General Boston Discussion

[Jeremi]

Delayed projects, low morale: Boston’s streets department is stalling under Wu, long a transit champion - The Boston Globe

Advocates and city staff say the policy change has caused an epic bottleneck, stalling the majority of Boston’s transit and street safety projects for the past year.

www.bostonglobe.com

Fade me

Writ large, Republicans use political capital for things they want to do. Democrats save it up for some indeterminate point in the future.

 

[Jeremi]

Curious what people's take is on this article.

Is the Massachusetts Economy Cooked?

The unraveling of the Bay State's economy—and why the clock's ticking.

www.bostonmagazine.com

The gist of the article is that the President, a notorious elderly pedophile, does not like Massachusetts and his group of drunks, freaks, perverts, and apocalyptic Christian nationalists is punishing the state. So what should the state do? Become shittier to make him happy? Is that really the recommendation?

 

[Jeremi]

It should go without saying but Massachusetts receives one of the LOWEST (44th out of 51) amounts of per capita federal aid, investment, or subsidy of any state (DC included). The state is a consider “maker” state, producing significantly more tax receipts going to the federal government than it receives in federal funding.

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

Most of the last two pages of libertarian idiocy has been moved here: https://archboston.com/community/threads/galts-gultch-libertarian-rantings.7393/

 

[BACsop]

‘We don’t have those resources anymore.’ Wu’s $4.9 billion budget proposal slashes many city grant programs. - The Boston Globe

Wu pitched her spending plan, which would increase the city’s current $4.8 billion budget by 2 percent, as “tough” but necessary belt-tightening that protects core city services.

www.bostonglobe.com

 

[Longfellow]

Unmended wall in Harvard Square needs a few good neighbors

Historic wall in Harvard Square has become “a prairie dog village … but with rats.” And there isn’t money to repair it.

www.cambridgeday.com

The wall is cool, but how would shoring it up fix the rat problem? It should probably just be removed.

 

[KCasiglio]

Frustration mounts over delays to safety and transit upgrades on Blue Hill Avenue, other busy roads - The Boston Globe

Advocates expressed their frustration over the stalled projects at a council hearing Wednesday, which comes one month after a Globe report revealed the Wu administration has substantially slowed or effectively paused most streets projects involving design or infrastructure changes for the past year.

www.bostonglobe.com

One of the administration’s top priorities is focusing on street repairs, such as resurfacing roads and filling in potholes, along with other efforts to slow traffic and reduce crashes, Gove said. But he offered relatively few specifics on how the city is prioritizing projects, or what their timelines are for completion, despite repeated questions from councilors and advocates.

[...]

Missouri said the administration is reluctant to push forward projects that do not have an overwhelming amount of public approval.

“We want to make sure that we’re hearing [residents’] voices and finding the best solutions that are unique to specific parts of the city,” Missouri said.

 

[SuffolkHeights11]

Missouri said the administration is reluctant to push forward projects that do not have an overwhelming amount of public approval.

Interesting theory of governance here. I look forward to the monthly city-wide votes on BPS expenditures, BPD overtime, BWSC's road closures to repair water and sewer lines, BFD's loud fire trucks, the continued existence of the City Hall building and every line of Boston's 4 billion dollar budget that I personally do not overwhelmingly support.