Second of two parts, first part is here. IN THE FIRST ARTICLE in this series, I wrote about the importance of addressing MBTA governance. A 2015 report from two highly […]
James Aloisi
Posted inOpinion, Transportation
MBTA governance needs radical makeover
First in a two-part series; second part is here. THE MBTA’S FISCAL AND MANAGEMENT CONTROL BOARD is properly in the process of developing a strategic plan that will help guide […]
Posted inOpinion, Transportation
Standing in a train on a snowy evening
Whose trains these are I think I know. His office is high atop Beacon Hill though. He will not see me stopping here To watch the tracks fill up with […]
Posted inOpinion, Transportation
Debunking the Track 61 plan
EFFECTIVE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION systems are those that excel at getting people to places they want to go. That may seem an obvious point but the two attributes that help make […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Meditating on liberty
WE DID NOT invent America – we inherited it. What are the core elements of our inheritance, and are they at risk in an era when many of the norms […]
Posted inOpinion, Transportation
Glass ceilings don’t always remain shattered
MORE OFTEN THAN NOT, what we take for granted was not always so. In a time when it seems unremarkable that a woman is leading the Commonwealth’s Department of Transportation, […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Electoral College must go
THIS COLLEGE HAS NO IVORY TOWERS, no campus lawn, no library dedicated to a major benefactor. You can’t apply for admission to this college or get a degree from it. […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Rearranging the electoral map
Last in a series MAPS ARE ONE OF THE OLDEST WAYS known to humankind to illustrate a location or make a point. Like the great Medieval stained glass windows depicting […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
US needs a mobility moonshot
Fourth in a series THERE WAS A BRIEF PERIOD, in muscular, post-war, auto-centric America, when the Democratic nominee for president would officially commence the general election campaign with a large […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Foreign policy context of Clinton-Trump race
Third of five parts. THE TWO MEN WHO SOUGHT the presidency in 1960 shared one important distinction: they were, respectively, the first nominees of each major political party born in the 20th Century. Both Richard Nixon and John Kennedy were, […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
The evolution of the presidential campaign
THERE WAS A TIME when presidential candidates stayed home and left their campaigns to surrogates. In his majestic history of the Civil War, Shelby Foote described the 1860 campaign as […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Sacrifice is out of style in politics
First in a series. IN HIS FIRST INAUGURAL, Ronald Reagan observed “we’re too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams . . . We have every right to […]
Posted inOpinion, Transportation
Aloisi responds to Gonneville
MBTA CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER JEFF GONNEVILLE rightly takes pride in the work he and his fellow MBTA employees perform every day, keeping our aging public transportation moving as best they […]
Posted inOpinion, Transportation
Shutdown process costly for the T
IT BEGAN WITH A TWEET, sent in the early morning hours. James Jay, a TransitMatters advocate and transit enthusiast, tweeted: “One E-Line train is the reason the entire MBTA system […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics, Transportation
Being smart is not enough
This is the third in a series entitled The Future of Mobility, a joint project of CommonWealth and Meeting of the Minds, a San Francisco-based organization that seeks to build alliances around […]
Posted inOpinion, Transportation
Boneheaded transportation moves
AUGUST IS THAT MONTH when there isn’t an official federal or state holiday because so many people are assumed to be on vacation. This makes August a time when people […]
Posted inOpinion, Transportation
VMT is the way to go
THE COMMONWEALTH IS ABOUT TO TAKE an important step toward making our state’s approach to transportation funding more stable, fair, and transparent. The Legislature has included language in its recent transportation bond bill that directs the […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
What Independence Day is all about
WE APPROACH INDEPENDENCE DAY 2016 at a time of great economic change and uncertainty, when most of the western democracies are struggling to deal responsibly with an unprecedented flood of […]
Posted inOpinion, Transportation
There’s no getting around
THE TERM “HIDING in plain sight” has meaning beyond the obvious. Sometimes facts and realities that are part of our daily routine get overlooked, taken for granted, accepted as part […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Opinion
Why Boston drove Ali fight out of town
HE CALLED HIMSELF Muhammad Ali because his given name, he said, was “a slave’s name, and I’m no longer a slave.” In 1965 he was still called Cassius Clay, his father’s […]
Posted inOpinion, Transportation
Whither Boston?
THE RECENT DECISION of the IndyCar promoters to pull out of Boston was met by some with relief, by others with dismay. I was not a fan, and I was […]
Posted inOpinion, Transportation
Our plan for late-night MBTA service
WE BELIEVE THERE is an affordable pathway toward establishment of a robust late-night transit service on the MBTA, building on the T’s existing early morning bus service. Our plan would not just offer service on […]
Posted inOpinion, Transportation
We need some Frank Sargent political courage
We can learn from our history. Forty-six years ago the Republican governor of Massachusetts, Frank Sargent, made a valiant effort to change the course of Massachusetts’s transportation policy. It was […]
Posted inOpinion, Transportation
Transit once again taking back seat to car
How strong is the grip of auto-centric thinking in the “progressive” state of Massachusetts? Pretty strong. Stronger, in fact, than you might think. In the state whose voters rejected increasing […]