Recent content by ritchiew

Wow, that pretty perfectly answers all my questions I meant to look up later. Thanks! I think you're right. Moving into the city is top priority, followed by playing in an arena close to capacity. Those attendance numbers for the New York Sirens are kind of bad, and seem about right. That's got...

The Boston Fleet in the PWHL has played their first few seasons at the Tsongas Center in Lowell. For this coming season they'll play at Agganis at BU. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/07/07/sports/pwhl-boston-fleet-agganis-arena/ This is great! The games are a lot of fun, but it's been hard to...

A weird thing in the Spilling the T Podcast. Two people from the MBTA Climate Policy and Planning Team were being interviewed. They suggest that one reason we shouldn't put up new catenary wires is because of sea level rise and coastal flooding? Or something? I don't know what they could be...

Thanks, as always, for the reporting. But a couple things look off here. In the NYC Streetblog article, it says the MTA diesel buses average about 8,500 miles between failure, and the new battery-electric buses go 2,500. Your article says the MBTA's diesel buses go 30,574 miles and the...

I had thought there was something about this in the current Capital Investment Plan, but rereading it, I guess not. It includes: Rail Modernization Early Actions - Old Colony Double Track (P1209): Implementation of track improvements to support hourly, all-day, bi-directional service on the...

I happened to see this this morning. https://bsky.app/profile/ofsevit.bsky.social/post/3mpvvjgzqa22u The graphics and data originally from mass511.com

TransitMatters and MassInc have put together this report for commuter rail projects, called "Harnessing the Full Potential of Regional Rail with a No Regrets Capital Investment Strategy." They're identifying specific projects that are (relatively) cheap, high impact, and future proof. It's...

Anyways.... Out of curiosity I went looking. Here are some pictures from the Fan Fest. Here are people watching Ghana v England in the rain. It's from an article on the Fan Fest, everything that happened there, the politics around it, some of the criticisms, and calls it the "one of the...

I'm really, really hesitant to support any new zoning restrictions, but something like this does seem like a good idea. Does Boston do any zoning like that? I know Cambridge does somewhat, at least around the major squares. I can't quickly find the rules, but it's something like at least 70% of...

I asked google if the Boston FIFA Fan Fest was a success, and it says Yes, it was a "major success." I asked if the Fan Fest was well liked. Google saw through my typing error and told me that Yes, it was "highly popular and praised for its electric atmosphere." There were some complaints about...

Sorry, as a personal policy, I try to not read AI generated slop. If you've got some real sources I am interested to check them out. As for why Boston is shutting down the event, this says it has gotten too expensive and FIFA has refused to chip in. I agree that's a bad outcome. I don't know...

What specifically is the complaint here? From the clips I've seen, City Hall Plaza seemed lively. Lots of people went. People seem to be having a good time. The post-makeover plaza is accommodating large crowds just fine. If you couldn't get in there, or wanted a less cramped spot, the city has...

Maybe? I don't remember offhand how many hundreds of millions of dollars this arena is going to cost. They can afford some retractable bleachers. This lounge adds some space for a stage, but really, not much.... Your explanation doesn't quite make sense to me, but I don't have a better one. It...

Eug. In the video (at about 27:15) it shows that, for hockey, there won't be bleachers all the way down to glass behind one of the nets. Instead there will be a kind of lounge area for alum, I guess. A "premium space," he says. You can see it in some of the cross sections, too. It looks so sad...

I get your concern. But this seems like a pretty reasonable outcome, from a quick skim though the decision. The AG's summary was what was printed on the forms for collecting signatures. So the 85K+ who signed were being kind of misled about what they were supporting. That's a huge step in the...