IT SOUNDS TOO GOOD to be true: A new app offering valet parking in Boston for less than what it costs to park in most garages. A San Francisco-based technology company called Luxe Valet charges $5 an hour for valet service and parking with a maximum charge of $25 for all day in Boston. Like […]
Tracking Transportation
Posted inState House News Service, Transportation
Pollack: More Green Line funds needed
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE IF THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION is to press ahead with the Green Line Extension project, the Legislature will likely have to authorize additional bonding next year to pay for the project, Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack told lawmakers Wednesday. “As I’ve said repeatedly, the option of halting the project remains on the […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics, Transportation
No MBTA fare hike until service improves
IF YOU DOUBT FOR A MINUTE that we continue to be mired in a mid-20th Century way of thinking about transportation, consider this: in a state that recently went to the ballot box to say “no!” to a simple inflation adjustment to the gas tax, we are now having a serious debate about whether MBTA […]
Posted inState House News Service, Transportation
Senate, House split on T fare hike size
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE ACTIVISTS AND KEY SENATORS say a 2013 tax law capped fare hikes at the MBTA at 5 percent every two years, while a key House lawmaker and the Baker administration are pointing to the same law and saying it clearly caps fare hikes at 10 percent every two years. The MBTA […]
Posted inTransportation
Improving the ‘Amtrak experience’
LIKE MANY PEOPLE who live between Boston and Washington, I ride Amtrak. So when I got a call a few weeks ago asking if I would participate in a focus group for riders, I quickly agreed. The eight people in our group were a pretty standard slice of what you see on the train – […]
Posted inState House News Service, Transportation
Straus says MBTA can raise fares 10 percent
One of the leaders of the Legislature’s transportation committee said Tuesday that state law allows the MBTA to raise fares 10 percent next year, twice the level that transit advocates say is permitted. “I think the language permits it, yes,” said Rep. William Straus, the House chairman. Transportation advocates claim that two provisions in the […]
Posted inState House News Service, Transportation
T eyes new revenue-raising efforts
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE WITH THE GOAL OF BOOSTING its own-source revenues by about $40 million, the MBTA is looking at hiking parking fees, converting surface lots into developments, and maximizing revenues from telecommunications and utility companies that want to use the system’s rights of way. “We’re trying to put everything on the table and […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service, Transportation
Overlords of the MBTA
Photographs by Michael Manning THE NAME JOSEPH AIELLO probably means nothing to most MBTA riders. But the first major snowstorm might change that. Aiello is the chairman of the five-member MBTA Fiscal and Management Control Board that has the job that has overwhelmed governors, transportation secretaries, and the system’s general managers for more than a […]
Posted inState House News Service, Transportation
DeLeo backs north-south rail link
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE SAYING IT WOULD BE A “TERRIBLE MISTAKE” for the state to embark upon an expansion of South Station at the expense of a rail tunnel linking that hub with North Station, a coalition led by former governor Michael Dukakis is working to ramp up advocacy for the rail link in an […]
Posted inState House News Service, Transportation
T begins targeting absenteeism rate
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE HOPING TO REDUCE ABSENTEEISM at the MBTA, transit officials have begun looking at the roots of the problem and making human resources hires. They are also considering bringing in an outside manager. From January through August of this year, the MBTA dropped 34,702 trips, or close to 2 percent of the […]