Real Estate Professor: Rail Transit is an Investment Worth Making
July 13, 2015
Contact: University Relations
Phone: 410.837.5739
Seema Iyer, associate director of the Jacob France Institute and research assistant professor in UB's Merrick School of Business, says in an op-ed in The Baltimore Sun that rail transportation is an important way to improve the city.
"Baltimore was the only eastern seaboard city to continue to lose population between 2000 and 2010. All other cities between Boston and Washington, D.C., managed to reverse decades of losses," Iyer writes. "Like Baltimore, those cities have been plagued with similar urban issues that arise from rapid depopulation such as crime, poor education and economic restructuring. But those cities invested a long time ago in a transit network, including the Washington region, where Governor Hogan has agreed to allow the continued expansion with the Purple Line."
Iyer calls for a renewal of efforts to make the case that a new light rail line will bring back some of Baltimore's most underserved neighborhoods, in the wake of the governor's announcement that the Red Line proposal would be tabled.
"More than any other indicator, it is access to work via a reliable transit system that will truly ensure equal opportunity for everyone. Let us all use this information to make the case to Governor Hogan so that we can capitalize on the sweat equity that has been built in Baltimore, and have the courage to act now to reverse inequality in the region for generations to come," Iyer writes.
Read the op-ed.
Learn more about Prof. Iyer and the Merrick School of Business.