But I lock in a 20-25 minute bike ride (or 50-minute walk + public transit ride in winter) to work in the Seaport. I saw I-93 at rush hour once, and I shudder at the memory.
At least part of my reasoning was, "What if Amazon does choose Boston? Do I move my family into a second or third floor condo with no yard at all?"
I thought the removal of physical toll booths from the Mass Pike would help. I have seen absolutely no benefit.
Big problem in RI, if you've ever driven down to the south county beaches on Rt 1, you'll actually be on a "highway" that has 6-7 lights. Why not just have off/on-ramps? Infrastructure is hard, apparently no one wants to spend on that.
>If Amazon came to Boston, it would be compound this problem exponentially, though whoever owns property currently would definitely make a good return.
The proposed location (Suffolk Downs) is sort of an odd one from a housing perspective. It is on the T but that's all very blue collar neighborhoods around there, some of which have gentrified a bit but still not places your typical software engineer would normally choose to live.
Why aren't more companies in New England going to where the commercial real estate and housing are cheaper?
My company does have an office in the Seaport but it's in Boston specifically because it makes more sense to have a customer briefing center there. Most MA employees are about 45 minutes west.
ADDED: And when biotech started going into Kendall Square that area was pretty much old warehouses. Of course, now it's some of the most expensive real estate in the Boston area. I know someone whose company moved out of Kendall Square to move to the Finance District because it was cheaper.
* No T access or...
* Other transit stations don't have existing office buildings or are equally built out, losing to other advantages as...
* No "scene" - Kendall and the Seaport have a "feel" to them that you don't find at, say, Alewife
So, you could choose to locate a company in Worcester (or even closer in, say, Framingham), but many of the 20/30 somethings will have a tough time getting to these locations and these towns themselves don't have people with the necessary skill sets.
It's criminal the train from Boston to Worcester is slower today than it was in 1950. But that's another topic.
For those who aren't aware, many of Boston's intersections and squares are terrible intersections, remnants of the crossings due to actual cow-paths. There's also a massive amount of old housing property and relatively little new housing stock. There are high density apartment or condo buildings sprouting up here and there, but by large, you're going to be paying over 1 million for a small/old house in/around Boston, possibly 2 million depending on the location. If you're willing to commute 1.5 hours, you can get a fixer upper in a semi-rural area for around 300-400k. If Amazon came to Boston, it would be compound this problem exponentially, though whoever owns property currently would definitely make a good return.