THE PATRICK AND BAKER ADMINISTRATIONS have been aligned in their support for South Coast Rail as the best approach to providing improved regional mobility to and from the South Coast […]
James Aloisi
Posted inOpinion
The T is failing before our very eyes
IT WAS déjà vu all over again. Wednesday’s Red Line meltdown didn’t happen because of harsh winter weather. Ironically, it happened during a gloriously warm day in February, a day […]
Posted inOpinion
He brought Boston back from the brink
FOR THOSE WHO REMEMBER Boston television news in the pre-cable days, Jack Hynes was a powerful media presence for decades. He anchored the news with a gravitas that made you […]
Posted inOpinion
We can tackle traffic congestion
THE FACTS ARE IN and they aren’t pretty. Metro Boston ranks in the top tier of regions suffering from severe, chronic traffic congestion. You knew that, didn’t you? You’ve been […]
Posted inTransportation
Baker, Trump budgets disappointing for transportation
IF YOU THOUGHT we might have turned a corner generating political support for what most of the public appears to want – a more resilient, reliable, sustainable transportation network – […]
Posted inOpinion
Francis Appleton, a man on autopilot
Author’s Note: This story will disappoint you if you approach it expecting a Christmas ghost story. No eerie images appear on doorknockers, no apparitions escort our protagonist to ancient graveyards. […]
Posted inTransportation
Railing against transportation madness
I’M WONDERING WHETHER A TYPE OF MADNESS has infected our thinking in Greater Boston. Someone writes in the Boston Globe about how great it will be when autonomous vehicles replace […]
Posted inOpinion
Putting cash in its place at the MBTA
A HIGHLY FUNCTIONING urban transit system is characterized by its speed, convenience, and reliability. The Netherlands, a role model for efficient and sustainable mobility, has examples of this in abundance. […]
Posted inThe Back Story
Walsh’s transportation to-do list
In the aftermath of a massive general election victory by Boston Mayor Marty Walsh – and recognizing the political capital that goes along with that – it seems a good time to assess the […]
Posted inOpinion
Dear Gov. Raimondo: Express trains wrong ask
DEAR GOVERNOR GINA RAIMONDO: We read with interest your call for express rail service from Providence to Boston. You are spot-on in thinking that improved rail connections regionally will be […]
Posted inOpinion
Changing of the guard in East Boston
IT SEEMS LIKE YESTERDAY to me, but it was a long time ago – 1983 – when I ran Bob Travaglini’s campaign for District 1 City Council. It was the […]
Posted inOpinion
Boston’s embrace of political predictability
THE EAST BOSTON NEIGHBORHOOD I grew up in was abuzz that late summer evening in 1967. The Community Club was our neighborhood “men’s club,” a place for mid-century male camaraderie […]
Posted inEconomy
Attract Amazon + fix the T
WE BOTH HAD THE SAME THOUGHT as soon as we heard about Boston vying for Amazon’s new headquarters facility: Locate it at Suffolk Downs and leverage the opportunity to take […]
Posted inEconomy
A Boston tower and the law of unintended consequences
I WAS REALLY BAD IN MATH and physics in college. My brain was wired to appreciate things like alliteration and metaphor, not equations or abstract laws of nature. But I […]
Posted inOpinion
Trump misunderstands history’s arc
“A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE is a dangerous thing.” It’s an old saying that perhaps resonated more clearly than ever before when one heard the person holding the office of president of […]
Posted inPolitics
Rep. Straus’s idea is a really bad one
AUGUST. That lazy, hazy month without an official vacation day because, well, everyone is either on vacation or slowing down because everyone else is on vacation. Like that bewitching period […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
My flag won’t be flying this July 4th
THERE’S NO FLAG flying above the front porch of our place in Maine this year. That flag was a personal expression of belief in the fundamental integrity and stolidity of this great […]
Posted inPolitics, The Back Story
Greenway is no secondhand coat
RECENT NEWS THAT state and city officials are attempting to devise new funding mechanisms for the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway Conservancy prompts a reflection on how the Conservancy came into […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion, Transportation
We must learn from Seaport District failures
THEY WERE GATHERED in the spectacular replica of the US Senate chamber at the Edward Kennedy Institute, a panel of local thought leaders discussing how Boston’s past might inform Boston’s […]
Posted inOpinion, Transportation
Lessons from the collapse of Bridj
THE STARTUP MOBILITY COMPANY that tested the potential for innovation in the transportation sector announced on Sunday that it was shutting down effective immediately. Bridj might have changed the face […]
Posted inOpinion, Transportation
When does reform end and revenue begin at the T?
SO THERE I WAS, enjoying a brisk late April morning and about to dig into the newspapers (and breakfast), when my iPhone beeped and up came CommonWealth’s Sunday Upload. My […]
Posted inOpinion
Have you gone on a pilgrimage?
Photographs from Jarrett Barrios’s Facebook page. HE’S IN A SELF-IMPOSED NEWS BLACKOUT so he won’t be reading this. At least not for a while. My friend Jarrett Barrios — a […]
Posted inOpinion, Transportation
New Seaport garage makes sense
THE NEWS THAT MASSPORT is moving forward with a planned 1,550-space parking garage in the Seaport District, and that the city wants to add another 550 spaces to its garage […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Attack on DiMasi was irresponsible
THERE ARE SOME THINGS I KNOW with certainty. One of them is that former House speaker Sal DiMasi was a consistent and principled progressive. Whether he was fighting for health […]