A STATE SENATOR and the outgoing Boston police commissioner demonstrated that they are not above lying when it comes to getting what they want. State Sen. Barbara L’Italien showed what […]
Bruce Mohl
Bruce Mohl oversees the production of content and edits reports, along with carrying out his own reporting with a particular focus on transportation, energy, and climate issues.
He previously worked at the Boston Globe, where he spent nearly 30 years in a wide variety of positions covering business and politics. He covered the Massachusetts State House and served as the Globe’s State House bureau chief in the late 1980s. He also reported for the Globe’s Spotlight Team, winning a Loeb award in 1992 for coverage of conflicts of interest in the state’s pension system. He served as the Globe’s political editor in 1994 and went on to cover consumer issues for the newspaper.
Bruce is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
Posted inTransportation
Uber, Lyft expanding to bikes, scooters
Uber and Lyft are expanding their vision of ride-sharing to include not just cars but bicycles, electric bicycles, and electric scooters. Uber jumped in first, adding the electric bikeshare company […]
Posted inTransportation
T notes: Lawmakers hike funding for regional transit authorities
STATE LAWMAKERS ON WEDNESDAY set aside $88 million for the state’s 15 regional transit authorities, $8 million more than Gov. Charlie Baker had recommended for fiscal 2019. The legislative budget […]
Posted inPolitics
Lawmakers going off-the-books for police training
THE LEGISLATURE APPEARS POISED to shift the cost of municipal police training on to people renting cars in Massachusetts, adopting a funding philosophy for law enforcement that was pioneered decades […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
New law lets juveniles off in Lynn
The state’s new criminal justice law, signed by Gov. Charlie Baker in April, is already having an impact. Four juveniles, one who was 13 and the others younger than 12, […]
Posted inTransportation
T notes: South Coast Rail optimism grows
STATE TRANSPORTATION OFFICIALS still need to work out how to pay for South Coast Rail and who should be in charge of the first phase of its construction, but on […]
Posted inTransportation
T official: We’re good on revenues right now
THE MBTA’S CHIEF ADMINISTRATOR said on Monday that the transit agency doesn’t need new revenues in the near term, but he said the situation could change in the future. “In […]
Posted inTransportation
T pares back parking hikes at Braintree, Quincy-Adams
IN RESPONSE TO PUSHBACK from Quincy and Braintree elected officials, the MBTA on Monday announced it would hike parking rates on September 1 rather than August 1 and cut the […]
Posted inUncategorized
Are we doing enough on clean energy?
Massachusetts is in the midst of procuring vast amounts of clean energy, but on Beacon Hill clean energy advocates say the state isn’t doing nearly enough. The Senate approved legislation […]
Posted inEnvironment
FERC OKs help for Mystic plants
THE FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION has given New England’s power grid operator until the end of August to come up with a plan to prop up a pair of uneconomic […]
Posted inThe Back Story
Restarting the transportation funding debate
WITH THE MILLIONAIRE TAX ballot question shot down by the Supreme Judicial Court, the debate over state transportation funding is slowly starting to shift gears on Beacon Hill. Rep. William […]
Posted inPolitics
Fifty Shades Darker in Rockland
Investigators hired by the town of Rockland concluded Selectman Deirdre Hall pressured Town Administrator Allan Chiocca into having sex at town hall after moving on from an “intense emotional and […]
Posted inPolitics
Beacon Hill goes at a snail’s pace
We have a well-paid, full-time, Democrat-controlled Legislature in Massachusetts and yet we’re the only state in the nation without a budget in place. We’re also slow-dancing toward retail marijuana sales […]
Posted inPolitics
Creative accounting on Beacon Hill
BRIAN KEYES, the police chief in Chelsea, sounds like a mountain climber with the summit finally in sight. He and his fellow chiefs have been scaling Beacon Hill for almost […]
Posted inUncategorized
CommonWealth going all digital
TODAY’S RELEASE of the print issue of CommonWealth will be our last. After surveying readers, consulting with board members of MassINC, and holding many discussions with my colleagues here at the […]
Posted inArts and Culture
Keeping Somerville cool
PHOTOS BY FRANK CURRAN SOMERVILLE MAYOR JOSEPH CURTATONE likes to be bold. “I always tell Greg, bring me something no one else has done and that’s really off the wall,” […]
Posted inTransportation
Pollack: West Station ridership forecast may be off
TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY STEPHANIE POLLACK believes the computer model the state uses to predict future transit ridership is unreliable, at least for projects like the proposed West Station in the Allston […]
Posted inGambling
Kim Sinatra leaving Wynn Resorts
WYNN RESORTS IS PARTING WAYS with a top executive who apparently had been aware of a $7.5 million private legal settlement Steve Wynn had negotiated with a former employee to […]
Posted inThe Back Story
Another shot in the pipeline wars
THOSE WHO BELIEVE the region needs another natural gas pipeline are saying they have found a new convert – the same energy analyst who co-authored a 2015 report for Attorney General Maura Healey that was […]
Posted inUncategorized
NJ taxpayers to fund local journalism
NEW JERSEY POLITICAL LEADERS ended a four-month budget impasse on Sunday night just hours before the government was scheduled to shut down. Most news stories focused on the big political compromise: Instead […]
Posted inTransportation
Pollack launches new reviews of Turnpike, West Station
TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY STEPHANIE POLLACK said on Thursday that the state will revisit many of the assumptions behind a massive highway and transit project planned for the Allston-Brighton area with the […]
Posted inTransportation
Doing the math on T’s $6.5m hike in parking rates
MOST OF THE $6.5 MILLION in new parking revenue the MBTA is counting on to help balance the transit authority’s budget during the upcoming fiscal year budget would come from […]
Posted inPolitics
Fifty shades of Rockland
THE SOUTH SHORE TOWN of Rockland seems to be in a sex-fueled political meltdown. The lurid saga first surfaced on May 23 when Boston 25 News reported that two town […]
Posted inHealth Care
Feds reject Baker bid to rein in pharmacy costs
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT on Wednesday rejected a bid by the Baker administration to rein in pharmacy spending by restricting which drugs would be covered under its MassHealth program. “While it […]