Smoother path seen for transportation funds

BY HEATHER BELLOW

The Berkshire Eagle

LENOX — Much red tape will be cut, innovation will reign, and a large chunk of state transportation money will be spent in a way that breaks from the neglect and inefficiency of the past.

Western Massachusetts, and the Berkshires, will get more attention from now on.

Gov. Maura Healey said this and more at her Tuesday stop at Town Hall while traveling on her “Transforming Transportation Road Show.”

The initiative will earmark $8.4 billion for roads, bridges and culverts, with an emphasis on “climate resilience” meant to fortify towns and cities against changing weather. The money also will “stabilize” the finances of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and invest in projects like West-East rail.

Of that money, she told reporters, $200 million will flow to culverts and small bridges.

And it will all happen without raising taxes. Healey said the money will come from the Fair Share surtax — or “millionaire’s tax” — that charges 4 percent on taxable income over $1 million.

Voters approved the surtax in 2022 for transportation and public school spending. Healey said she would use and leverage that existing revenue for this new initiative.

Healey also said her proposal includes a 50 percent increase every year in local road money known as “Chapter 90.” The formula for how to carve up this money across the state has been reworked, and favorably so for the Berk-shires and other rural areas.

“We’re determined to do things differently than they’ve been done in the past,” Healey said of Berkshire concerns. And her administration, she added, doesn’t believe in “kicking the can down the road, which has happened for too long.”

And while Healey is vocal about proposed Trump administration cuts, she said this state transportation money is safe from federal reach.

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