Streetsblog MASS

25/10/2024

On Saturday October 12, an MBTA bus driver struck and killed Glenn Inghram in a crosswalk outside the Forest Hills busway.

Following a week of activism from neighbors, promised to make short-term changes to traffic signals to improve pedestrian safety in these crosswalks and several others in the neighborhood.

Read the story and learn more about how you can support safer streets outside the Forest Hills station on mass.streetsblog.org.

06/09/2024

The Border to Boston trail is a proposed 70-mile route that will eventually connect Seabrook, New Hampshire to downtown Boston via Newburyport, Salem, and Lynn along abandoned railroad rights-of-way. Like many long-distance rail trails in Massachusetts, the Border to Boston trail is an ambitious vis...

29/08/2024

Eyes on the street in the : the Lynnway, a blighted six-lane highway that blocks Lynn’s residents from accessing the sandy beaches that line Nahant Bay, is owned and maintained by the , which allegedly “protects, promotes, and enhances the state’s natural, cultural, and recreational resources.”

On our Haverhill-to-Boston bike tour last week, the Lynnway was a lowlight of the trip. But as we bumped along on its poorly-maintained sidewalks, we came upon this construction site where workers were placing new granite curbs into the roadway – part of the city’s Northern Strand Trail extension project, which is converting one lane of the highway to a protected bike path. In a few more months, this segment of the Border to Boston route will be considerably easier to ride.

27/08/2024

Last week, we took a 57-mile bike ride from Haverhill to Boston along the Border to Boston Trail. Roughly three-fifths of the journey was on off-street pathways like the Boxford Rail Trail (photo 2), the Marblehead Rail Trail (photo 3), the Topsfield Linear Common (photo 4), and the Georgetown Rail Trail (photo 5).

Read our trip report on and learn about projects that are happening now to bridge the remaining gaps between trails: mass.streetsblog.org

14/08/2024

Yesterday in Mattapan, Maura Healey reaffirmed her commitment to electrifying ’s commuter rail network, starting with new battery-electric trains for the Fairmount Line by 2028.

The new trains will save the T from burning 1.6 million gallons of diesel fuel every year, while also delivering faster, more frequent transit service to predominantly Black neighborhoods in Hyde Park, Mattapan, and Dorchester. The T plans to use a spare set of the new trains to start testing electric service on other lines, too.

Read more about it on Mass.streetsblog.org.

01/08/2024

The in the State House snatched defeat from the jaws of victory last night, failing to resolve differences in several major bills that had passed initial votes by wide margins in the House and Senate.

The fumbled bills include one we reported on earlier this week, “An Act relative to bus lane enforcement,” passed in the Senate, but never even got to a vote in the House. The session’s major bill also died, dragging down with it a proposal to make plans to electrify its commuter rail lines, along with a detailed accounting of how much money it needs to accomplish that work.

Read the incredibly disappointing story today on mass.streetsblog.org

22/07/2024

Earlier this month, built a new parking-protected bike lane along Boylston Street through Back Bay, from Mass. Ave. to the Public Garden.

The project bridged a major gap in the city’s growing network of protected bikeways - but it also calms traffic, makes it easier for pedestrians to cross the streets, and seems to have helped control illegal double-parking by delivery drivers. Check out the details on Mass.streetsblog.org.

18/07/2024

Excited to try out ‘s new tap-to-pay fare readers? The T is recruiting “early adopters” to help them test the new system before it officially launches in August. Find out how you can sign up- we’ve got the details on Mass.streetsblog.org.

15/07/2024

This is why you’re hot: driving just one mile in a city generates over 6 million joules of heat - the equivalent as leaving a 1500-watt electric space heater on for over an hour.

And in Boston alone, drivers collectively travel roughly 10 million miles every day.

Read more about how car traffic makes cities’ heat waves worse on Mass.streetsblog.org

03/06/2024

A new path under construction now will fill in a missing link in the network of .river.watershed greenways, and connect those trails into downtown Medford.

The new Clippership Connector path is relatively short – it’s only about half a mile long – but it will give Medford a safe, relatively scenic way to get across Interstate 93, a major barrier in the city, and connect its downtown area with its riverfront parks and schools in the fast-growing districts near the Wellington Orange Line station.

Read more about it on mass.streetsblog.org.

16/03/2024

A big first step in the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority - MBTA's long-term plans to phase out diesel-powered trains:

The MBTA is considering a proposal to dramatically increase service on the Fairmount Line with a new fleet of electric battery-powered trains by 2026. Under a proposal described in bid documents that the T posted on Friday, the Fairmount Line would move closer to a rapid transit style of service, wi...

05/02/2024

MassDOT needs a lot of help from Washington to finance a realignment of the Mass. Turnpike in the Allston neighborhood – but the competition is intense, and last month, the U.S. Department of Transportation passed on the Commonwealth's application for the second year in a row.

For the second year in a row, the federal government has rejected MassDOT’s request for funding for the Allston Multimodal Project in Boston’s Allston neighborhood. Last summer, MassDOT submitted its second application to finance the project through the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Mult...

15/01/2024

"The X" is notorious as one of the most dangerous intersections in the entire Springfield region.

But for an upcoming $19 million reconstruction project, city officials and Fuss & O'Neill engineers in charge of the project's design sought exemptions from state safety standards in order to preserve the intersection's dangerous multi-lane layout:

In Springfield, a city that ranks among the Commonwealth’s most dangerous places for traffic violence, the intersection known as “The X” has a special distinction for the volumes of blood that drivers have spilled on its asphalt. The X is where Sumner Avenue, a busy four-lane highway that divi...

10/01/2024

SCOOP: The City of Boston is designing a new bus rapid transitway that could link downtown to Sullivan Square before the end of this decade:

https://mass.streetsblog.org/2024/01/10/bostons-next-bus-rapid-transit-line-would-link-downtown-sullivan-square-before-the-end-of-this-decade

05/01/2024

Massachusetts lawmakers set aside $15 million in the Commonwealth's budget this year to fund dozens of free bus routes across eight regional transit agencies in the new year.
https://mass.streetsblog.org/2024/01/05/new-year-no-fares-beacon-hill-bankrolls-dozens-of-free-bus-routes-statewide

The state budget that lawmakers passed last summer is bankrolling a major expansion in popular fare-free bus routes across the entire Commonwealth this winter. As we reported last summer, the new state budget gave the state’s Regional Transit Authorities (RTAs) – the transit operators that serve...

03/01/2024

The next big debate in the design of MassDOT's Allston/I-90 megaproject is brewing over the shape of the new streets that will traverse a new neighborhood on 90 acres of vacant Harvard University-owned land near the Charles River.

The conflict boils down to this: should the new streets be relatively narrow public spaces that prioritize pedestrians and transit users, like the streets Harvard is building off nearby Western Avenue (photo 1, courtesy of Boston Planning & Development Agency - BPDA)? Or should they be a grid of wide arterial roads that can accommodate overflowing traffic jams from I-90, like Mystic Avenue in Somerville (photo 2)?

MassDOT favors the second approach and has been pushing designs for massive 5-lane streets. But others are pushing back: "Right-sizing the roadways so they really feel like neighborhood streets... is a top priority for the City of Boston,” says a top official in Mayor Michelle Wu 吳弭's administration.

Read the story:
https://mass.streetsblog.org/2024/01/03/allston-projects-next-challenge-keeping-the-turnpikes-traffic-jams-out-of-a-new-transit-oriented-neighborhood

02/01/2024

In the past year, MassDOT and municipalities across the Commonwealth cut ribbons on over a dozen multi-use pathway projects, opening up roughly 20 miles’ worth of new bike and pedestrian infrastructure. We covered a number of those new trail openings in the past year: the 2-mile Community Path in ...

02/01/2024

After a year-long hiatus, the City of Northampton is trying to re-start the regional ValleyBike bikesharing system this spring:

The City of Northampton has issued a Request for Proposals for companies that can re-start the Connecticut River Valley’s mothballed ValleyBike bikesharing system, with a targeted opening date of April 10th. ValleyBike is a municipally-owned bikesharing system, similar to the Bluebikes system in g...

27/12/2023

To infuse the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority - MBTA bus riding experience with a little bit of joy, the City of Chelsea Massachusetts- Gov, in collaboration with the Boston Bus Rapid Transit (BostonBRT) initiative, created the “Flower Walk” art installation at the Broadway and 3rd Street bus stop.

When you hear about a space designed to be accessible that has an oasis of felt plants, potted 20-foot-tall trees, and stenciled flowers, a bus stop is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. Yet, that’s what bus riders in the City of Chelsea have experienced over the last couple of month...

26/12/2023

In 2024, look forward to new off-street paths in , Norton , the Town of Sudbury, and The City of Waltham to open up for bike and pedestrian traffic.

In the past year, MassDOT and municipalities across the Commonwealth cut ribbons on over a dozen multi-use pathway projects, opening up roughly 20 miles’ worth of new bike and pedestrian infrastructure. We covered a number of those new trail openings in the past year: the 2-mile Community Path in ...

22/12/2023

This animated GIF of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority - MBTA's official slow zones map shows how much their track repair crews were able to accomplish during a 9-day closure of the D branch last week:

07/12/2023

A New Hampshire man went on a violent killing spree with his Ford F-150 on Totten Pond Road in The City of Waltham yesterday:

A New Hampshire man is facing charges of manslaughter and armed robbery after causing multiple crashes and killing two people in a sequence of hit-and-run crashes in Waltham on Wednesday afternoon. According to Middlesex County District Attorney’s office, the mayhem began at 4:15 p.m. on Wednesday...

06/12/2023

A nine-day closure of the central segments of the Green Line in Boston has removed 12 more slow zones – two more than the T had initially planned to tackle.

Many more slow zones still remain, and the T plans to close the central segments of the line for two more 9-day closures in January.

04/12/2023

In 2014, the City of Somerville endorsed a plan to create hundreds of new homes, space for small businesses, and public plazas for city-owned land next to the new Gilman Square Green Line Station. So why is it still an empty lot a decade later?

In 2014, the City of Somerville endorsed a plan to create new affordable housing, spaces for small businesses, and public plazas for city-owned land next to the new Gilman Square Green Line Station. Nearly a decade later, it's still an empty lot.