KENDALL SQUARE Annual Transportation Data Report

Findings from the 2023 Kendall Square Transportation Report continue to reflect a number of newly observed patterns in this post-COVID landscape. In this year’s report, the CRA found the following key patterns in transportation for Kendall Square:

Traffic volume has recovered to roughly 89 percent of what it was in 2019, and bicycle volume has reached about 81 percent of 2019 volumes. Compared to 2022, traffic volume increased 8 percent in 2023 and bicycle volume increased 7 percent.
MBTA Red Line boarding, however, only recovered to 48 percent of what it was in 2019, which was a slight decrease compared to the 2022 average. Other lines on the MBTA have seen better recovery, with commuter rail reaching the highest percentage of recovery at 79 percent of 2019 data.
Roughly 38 percent of employees surveyed for mode share worked remotely and thus did not commute/travel to Kendall Square. This is a notable contrast to pre-pandemic work-from-home or remote-work levels, which accounted for about 4 to nearly 6 percent of commuter mode choice in the few years leading up to 2020.
While parking garage occupancy has returned to pre-pandemic levels mid-week, findings continue to suggest that fewer drivers are parking in Kendall Square on Mondays and Fridays. This trend was first noted in the 2022 report and appears to be continuing.
A number of travel metrics noted similar trend lines to pre-pandemic patterns, but at lower volumes more consistent with the drop-off in commuter volume due to remote work.

view the report below

As part of the 1994 Environmental Impact Report (EIR) update covering additional development within the Kendall Square Urban Redevelopment Plan (KSURP), the CRA is required to conduct annual traffic studies to justify a reduced traffic generation projection used in the Massachusetts Environmental Protection Agency (MEPA) analysis. The CRA has conducted this report on an annual basis from 1994-2014. In 2015, the CRA agreed in an EIR update, to expand the scope of the Annual Transportation Report to reflect the evolution of Cambridge's transportation priorities for multi-modal urban environments and to analyze travel behavior, and transit service.

In 2018, the CRA contracted with consultant firm VHB to design and execute the next-generation version of the Annual Transportation Report, and on May 20, 2020, the CRA released a new version of the 2019 KSURP Annual Transportation Report using an interactive website format. See below for the CRA’s past reports.