THERE ARE FACTS and there are perceptions. These are often very different things. And when you are trying to guide and inform human decision-making, perceptions often matter more than facts. Many years ago, in the midst of a typically combative election in my East Boston neighborhood, a political wise guy said to me, “What’s important […]
James Aloisi
Posted inTransportation
We must guard against human isolation
Second of two parts. THERE’S NO STATUS QUO for a river. That’s what’s behind the old saying that you can’t step in the same river twice. Rivers are inherently dynamic, refreshed by rains and snow melts, always moving, rarely stagnant. Time is like that, too. Time depends on movement forward; time is stagnant only for […]
Posted inOpinion
With transportation, we must not return to ‘normal’
First of two parts Welcome back. Welcome back to the post-pandemic world. Welcome back to being with family and friends in person and without masks. Welcome back to dining in restaurants, attending a game, seeing a show, taking a friend to lunch. Welcome back to traffic congestion. With vaccination rates approaching 70 percent, most of […]
Posted inOpinion
Biden infrastructure plan and ‘fix it right’
THE BIDEN INFRASTRUCTURE initiative, branded as The American Jobs Plan, may be the most important transportation investment program since the Eisenhower Interstate Highway Act. The Interstate Highway Act kicked off a decades-long era of massive federal investment in a national highway and bridge program, designed to respond to the post-World War II impulse to leave […]
Posted inTransportation
We can’t follow on transportation; we must lead
NOTHING LASTS FOREVER, and that particularly includes time serving in public office. For some, longevity in office can be a rare opportunity to make impactful change; for others, it can become a drag on creativity and effectiveness. In Massachusetts, we are about to see a change at the top of the state’s transportation secretariat as […]
Posted inOpinion
We cannot be passive actors in COVID recovery
WELCOME TO 2021, the post-pandemic year, the year of recovery and restoration and of reclamation, when we take back the routines so abruptly removed from our lives. Welcome to a season of hope, more hopeful than perhaps it ought to be, a time when patience and persistence will count more than impetuousness and reckless abandon. […]
Posted inTransportation
‘Santa Baby’ with a transpo twist
Listen to the TransitMatters singers by clicking below. The lyrics, courtesy of Jim Aloisi (with apologies to Javits & Springer), can be also be found below. Santa baby, just slip a Charlie Card under the tree for me Been an awful year Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight. […]
Posted inOpinion
The era of Christopher Columbus is over
WHEN I WAS A KID growing up on the second floor of an East Boston triple decker, Columbus Day was a pretty big deal. Alternating with the North End, the grand parade organized by local civic groups passed by our house every other year, and we would either watch from the windows or, more often, […]
Posted inTransportation
Doubling down on the past
THIS IS A TALE of two transportation issues – a window on how we may be losing the opportunity moment provided by a generationally disruptive pattern break. The pattern break, of course, is the COVID-19 pandemic. Every pattern break in history changes the ways we do things going forward. The example I give most often […]
Posted inOpinion
Don’t let pandemic stifle bold transportation policy
WE ARE IN a crisis, with little apparent prospect of advancing toward a better future. It’s not COVID-19 I’m talking about, not directly. But all things converge, and the state legislative response to our chronic, undebatable transportation crisis – a crisis that impacts the quality of the air we breathe, the mobility fairness and responsiveness […]