The last week shows progress is likely to be two steps forward and one step back given decades of neglected maintenance at the T and the NIMBY backlash to the Healey administration’s housing plans.
If your driving commute in Greater Boston has seemed surprisingly easy this week, you’re not alone: traffic has been below average on major highways.
Boston may have lost its shots at the Super Bowl, Stanley Cup, NBA Chamionship and World Series in 2019 but there’s one title it didn’t lose: worst traffic in the country for the second year running.
With no clear consensus on Beacon Hill for how to generate new money for transportation, House Speaker Robert DeLeo forcefully recommitted himself on Wednesday to holding a vote on a revenue package in the coming months, even as he continues to seek input from members and outside groups.
Boston is expanding a program that forces drivers for ride-hailing apps to pick up and drop off fares in specific spots instead of double-parking and clogging traffic after initial results showed success.
A 50 percent gas tax increase could soon exacerbate the challenge of commuting to and from work in one of the most robust economies of the nation. But will this create any meaningful solutions to address the commonwealth’s congestion and climate change challenges? We don’t think so.
With an aging workforce and a low unemployment rate, Massachusetts faces a tight labor market, creating a dynamic that could limit the state’s future economic growth.
Transit access has for some years meant Greater Boston home sellers and commercial landlords alike could demand a premium for their property, but a new study from the National Association of Realtors has quantified just how much as the area’s roadways began their slow descent into sclerosis.
State transportation officials said last week that when Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack said this week that highway carpools lanes are mostly filled with scofflaws she wasn’t basing it on any hard evidence.
The high-occupancy vehicle lanes, or carpool lanes, north and south of Boston are not really what they’re cracked up to be.
Not even a summit about fixing traffic can escape it.
Highway tolls can be the key component to a comprehensive transportation plan, where we set a fair price on all modes of transportation, provide better options for mass transit and build in credits to address equity concerns.
Business organizations that have resisted new or higher taxes to funnel more money into public transportation are hitting back at the advocacy group Raise Up Massachusetts and its call for an “economically progressive” revenue package, delivering a one-two punch as this week began.
The governors of Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maryland will join Gov. Charlie Baker in Boston this week to talk with transportation technology experts and policy advisers about ways to reduce congestion and boost economic competitiveness.
Plans to shutter large parts of the MBTA system for repairs this fall are a welcome step towards getting our troubled transit infrastructure back on the right track. But it is wholly insufficient for fixing the transportation mess threatening to hold the whole state’s economy back.
The near-omnipresent congestion on Massachusetts roadways has now reached a “tipping point” where access to employment is strained and meeting statewide greenhouse gas emissions targets is growing more challenging, according to a new report from the Department of Transportation.
Citing the state’s recent economic performance, a tech sector business organization said the state “does not have a revenue problem” amid calls for increased funding to fix years of under-investment in the state’s transit systems.
The Baker administration’s study of growing roadway congestion, which was originally supposed to be released earlier this summer and then promised by the end of the month, will now be published early next week, the governor said Wednesday.
Gov. Charlie Baker is proposing a new program, capped at $50 million per year, that would give employers a a $2,000-per-employee tax credit if they let workers telecommute and therefore avoid traveling on already-clogged roads during rush hour.
Again trying to tap the brakes on attempts to raise taxes to fund transportation improvements, Gov. Charlie Baker over the weekend called on Beacon Hill to address his housing production bill, saying housing costs are causing frustrated commuters to weigh moving out of Massachusetts.
