a decade ago, Massachusetts spent roughly the same on highways and the MBTA (~$7b). today, the T’s capital spend has barely kept up with inflation ($10bn) while spending on highways has exploded to $17bn

REM review: excellent build quality terrible land use weirdly bad headways (15m branch) for an automated system

Part of how the MBTA ended up procuring the most expensive rail vehicles in history —>

Sorry, I’m just learning today that any 10 registered voters in a Massachusetts town can effectively pause most development for a couple months at a time by filing a bad faith zoning petition? www.cambridgeday.com/2026/06/12/w...

the #MBTA costs are out for the BEMUs. they’re the most expensive rolling stock ever procured. but not just that—at roughly $25m/car ($525m npv over 21 usable cars), they are 2x more expensive than any other rail cars ever bought (per transitcosts.com/rolling-stoc...)

Cambridge has already approved 7 public drinking districts for this summer, which will probably be more than the rest of metro Boston combined. the city’s ability to quickly implement things people want (is this governance?) is unmatched www.cambridgema.gov/news/2026/06...

Fairmount BEMUs delayed 2-3 years, partially because the T didn’t specify they wanted each car in the trainset to be fully accessible cdn.mbta.com/sites/defaul...

If you strip out wayfinding (not a WC ops expense?) and security (I think will be reimbursed) then an $80 ticket at full sellout gets you to ~100% recovery…would not be surprised if this is how they priced it Too bad they won’t sell out (~37% as of yesterday)

Why is MassDOT spending $4bn on new bridges to the Cape without any mitigation for transit? Why are they allowed to? www.wcvb.com/article/cape...

It is simply dishonest for anyone in Boston to claim that "macroeconomic conditions" are solely to blame for our construction slowdown. NYC has the same high interest rates, land & labor costs as Boston. The difference is policy reforms under city's power to accelerate housing production citywide.

of course this isn’t true—per the Singaporean census, while roughly equal numbers of people have bus only and rail only commutes, the poorest are 2-3x more likely to have a bus only commute, while the richest are 2-3x more likely to have a rail only commute www.singstat.gov.sg/publication-...

Always fun to read an article about how people respond to incentives and how leaders are shocked by this. Cambridge cut its penalty for not moving during street cleaning and, shocking, more people parked on the street during street cleaning www.bostonglobe.com/2026/04/30/m...

@mayorwu.boston.gov is postponing a long-standing plan to improve State Street in downtown Boston with wider, wheelchair-accessible sidewalks, safer crosswalks, and a protected bikeway connection. mass.streetsblog.org/2026/05/12/s...

What’s going wrong with the #MBTA BEMU procurement? Now running 8 months late on a 4 month timeline without an update in sight. BEMUs were supposed to be a near term solution. By the time this is done, it would have been faster (and cheaper) to build the wires and buy the EMUs

Notably, if you normalize by excluding people who do not pay for the item childcare and college rank as far more unaffordable than housing. Also note that public transportation is the single most affordable item in the survey

It was possible to install a HPWH, an EV charger, and do a panel upgrade in Mass on rebates & 0% interest loans but it took coordinating across 3 contractors, two agencies, a bank and all had to be done in the same year

Why am I just learning now that the #MBTA doesn’t plan to introduce level boarding on the Green Line until 2037? The new cars should all be delivered by 2031!

MassHousing, apparently: have you considered maybe building LESS housing here?

Does Cambridge have the lowest recycling contamination rate of any US city over 100k? National avg is low 20s

Mayor Wu’s Latest @boston.gov Budget Plan Eliminates Funding for Over a Dozen Street Safety Projects: See the List mass.streetsblog.org/2026/04/22/m...

I am fascinated by the differences in rhetoric justifying these incredibly expensive tickets in Boston vs NYC. The T focused on the $35m capital project to make station improvements, NJT claims it will cost $48m just in ops costs to move 40k people x 8 matches?

in the last week I > had an off-leash dog chase my toddler around a playground > nearly crashed my bike into an off-leash dog sprinting after a frisbee on the community path

As it turns out, @mayorwu.boston.gov possessed more robust polling data that debunked those claims. There is, in fact, broad support for bike and bus lanes among Boston residents. We're now making that polling data public for the first time. Read it here: mass.streetsblog.org/2026/04/09/i...

I am highly skeptical the #MBTA is going to be able to sell 10k tickets to each World Cup match, much less 20k tickets, at $80 each

learning today that making the C branch of the #MBTA Green Line accessible required two 100+ page environmental filings for MEPA because the filing standard is cutting down 5 medium size trees

these service cuts are gonna be massive, aren’t they

had two cars attempt to run red lights at speed while I was the in the crosswalk /with a stroller/ this morning. automated enforcement can’t come fast enough

Why is this legal to do at 3am?

The T raised their special event prices from $20 to $30 for the World Cup friendly yesterday and only filled 40% of their seats (2300/6000). $75 would be an enormous own goal

the T says the quiet part loud: if you want us to meet the electric bus mandate we are going to have to cut service. commonwealthbeacon.org/transportati...

SCOOP: @mayorwu.boston.gov's Administration Delays @mbta.com Columbus Ave. Transit Project; City Hall Planners Told to Cancel Meetings With T mass.streetsblog.org/2026/03/25/w...

tough to say the #MBTA is taking rail electrification seriously when they can’t be bothered to correctly identify rolling stock in use at other US agencies

Boston MPO & MAPC proposing to triple the number of e-bikes (750 to 2250) in the BlueBikes system this year www.bostonmpo.org/data/calenda...

new center-running bus lanes on Blue Hill Ave, among other transit priority projects, are under an unannounced, Mayor Wu directed stoppage and have been for the past year www.bostonglobe.com/2026/03/15/m...

hey @cityofsomerville.bsky.social please clear the accessible path in the Davis Sq old slip lane. it’s been ages

instead of focusing on service delivery as a whole to deliver regional rail for Mass, the T is laser focused on a one for one replacement of diesel locomotives to lock in subpar service for a generation. a huge mistake.

My Cambridge/Somerville experience is similar to this, but 1) a chunk of these (10-20%?) are not wide enough to fit a stroller and 2) curb cut compliance is abysmal, barely 1 in 2 if that. Notably most of houses that don’t clear their pedestrian curb cut properly have a spotless driveway curb cut

SEPTA now required to operate at MBTA speeds

here’s a curb cut that has gone uncleared for over 3 weeks. if Somerville isn’t going to bother to enforce snow clearing rules they should just clear sidewalks themselves

building permits in 5+ unit multifamily buildings in Boston, Mass, and MA ex-Boston over the past decade, both raw counts + indexed to the latest pre-Covid period

credit where due to @cityofsomerville.bsky.social & @mayorjakewilson.bsky.social the sidewalk in front of the Eversource building at Willow & Community Path still hadn’t been cleared as of this afternoon. One 311 report & it was done within the hour

Inauspicious start for the Wilson admin that the least cleared sidewalks I walked today were … owned by the City of Somerville

Wow, Healey solved the cost of living crisis

Not sure I’ve ever seen New England getting this much electricity from oil. My emissions today w/ heat pumps are probably higher than if I had kept gas

You can get money for the MBTA or you can pay Cambridge a 25% tax on new home construction but you can’t do both

Good opportunity for stop consolidation on the MBTA 77 bus—took a trip this morning with stops every 1/6th mile, could easily get rid of 30-50% of these

the NWS has a campaign called “turn around don’t drown” because the majority of flood related deaths are due to … people driving their cars into flood waters

Not even the 6th biggest thing in this story, but if someone in a car approached me and used a “derogatory term” to refer to someone they were looking for I cannot for the life of me imagine giving them any useful information.

Two trips to Davis today, two vehicles parked in the bus stop in front of H Mart, despite automated enforcement. I suspect Somerville’s “grace period” that allows for legal parking in the bus stop isn’t helping