EXPERTS AND THOUGHT LEADERS across the globe are putting a lot of thought into the urban response to COVID-19, and particularly the best approaches to steer our cities and metropolitan areas toward recovery. Recovery has multiple meanings in this context: personal health and well-being, economic recovery, and confidence recovery. Achieving a “new normal” will be […]
James Aloisi
Posted inOpinion
We cannot return to pre-COVID congestion
WE HAVE BECOME ACCUSTOMED to describing 21st Century innovations as “disruptive” to established practices and behaviors. Yet in this era of disruptive technology, historic inertia has prevented or slowed the advancement of more sustainable approaches to urban mobility. In large part, there is never enough consensus among a broad spectrum of individuals, thought leaders, and […]
Posted inTransportation
Let’s plan for the coming ‘new normal’
THE HEALTH CRISIS that has the world in its grip presents each of us with challenges the likes of which few have known. We are all living under stressful, trying circumstances for which there’s literally no playbook. Yet in circumstances like this it’s vitally important that those of us able to focus beyond the moment […]
Posted inOpinion
Sargent’s actions 50 years ago resonate today
LEADERSHIP MANIFESTS itself in many ways. In Massachusetts, in my lifetime, one of the most powerful displays of leadership came from a Republican governor. It happened 50 years ago, and it’s worth remembering for the lessons it teaches, and for its historical importance as a rare but critical pattern break. Fifty years ago Frank Sargent […]
Posted inUncategorized
What’s getting me through tough times
IT’S BEEN a rough time. In September, my mother died. She was 93 and lived a long life but we were very close, and her death (following a horrific week in the MGH neurology ICU) was a blow. In her later years, during various hospitalizations, I took on the job of navigating her care, getting […]
Posted inTransportation
Calling out the guardians of the T status quo
IT WAS STUNNING and deeply disappointing to read last week that the MBTA’s general manager didn’t see a time horizon earlier than 2030 for the completion of the Red-Blue connector project. That was tantamount to saying that one of the most cost-effective transit projects on the T’s capital investment plan, a five-year plan outlining investments […]
Posted inOpinion
TransitMatters rebuts Brownsberger
METRO BOSTON enters 2020 in the firm grip of a transportation crisis. That crisis manifests itself as a combination of the worst traffic congestion in the nation, an unreliable inner-core transit and bus network, and an antiquated approach to commuter rail operations that leads to outdated, inconsistent, and unreliable service. The crisis threatens our growing […]
Posted inOpinion
TransitMatters: Our plan for regional rail
MASSACHUSETTS BENEFITS GREATLY from a legacy passenger rail network mostly built out in the late 19th century. Thankfully, much of it was saved from the worst impulses of mid-20th century auto-centricism, which makes us a rarity among large metropolitan areas in the United States. It’s the kind of priceless infrastructure that you just couldn’t build […]
Posted inTransportation
What’s the plan?
IT’S HAPPENED TWICE this year. It will certainly happen again. A major incident shuts down a critical section of the inner urban subway system. In June it was the Red Line derailment, which caused havoc the morning of the incident. More recently, it was the Orange Line, which was out of operation through the entirety […]
Posted inOpinion
No more incrementalism, it’s time for Big Rail
EARLIER THIS YEAR, the Global Traffic Scorecard ranked Boston’s traffic as the worst in the nation, outpacing famously congested cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco. Traffic on I-93 south averages 10 miles per hour. Using population, transportation, and economic data, Northeastern University economist Barry Bluestone has projected that those speeds will gradually drop […]