(Illustration by Dsndrn-Videolar via Pixabay)

MASSACHUSETTS RANKS NEAR the top in education, health, and economic output. It also ranks near the top for cost of living. Housing and transportation drive much of that cost.

Those costs show up in daily life. A nurse in Worcester spends 45 minutes commuting because they can’t afford anything closer. A teacher in Fitchburg drives two hours daily for the same reason. A two-earner household in many communities still spends more than half its income on housing and transportation combined, because both adults need cars to reach work. Seniors who want to downsize often can’t find smaller homes near services, and once driving stops being an option, isolation follows, bringing real risks to cognitive health and independence.

Cities and towns feel the strain in a different way. Teachers, nurses, and DPW staff increasingly can’t afford to live near their jobs, and the effects show up everywhere from school enrollment to municipal hiring. Last year alone, roughly 33,000 more people left Massachusetts for other states than arrived. This is a much larger issue than just Greater Boston; this pressure is felt statewide.

Most communities plan housing and transportation separately, because they lack the shared data to do anything else. Without a clear picture of how land use and mobility interact, towns plan each system in isolation, and that gap has a cost. Communities struggle to retain workers, support aging residents, and manage growth without understanding how zoning, infrastructure, and household budgets are connected.

Everyone talks about lowering housing costs. Few talk about lowering transportation costs. Housing supply matters, but supply takes time. Transportation choices can change household costs much faster.

Affordability also depends on where daily needs are located. If every trip requires a car, transportation becomes a fixed household expense that compounds housing cost. We have talked about “complete streets” for years. It is time to talk about “complete neighborhoods.”

A study by the Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission puts this dynamic into sharp focus. Working with a multidisciplinary consultant team, CMRPC analyzed how housing location and transportation access affect household costs across the region. The findings are striking.

Even in towns with lower home prices, households often face high combined costs when driving is the only option. CMRPC calls these places “vehicle locked” — communities with high vehicle dependency, where residents must rely on a car for nearly every daily need. The share of a town that is vehicle locked tracks closely with overall household cost burden. Where residents can choose to walk, roll (by wheelchair), or use transit, transportation costs fall. Households can save thousands of dollars a year.

CMRPC terms this “transportation diversity.” This is not the elimination of car ownership, but the reduction of trips that require one. The benefits extend beyond household budgets. Roads and wide streets cost millions to build and maintain; municipalities in Massachusetts collectively spend hundreds of millions annually on roadway upkeep alone. Reducing vehicle dependency lowers that long-term liability for local public works.

The project produced an interactive mapping tool that lets communities explore these relationships in their own towns, where growth fits best, where investment in walking, biking, and transit access can most effectively reduce costs and expand opportunity. That kind of locally grounded analysis helps places grow in ways that reduce traffic, support independence, and lower costs for new and existing residents alike.

Most communities don’t have the staff or resources to build this kind of model on their own. Regional planning agencies and metropolitan planning organizations can fill that gap, and the CMRPC project demonstrates what that support can produce. The tools created here are designed to guide land use decisions, transportation investments, and local policy for years to come.

Other regions would benefit from the same approach. The state can help make that happen by aligning housing, transportation, and infrastructure funding so regional agencies can pursue this analysis without being forced to choose between competing priorities. Consistent data standards across regions would also make state policy work better.

Massachusetts cannot solve its affordability crisis with housing policy alone. Transportation costs are too consequential to ignore. Communities that align housing with nearby jobs and services, expand transportation choice, and allow smaller homes near walkable centers will be better positioned to retain workers, support older residents, and manage growth sustainably. Regional data tools can help guide those decisions.

Growth is coming. The question is whether communities will have the tools to shape it, or will they be shaped by it.

Jarred Johnson is the Boston office director of Toole Design, a national transportation planning and design firm, which worked on the Central Massachusetts transportation cost analysis. Jordan Hollinger is a planning and transportation researcher at the Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission.