I CLOSELY FOLLOWED the debate around the Boston 2024 Olympics bid, and it seemed odd to me at first, but I just kept connecting it to the gay marriage fight, which I lived through as a citizen of Massachusetts 10 years ago. Eventually, light dawned over the South End and I realized why. Just like […]
Peter O'Connor
Posted inOpinion, Transportation
Here’s one problem Olympic planners can address
I RIDE MY BIKE a lot from the South End to Southie: under the Expressway (my real subject here), up to Dorchester Heights for the sweeping views (and a well-deserved rest after the climb, whew), along the beaches to the Kennedy library, Castle Island, and back. Since the last time I navigated this route with […]
Posted inOpinion, Transportation
Let’s not let this crisis go to waste
AFTER DECADES OF underfunding the T, it finally collapsed completely under the weight of repeated winter storms and, as I write this, is still badly crippled. The T does not get enough funding to do everything we expect of it, but why? Let me suggest that what we have here is basically an accounting error. […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics, Transportation
With government, the little things matter, too
When a T worker notices that something is “off,” and acts quickly to save a vision impaired rider from getting hit by a train, or when a State Trooper helps deliver an impatient baby by the side of the Turnpike, we applaud them heartily, as we should. And when a municipal tax collector embezzles the […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion, Politics
To be or not to BRA: Is that the question?
During the mayoral primary, the future of the Boston Redevelopment Authority emerged as a hot topic, and rightly so, as the BRA touches on our lives in so many ways. People love to hate the BRA, and it’s been that way almost since its inception. And while there’s a long history of the BRA behaving […]
Posted inOpinion, Uncategorized
MassDOT takes on the last mile
In a classic episode of Sex and the City, “the girls” plan a trip to the suburbs to visit a friend who’s made the move to Connecticut. They rent a car (a convertible, of course) and they all jump in, but no one takes the driver’s seat. After an awkward pause, someone asks: “Does anyone […]
Posted inOpinion, Transportation
So close, yet so far
THERE IS A TEMPORARY EXHIBIT hanging in the Portland Maine Art Museum this spring and summer, the personal modern art collection of William Paley, the former head of the CBS television network. There is a saying that money can’t buy taste, but this collection is solid evidence that when money and taste are combined, a […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
What does Vidal Sassoon have to do with P3s?
Vidal Sassoon died this month, and that news brought me back to the 1980s somehow (or maybe it was the new version of “Dallas.” Yikes.) But it reminded me that Copley Place was completed in the early 80s, the last project to be built on Turnpike air rights in Boston. Public/private partnerships, or P3s, are […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion, Transportation
MBTA deficit solutions too narrow in scope
Discussion about the MBTA’s proposal to implement fare hikes and service cuts to meet a $160 million dollar budget shortfall has, until Boston Mayor Tom Menino’s recent letter to Secretary of Transportation Richard Davey, been much too limited in scope. The T is a critical piece of the transportation infrastructure of Massachusetts, and it threatens […]