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From the Globe, here is the summary of 2024 Ballot Question 3: So by default, I'm basically in favor of anything that makes car culture pay for its externalities. In this case, I imagine that means securing a living wage for rideshare drivers so that the state is not indirectly subsidizing Uber...

On my commute every day, standing on the Lechmere platforms, I love seeing the completed upper floors of this building peek above the brick streetwall. The deep red really does mix nicely, darker than the modern brick buildings but distinct from the historic Registry building. Now all we need is...

Honestly I love the idea of having an amusement park within Greater Boston, but the fact of the matter is there is capital ready and eager to clean up the waterfront and build the stadium, whereas that is not the case for an amusement park. If there were two competing proposals and one was...

At risk of mincing words, you're taking street to imply cars, which is only true for the past ~100 years. Faneuil Hall Marketplace indeed is divvied up by two pedestrian streets: N and S Market Street. They are streets in the old sense of the word: public places, always open, always traversible...

OK, let's support business growth in these places. Not easy, but not a "Maoist level of revolutionary change" either. The Inner Core contains mostly streetcar suburbs. 1.6 million people, almost a quarter of MA's population. Right, nobody in Camberville has kids, got it. Just because I want...

Agreed. My point is that housing production is a Good Thing even when it doesn't lower rents for the exact place that the housing is built. Thus, neighborhood rent is a bad metric for evaluating the success of YIMBY policies on affordability. IMO, the only metric that matters for evaluating...

You are implying that a significant increase in housing stock would lead to a decrease in rent, yeah? I feel like that's a safe assumption for a place like Boston, which is already a highly desirable and expensive place to live. Hartford, though, isn't so high-demand. Its median rent is below...

If this is true, then those incentives are misaligned. Broadly speaking, the developer should be incentivized to make decisions that make their development economically attractive. If the town is on the hook for the developer's bad decisions (for example, actually not providing enough parking)...

I am talking about the Boston metro area, particularly the MAPC Inner Core. I'm not deluded to think that rural/suburban America will switch off of cars in the near future (although there is plenty of incremental improvement that can be made to small town centers, as Strong Towns advocates for...

For much of the US, sure, but when we zoom in on the Boston urban area, I have to disagree. I accomplish almost all of my errands around Somerville without a car. Groceries, clothes, medical appointments, exercise, hardware needs, even niche things like single-origin spices, they're all a walk...

When we talk utilization, are we talking % of offices leased, or % of desks actually being used on the average day? A "fair amount" if people going in 3/5ths of the time we mean well below 65% desk utilization, so I imagine we must that the 65% number references leases, not desks. When it comes...

I'll also observe that even though transit ridership is still lower than pre-pandemic levels, VMT is back to normal and increasing. People are not going to work as often, but they are going somewhere. Why are they choosing to drive instead of ride transit? Perhaps it's because their...

I am no expert, but I think there's a big difference between gradually and strategically opening service where it's potentially profitable vs. wholesale inheriting a huge, famously-unprofitable legacy rail system that is billions of dollars away from state-of-good-repair.

Several impovements in the pipeline for Danehy park: There is a working group planning further improvements, currently in the public outreach phase...

So dead-end streets with ped/bike-only connectors is a win-win then, right?

Even local trips into town can suck. Growing up, I lived <1mi from the town center. A 15 minute walk from the park, ice cream, a comic book store, coffee, grocieries, restaurants; another 15min walk to school. Everything you could want as a kid and then as a teen. The only problem was that a...

Fully agreed @DominusNovus . I'm somewhat of a militant urbanist when it comes my local area (S Medford / Somerville) but I would be advocating much differently if I were back where I grew up in suburban CT. Particularly, I'd be fighting for more+better sidewalks, places to lock bikes, and...

FTA: > So it was little wonder when, two weeks after the New England Council event, Wu proposed a solution to combatting the so-called doom loop that has been likened to slapping a surtax on snow shovels right before a snowstorm—a home-rule petition seeking necessary permission from the state...

The way I read the graph is that FY2024 year-to-date is $300MM, meaning that we should expect around $600MM total revenue for the year. That'd still be a decrease 2019 when factoring in inflation, but it'd represent a huge recovery compared to 2021-2023. EDIT: Nevermind, as @Stlin pointed out...

Right, I'd forgotten that this was your proposal @Riverside. I do think it is a smart idea, but I can't imagine the T ever implementing it after all they've sunk into the new AFC 😕