are fighting to keep kids in school. They actually just wrote about it for Politico. And yes, it is just interesting how the divide is here versus where it is kind of outside of New England. So, but you know, there is other not COVID related news this week, allegedly. [00:06:58][42.9]
Jennifer Smith: [00:06:59] I don't know, is there there's a COVID connection for for literally everything. And now it's just COVID plus winter all over again because time doesn't move. [00:07:07][7.3]
Lisa Kashinsky: [00:07:07] Yeah. Time doesn't move. But apparently the political season is still chugging along. So we had another entrance into the lieutenant governor's race this week that is Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll. So that brings it to a mayor or two state senators, a state representative and a businessman. I guess we'll see what happens when they all walk into a bar together. [00:07:26][18.8]
Jennifer Smith: [00:07:27] Lisa! [00:07:27][0.0]
Lisa Kashinsky: [00:07:30] I've been waiting for that. I've been waiting for more people to get into this race, so I could use that joke. But yeah, so the field for lieutenant governor is growing the fields for other races. I think we all know what I'm referring to here have not grown since we last met. And in other news, around the hub this week, there was another big deadline in Boston today. [00:07:51][21.4]
Jennifer Smith: [00:07:52] Yeah. So as we've mentioned before, as we're recording today on Wednesday, but not on Thursday. When you're hearing this, we have hit the kind of self-imposed deadline for clearing out the encampment at the area of Boston, known as Mass and Cass, which is where we've really seen a centering of the homelessness and also opioid crisis in the city of Boston. Mayor Michelle Wu had said that this week was going to be when they fully cleared out this kind of encampment. Lisa, you talked with Tori Bedford and Sean Cotter about this in an earlier episode. So what is it exactly that today was the deadline for and can they do it? [00:08:35][43.0]
Lisa Kashinsky: [00:08:36] Today was the day that Boston Mayor Michelle Wu was had given herself to connect the approximately one hundred and forty some odd people living in the various encampments around the mass and cast area to housing treatment and other services. She has said give some updates earlier this week that they had the beds, the capacity to be able to place everyone who was living down there, and they did go out Wednesday morning, starting, I think around dawn and started clearing those tents, trying to connect the people who they had not gotten connected before with services. And so now we'll just have to see how effective this is. But that is a lot of news that's happening outside of the world of the pod. So what are we doing here today? [00:09:20][43.9]
Jennifer Smith: [00:09:20] Well, we're going to take a trip back and forward in time from from the podcast universe because we're joined again by Michael Bobbitt, who you all heard this summer on mass reboot, talking about the seeming light at the end of the tunnel for arts spaces here in Massachusetts. Now what we know was mid-pandemic, so we're going to be catching up with him. And after that we got public transit polling with good friend of the pod Rich Parr. So shall we ride? [00:09:47][26.5]
Lisa Kashinsky: [00:09:47] Let's get to it. [00:09:48][0.7]
Jennifer Smith: [00:09:55] The emergence of the highly contagious Omicron variant of coronavirus this winter brought with it a whole new slate of challenges in the almost now three year long pandemic. One of the victims of this roller coaster ride has been the arts and culture sector back in the spring of 2021, which feels like 300 million years ago at this point, arts venues were gearing up for reopening, believe it or not. As we discussed in our summer series mass reboot, only to be met immediately with Delta and on the crown searches soon after. So joining us to talk today about how the arts and culture sector is doing at the start of 2022 is one of our previous mass reboot guests. Michael Bobbit, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Welcome back, Michael. [00:10:37][42.3]
Michael Bobbitt: [00:10:38] Thank you for having me. It's good to be here to be able to talk to you about this issue that we're having. [00:10:41][3.8]
Jennifer Smith: [00:10:42] Yeah. So when you talk to Steve and Libby in June, you said when the pandemic began, you were running a not for profit theater in Watertown. And back then you were scrambling to keep, you know, staff employed, keep patrons engaged and then you found yourself a year later in 2021, as the executive director of MCC, scrambling in a different way. You were hoping that as these arts spaces reopened, people would come back with the same eagerness they had before the pandemic. We are now in year three. So status update. How are arts communities around Massachusetts doing now? [00:11:16][33.6]
Michael Bobbitt: [00:11:17] Well, I wish I hadn't skipped that class on pandemic planning and an arts management school because no one prepares you for sort of the chaos of what this is. I, you know, I have friends out in California who have used the term a cultural depression to really describe what we're going through. Most arts and culture is consumed with people gathering in a space. And so because space is so vulnerable, it can happen. And so most of the arts organizations, which are already surviving under this nonprofit model, which is where you offer your tickets at a reduced cost because it's a public service, it's a health and human services. And then you've got to chase money all the time to make up the the lack of revenue. You have to keep the business running. So it's just hard. [00:12:07][49.1]
Michael Bobbitt: [00:12:07] And I mean, there's just so many things happening. And every time people get up and get excited that we can sort of everyone adjusts and pivots to the new safety measures that something else hits like Omicron, which is sort of piercing through even the vaccinated. So they're really struggling. I mean, I, you know, I have organizations that have closed. I have organizations that are laid off many, many, many artists. I have artists that are moving out of state because they can't afford to live here. Moving back with their parents, leaving the industry because they've had 20 years of struggling and now there is no work. So it's hard. We've just got a big infusion of cash from the from the state through the American Rescue Plan at $60 million. I'm so excited about that. That's three times what we normally get in a year. And so hopefully I can infuse some cash into the sector and get them. Recovering and stimulating some growth for the future. [00:13:04][57.5]
Lisa Kashinsky: [00:13:06] So you just mentioned staffing, I mean, how does that compare to 2020 when there were no vaccines? Twenty twenty one when we got vaccines, but then there were two, at least two variant fueled surges. And now in the twenty twenty two, we're we're in the third one. I mean, you mentioned artists out of work, staff at venues. What's going on? And how has it changed? [00:13:29][22.3]
Michael Bobbitt: [00:13:30] Well, first of all, I love vaccines. I want more. I'm trying to score some pills from a dealer. I know I'm just like, everyone. Get vaccines, please. We need this thing to stop. Yeah, I think, you know, in the beginning, the panic of no, I mean, zero cash coming in except from donations caused a lot of people to furlough and lay off some people. We've seen the philanthropic community step up in a way that hasn't been the case before we lost to the federal government, step up with programs like the state, the shuttered venue operating grant and the PPP, the--what's that stand for? [00:14:04][33.8]
Jennifer Smith: [00:14:06] Paycheck Protection Program. [00:14:08][1.2]
Michael Bobbitt: [00:14:08] Yeah, so those have helped. And also the state has stepped up through us with some sort of COVID mitigation money. This next infusion, while it's only 60 million, is quite a bit of money, so I think people are finding ways to bring staff back. The other thing I will say, and I think we need to do this more, is that the cultural sector is extremely innovative. So we're already used to pinching a penny and making things work. So I think they found ways to make things work. We're still catching up on some of the awesomeness that a digital world can provide. How many more people you can reach when you have a really strong digital platform. [00:14:49][40.1]
Michael Bobbitt: [00:14:49] But I think we have a long way to go that requires funds to to to to train people on how to use a digital technology, to buy equipment, to buy software, to train marketing people, to convert in-person patrons to people that are willing to to use the digital world. I keep sharing with people that we need to look at what what happened in the sports world when sports started streaming into people's homes. The experience was different because you could do instant replay slo mo, you can right on the screen, you can have colorful commentary, and maybe those are the kind of things you need to start thinking about when we're talking about art consumption at home. Because when we make advances in technology, we don't usually go back and no one's out there using their iPod Touch or their eight track tape. So we need to keep going. And me and really maybe the cultural sector can actually help us innovate in that way. [00:15:45][55.6]
Jennifer Smith: [00:15:46] Well, exactly to that note about kind of the shift to digital mediums. I'm curious. We we had talked before about, you know, Zoom plays outdoor walking plays kind of changes that came out of necessity, but then either reach a different audience or enable you to do a different kind of art. What's the response that you've seen from arts sector art sector work about whether or not this is something that they want to keep doing in the future or the parallel that comes to mind here is is kind of the challenges of remote learning where we just tried to take what we were already doing in person and shifted online. So there's kind of this intrinsic eagerness to get back to what we thought was, quote unquote, the working model. So how are how are artists dealing with the question of do we do more stuff outside? Do we do more stuff online? Is this a medium shift or a holdover? [00:16:43][57.0]
Michael Bobbitt: [00:16:44] Yeah, I mean, there are a couple of things. One is that we know that a lot of arts patronage is done by older people. And so they they've been convening around art in a way that has been designed hundreds and hundreds of years ago. They go to the theater and see a show and they go to the opera. They see a show and go to the symphony. They sit in a hall, they see a show. And so shifting that when most of our patrons are used to consuming art in one way has been a bit of a challenge. I think in the beginning, when we all thought this was going to be a three week shutdown. We were like, Well, this digital stuff is a stopgap. We'll do this now, but we'll get back to doing it the way we are doing it. I think we're starting to embrace it more. I'm seeing a lot of innovation out there. I think there needs to be more innovation because I think, you know, one of the things I read, an article that made total sense to me in the beginning, organizations were having trouble sort of monetizing the digital work. People were like, I'm not going to pay for this. [00:17:41][57.2]
Michael Bobbitt: [00:17:43] But at the same time, organizations weren't investing in the quality of the product. And so because again, I think we were all thinking about it as a stopgap, you know, so we're going to get back to doing it the way we used to do, and this is what we're doing for now. Now we're seeing a bit of a shift. People at home are paying for it. People in organizations are investing more resources in the quality. So to me, it's going to. Be both we're going to I think I in fact, I think that what I'm sort of guessing is that consumption of art in public spaces without the hybrid option will feel like a throwback really soon. I think we'll see every single arts organization and even maybe individual artists having their own streaming network. You know, artists already have YouTube channels, and you know, that's going to be as much as the art sector is innovative. Sometimes we like to do the same thing. And I think we have to change. I remember when, when, when, when websites came out, we were like, No, we're going to keep printing brochures. And then everyone turned to websites. Same thing. When social media happened, people were like, No, we don't need to do that. So slow to move sometimes. But when we move, when we catch up and when we decide we like this, we take it by the bull, by the horns and run with it. [00:18:59][76.1]
Lisa Kashinsky: [00:19:00] And so all of this is coming, as right now we're seeing headlines across the country about theater performances being canceled as cast and crew get infected with COVID. What is that doing to the cast, the crew of the venues in the financial sense, as well as an emotional toll? [00:19:17][16.3]
Michael Bobbitt: [00:19:18] I mean, it's like PTSD. I mean, you so when a show is over, you don't have work. I think artists are used to that. But when you get that show, when it's supposed to run for six months and then all of a sudden it's canceled and that becomes a bit of a crisis and then it feels like up and down and up and down. You know, I have learned that I do not like the word pivot anymore because that's all I've been doing for the last two years pivoting, pivoting, pivoting. And I just don't pivot anymore. I sort of know what's happening. I'm hopeful that some of the things I've been reading and listened to says that, you know, they're showing that they've reached peak in in London. And so maybe we're starting to see the the down part of the COVID stuff. But, you know, just stay close to the news and keep pivoting and keep adjusting to whatever's happening out there and even shows that have been closing and can reopen or new projects kidnaping. [00:20:19][60.2]
Jennifer Smith: [00:20:20] And one thing that came up over the summer that I'm sure is still true now is that these impacts don't hit all sectors equally. You know, there are particularly detrimental effects to small arts venues. Performance venues that cater to are staffed by people of color, people in lower income communities. So we talked over the summer about the additional effort that needs to be made to kind of support those who are already artistically vulnerable. Have those efforts been successful at all? What more still needs to be done? [00:20:53][32.6]
Michael Bobbitt: [00:20:54] Yeah, there are so many statistics out there about smaller arts organizations and nonprofit arts organization receiving. Significantly less funding, I mean, the BIPOC community gets four percent of all philanthropic dollars in the whole U.S., the Native American community, it's 0.02 percent of all philanthropic dollars that are allocated in the whole nation. So they're already struggling because they're a nonprofit now. They're struggling more because there are BIPOC organization, and now they're struggling even more because they've been hit by COVID. So, you know, what I'm happy about is because of the racial reckoning. We're all starting to see that we have to make more equitable and conscientious choices about who gets funding and who gets support. That seems to be what's happening all across the state. I know it's something that Mass Cultural Council is deeply invested in, and we have to make sure that my money comes from tax dollars, you know, to take the money that you, that you pay on your incomes and then that money gets allocated out to the state. So I exist to invest in the community. And so I have to make sure I'm investing in the whole community, not a portion of the community. So we have a racial equity plan that we put out in November, and it's going to help guide us in making the most equitable grant we can make. And hopefully we'll see a shift, at least in the work that I'm doing. I hope to have the ear of other philanthropic organizations to support their efforts in making equitable grants of the cultural community. But we have a long way to go. [00:22:30][95.8]
Lisa Kashinsky: [00:22:31] So as you mentioned earlier, vaccines are a good thing requiring them for indoor art spaces. Is that a good idea? [00:22:37][5.9]
Michael Bobbitt: [00:22:39] Absolutely. I mean, the hope is to ensure the safety of everyone attending, and so to me is absolutely a requirement. If you don't get back, you can't get me. You know, there's 300 people sitting in chairs around and artist on stage in front of them, get sick. And all of those people will be hurt from this. So yeah, they're going to get vaccinated. The science is out there. There's no more research that anyone has to do to make to know that their vaccines are safe, get vaccinated or know that you can come into certain people's buildings. That's that's the way it is. [00:23:15][36.5]
Jennifer Smith: [00:23:16] Well, I like that we are ending on a clear note if we have to end it all. Obviously, we are going to continue to follow this. I would like to be optimistic and say that there will be clarity for you in the future, and you won't have to pivot at all, but it probably won't happen. So fingers crossed that it just has to happen a little less. [00:23:34][17.5]
Michael Bobbitt: [00:23:34] Sure. I keep going back to the 1940s, when the polio virus was rampant, arts organizations were closed. There was no hybrid. They were closed for about five years. So this is not something that's going to go well. You know, it's COVID is here forever. So we will have to learn how to adjust to it and deal with it, and we will get there. [00:23:54][19.9]
Jennifer Smith: [00:23:55] Yeah. Well, until then. Michael Bobbit, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Thank you so much for coming back on. [00:24:01][6.5]
Michael Bobbitt: [00:24:01] Thank you for having me. [00:24:02][0.7]
Lisa Kashinsky: [00:24:05] Most Massachusetts voters and, of course, co-host Jenn agree that the transportation system in this state needs improvement. And according to data out today, a majority of them also support that the improvements be funded more through high income taxpayers and less from riders. That's according to the latest poll from the massive polling group orchestrated by NPG research director and friend of the pod Rich Parr, who joins us today to tell us all about it. Hey there, Rich, how's it going? [00:24:32][26.7]
Rich Parr: [00:24:33] Very well. Happy New Year, how are you? [00:24:34][1.2]
Lisa Kashinsky: [00:24:35] We are good over here at The Horse Race, so start off by telling us about the scope of this poll. Who did you survey and when? [00:24:42][7.0]
Rich Parr: [00:24:44] So we talked to about a thousand registered voters in Massachusetts, and this was taken during that week, leading up to Christmas in December. So December 20th to twenty six. For context, it's kind of like right when Omicron is starting to take kind of take off. And we talked about some questions last week that had to do with that, but the main chunk of the survey was actually about transportation. What do people think about it? What would they support in terms of things that are being discussed right now in the state and some changes to it? And then how would you pay for that? And those are the numbers that are being released. Well, those questions were sponsored by the Bar Foundation, which you know, funds a lot of our survey work on transportation, climate topics. [00:25:28][44.5]
Jennifer Smith: [00:25:29] So there is, as usual, so much to get into. So let's always start out with our favorite rich for you. What were the takeaways that struck you the most kind of coming out of this? [00:25:40][10.3]
Rich Parr: [00:25:41] Well, it seems to me like, well, there's a bit of an opening, I would say, for a real change in the way that we think about paying for public transportation in the state by public transportation, like the busses and the subways and the trains. And you know, if you've ever heard the tea talk about a problem that they're having, they talk in terms of their customers. They talk about themselves almost as if they're a business. The idea that you're paying a fare and then you get to ride on the train, you get a service out of that. [00:26:11][30.5]
Rich Parr: [00:26:13] What this poll asked about was something that's been talked about now in Boston with the new Boston mayor, Michelle Wu. It's been talked about in Worcester, and I think a couple of the other regional transit authority to run busses in the state, which is the idea that maybe we shouldn't be charging fares, at least to ride the busses. We can talk about other other types of public transit venues in terms of the busses and perhaps the busses in certain neighborhoods. Maybe we shouldn't be having a family and we should try to see what would happen if we didn't have people prepared to get on the bus. What happens in terms of ridership in terms of operations is it make it easier for the busses to get around so and so forth and biological that people are pretty on board with that idea if you just narrow down to the free busses in low income neighborhoods. Seventy one percent of the voters again statewide, this is a statewide poll. There's a lot of these questions have kind of statewide implications. We support that. That's not just busses and busses in any of these regional transit authorities. And then that number goes down as you go into like all busses or making the subways free or making a commuter rail. But but even at its lowest 53 percent for making the commuter rail and the ferries free is a pretty significant, pretty significant number. [00:27:25][72.7]
Lisa Kashinsky: [00:27:27] It really is. And one of the things that always comes up in talking about reduced fare free fare public transit is how do you pay for it? And there seems to be possibly some openness to shifting the cost of that away from riders and toward high income taxpayers to kind of help fund these initiatives. What do those numbers look like in the poll? [00:27:47][20.3]
Rich Parr: [00:27:48] Yes. So we did tests what's sometimes called the millionaire's tax or the fair share amendment. This is a ballot question that's going to be on the ballot in November. It had was slated to be on the ballot in 2018, and then it got knocked off by a court challenge. But it is back now. It may be like the big, you know, signature ballot question that we're all talking about this year, so we wanted to get an early read on it. And we found that 70 percent of voters support that idea. There's a lot of partisan split on that. Democrats more oppose-- or, so, Democrats more in favor, Republicans more opposed, but 70 percent is a good place for a ballot question to start assuming that over time, the arguments against it sort of start to build up that that support number is probably going to go down as we go through the course of the year. I should say we asked that question right off at the top of the survey. We didn't necessarily tie it to this question of transit. We just asked it on its own because we wanted to understand as if you were a voter coming to the polls in November. How would you be thinking about this? [00:28:49][60.4]
[00:28:50] We also asked people, you know, that question posits that the money would be collected from that tax would be spent on education and transportation. And so we asked people, How would you like to see that divvied up between those two things? And plurality, 39 percent said, would be pretty much like to see it split right down the middle between those two things. There were a little bit more people who said they'd actually like to see more money on education than on transportation, which is kind of interesting. It's a good reminder that I think people in Massachusetts really are proud of our schools and are willing to spend the money to keep them good. And so that's going to be a whole other kettle of fish if this passes. What is the debate between how much this should be spent on education and transportation? But if we're talking about spending it on something like making transit free or giving low income writers a fair discount, it seems like there's some popular support for that idea and that that might become part of the mix on the school campuses. [00:29:44][53.8]
Jennifer Smith: [00:29:45] So to get back at something that you mentioned before talking about the support for discounted fares for low income riders and kind of the differing levels of support for all of these types of of public transit, is it seeming to you pretty consistent with the amount of public support for changes to, say, fare free busses as opposed to the subways? Because we've been talking about municipalities who have basically done that, who who have been saying, honestly, we think we can put half a million dollars into a pilot program to make some key bus routes free. So how are those two things interacting, the public support for that kind of free fair system and also the way that cities have actually been implementing those programs? [00:30:30][44.8]
Rich Parr: [00:30:31] Yeah, it's interesting. I think the numbers for the free busses are a little bit higher in the Boston area, and that may reflect some experience people have had or hearing about that idea just more of the views because it has been covered quite a bit. The idea of what Mayor Michelle Wu is attempting to do with the busses in Boston, specifically the busses in Roxbury and Dorchester, I should say that even more popular than making transit free completely is this idea of low income fare discounts. 79 percent of voters supported that idea. So in that instance, people would still be paying fares. It's just that if you made under a certain amount of money, you would pay less. You'd have some sort of discount. [00:31:14][43.2]
[00:31:15] So that's an extremely popular idea, and that's an idea that the MBTA is apparently in the process of working up a pilot on. And there is, I think, internal debate within the see whether you want to go have some discount that is connected to the level of income of individual riders or whether you want to do it more and then geographically and say this is the bus route that serves a certain population and we want to make that less money or we want to make that free altogether. So it's possible that people are hearing about it or experiencing it for themselves in the Boston area because this is something that's been piling in in Boston, certainly made may be sort of paving the way a little bit for this, but there's a long way to go here, right? These pilots are going to take time to sort of happen, and we need to sort of see what the data is in terms of ridership in terms of operations to make the busses go faster. If you're not stopping to cut fares at every stop, something like that, you know, just a level of satisfaction that people are experiencing from having not to pay versus having to pay. [00:32:14][59.9]
Lisa Kashinsky: [00:32:17] So one item in this that didn't get quite as much support, though there was still a majority was free commuter rail and ferries, and we're going into detail on this during Mass Reboot. The commuter rail zones in lowest income areas have the highest ticket price. Do you have any guess as to why more people didn't support their free commuter rail in this? [00:32:36][20.0]
Rich Parr: [00:32:39] You know, we don't have anything on the survey that would kind of indicate this, but I will say that I think the perception of the average commuter rail rider putting aside the fact that you're right when you get out to the commuter rail trains that go all the way up to Lawrence or to Worcester or some of these gateway cities. You've got a lot of low income riders at those terminus points. But a lot of the other commuter rail riders are from kind of more suburban areas. They might have an option between driving or taking the commuter rail. I think there's a perception that perhaps those people could afford to pay fares. Certainly in the case of the ferries, which are relatively limited communities and those communities are, you know, to be pretty well off. I think there's a perception that those folks perhaps could afford to pay more or pay something for the service that may be driving down a support for making that aspect of the service free relative to things like the subway or the busses, or in particular, the busses that serve certain low income communities. [00:33:35][55.6]
Jennifer Smith: [00:33:36] And another thing that you were asking about, which is is very topical right now, is whether or not the state's transportation system is prepared for the effects of climate change. A lot of these, you know, Lisa out here shaking her head. She knows the answer. Rich the question of whether or not these these trains, these busses, our system in general, whether they're ready, if suddenly all of the coast of Massachusetts is underwater, how how do people feel? We're prepped for that. [00:34:09][33.2]
Rich Parr: [00:34:10] Yes. So we asked kind of two questions that are sort of along these lines. We ask people kind of the perception of what's the condition of the transportation system right now, meaning the roads, the highways, the bridges, the trains, the busses, all of that kind of physical infrastructure. And we did not get a very good response on that. There's a lot of room for improvement, and three quarters of voters across the state said that they think that all those assets are only in a poor, fair or poor condition, so fair or lower, if you will. Very few people said only five percent said excellent and 18 percent said good. So not great marks in terms of your overall condition. And then when you layer climate on top of that, we asked about sort of preparedness of the state as a whole, not just the transportation system, but you know, only 50-- 50 percent said they were not too prepared or not prepared at all for the effects of climate change. And we define that as more extreme heat, more powerful storms, more and heavier flooding. So all of those things you just mentioned general kind of heat stations getting inundated and sea level rise, or perhaps a heat wave that knocks out a power station or something like that. All of those effects, that's kind of what we had in mind with this question. And you know, it's a little bit better than the current national transportation system, but you put those two things together. The current state and then perhaps what our future is going to look like. And it really sort of you start to kind of see the dollar signs they're going to start to add up here in terms of what would need to be done in order to invest, to get things up for what we're going to be. [00:35:39][88.4]
Lisa Kashinsky: [00:35:40] Well, we could probably keep talking about this for another few hours at least, but unfortunately, that's all the time we have for this. Rich Parr, research director at the MassINC Polling Group. Thanks so much for taking the time. [00:35:51][11.6]
Rich Parr: [00:35:52] You bet. Good to talk to you. [00:35:53][0.4]
Lisa Kashinsky: [00:35:56] And so this brings us to our final segment of the week: something to watch, Jenn, I think you and I are watching the same thing. After rent control got its stay on Beacon Hill for the first time since some new pro rent control measures were sworn into office. What do you see? [00:36:11][15.2]
Jennifer Smith: [00:36:12] So during an extremely long hearing this week, Beacon Hill considered about 20 housing bills during a really kind of interesting and unusual for Massachusetts discussion about what's historically been, in part, the third rail of housing policy here, which is the question of should we have rent control on a state level? The question is whether or not we overturn the decades long ban against rent control in its kind of traditional form, or to what extent we can consider other rent stabilization metrics. So what was really striking to me is that even though you saw kind of the standard pushback about, you know, wanting turnover in units, you also saw a really significant amount of support for something that, as I mentioned, has just kind of been considered dead on arrival whenever it's made its way to the Legislature before. So I think our plan here is to come back to this at a later time to really delve into many of the options. But we're seeing a number of elected officials, like Mayor Michael Woo, who are more open to the idea of rent control and other kind of controversial, historically again, rent stabilization measures than we've seen in the past, so we can get into those in more detail later. But for now, I think that's that's what's been going on in Beacon Hill that we should be keeping an eye on. [00:37:33][81.0]
Lisa Kashinsky: [00:37:34] Yeah, that was seven hours yesterday, [00:37:36][1.7]
Jennifer Smith: [00:37:37] too many hours. [00:37:37][0.4]
Lisa Kashinsky: [00:37:38] It was a lot of hours on top of a day with a lot of hearings. But yeah, there's definitely a lot to dig into with that. Hopefully, even when we do, we won't take quite seven hours. But for today, I'm Lisa Kashinsky here with Jennifer Smith. Don't forget to subscribe to us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Subscribe to the Massachusetts Politico Playbook and ping the MassINC Polling Group for polls. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week. [00:37:38][0.0]
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