The Codcast

Marty Walsh rolled to a huge reelection win last year and just hosted a national gathering of the US Conference of Mayors, where he could bask in the glow of a city booming on the strength of its enviable position as a leader in areas driving the global economy. But the city’s mayor knows better than to rest on Boston’s laurels, and Walsh, in a Codcast conversation with Bruce Mohl and me, was fran...

Charlie Baker, the most popular governor in America, looks like a lock for reelection, according to polls, pundits, and even lots of Democrats you talk to. But don’t count John Walsh as one of them. The former chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party insists Baker can be defeated -- and he says the governor’s team knows it. It explains why, Walsh says, Baker is furiously raising millions of...

Transportation guru Fred Salvucci said on the Codcast that the proposed West Station is needed now to deal with congestion in Kenmore Square and the Seaport District, not future congestion caused by Harvard University's creation of a new neighborhood in the Allston Landing area. Salvucci’s position is sharply at odds with the views of the Baker administration, which believes current ridership proj...

Fred Salvucci, one of the state’s most influential transportation officials, traces the decline of the MBTA to the early years of the administration of former governor William Weld. Salvucci, who served 12 years as secretary of transportation under former governor Michael Dukakis and now teaches at MIT, said support for transit gained momentum after former governor Frank Sargent in the early 1970s...

Buses aren’t as sexy as new Orange Line cars or the extension of the Green Line into Somerville and Medford. But they are a lot cheaper to buy and much easier to operate. Which is why a bus renaissance of sorts is happening – a series of initiatives that hold the promise of changing the transportation landscape in a relatively short period of time. On this week’s Codcast, Chris Osgood, the chief o...

When New England Patriots co-captain Devin McCourty joined the protests first set off by Colin Kaepernick and “took a knee” during the National Anthem last season, he was making a statement about racial justice issues in the country and the treatment of blacks by law enforcement officials. President Trump quickly “hijacked” the issue, McCourty says on the Codcast, by painting it as a sign of disre...

"Time to degree" is key by CommonWealth Beacon

Richard Freeland is a man of careful thought and measured words. That made it noteworthy when the former state higher education commissioner and president emeritus of Northeastern University appeared at a recent hearing of the state Board of Higher Education and blasted the announcement that the University of Massachusetts Amherst planned to buy the Newton campus of Mt. Ida College. And it prompte...

The sweeping criminal justice bill that Gov. Charlie Baker signed earlier this month received widespread, but not universal, praise as a welcome turn away from the tough-on-crime policies of the 1980s and ‘90s. One notable dissenting voice was that of Setti Warren, the former Newton mayor who is now one of three Democrats vying to challenge Baker in the November election. Warren said there was lot...

Two of the state’s leading health care analysts say they aren’t sure whether creating a powerful alternative to Partners HealthCare will reduce health care costs in Massachusetts or increase them. “It’s the devil you know versus the devil you don’t know,” said John E. McDonough, a professor of public health practice at the TH Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University. “Are we better off h...

Attorney General Maura Healey wants to shut down the companies that sell electricity to residential customers in Massachusetts, but officials with two of the firms say the answer to any problems with their industry isn’t less competition but more. Chris Kallaher, senior director for government and regulatory affairs at Direct Energy, and Ed Brolin, director and assistant general manager of Just En...

It’s been a long march for the Boston Police Camera Action Team, but nearly four years after the community-based group set out to push Boston police to have officers deployed with body-worn cameras it looks like victory is in sight. In recent days, Mayor Marty Walsh and Police Commissioner Bill Evans have both signaled that body cameras are coming to Boston. “We are happy that the mayor is listeni...

To listen to the state’s newest regulatory commission in its meetings, the tenor and terms, for the most part, are no different than hearings regarding oversight of most industries in the state. But the big difference is the industry they are charged with overseeing – legal marijuana – and members of the Cannabis Control Commission have just hit a historic milestone, finalizing regulations to get...

This week’s Codcast features representatives from the two opposing camps -- Robert Rio, the senior vice president of government affairs at Associated Industries of Massachusetts, one of the founding members of the Coalition for Sustainable Energy, and Elizabeth Turnbull Henry, the president of the Environmental League of Massachusetts, which also represents many members of the business community....

Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration has spent three years whipping the MBTA into shape. Costs have been pared back and revenues have been increased -- all so more money could be invested in long-range improvements. But as the race for governor starts to heat up, Baker finds himself asking riders for more patience, saying his administration is dealing with decades of neglect at the MBTA. The govern...

On this week’s Codcast, Josh Fairchild and Jim Aloisi of TransitMatters interview David Bragdon, the executive director of TransitCenter in New York City, and Neil Smith, the executive director of Transit Systems, an Australian company that provides transportation services to government agencies in Australia, Singapore, and London. (Transit Systems is the company that acquired Bridj, the Boston-ba...

Michael Manville, an assistant professor of urban planning at UCLA, says the best way to ease congestion in Boston is to put a price on it. In a Codcast interview with Josh Fairchild and James Aloisi of TransitMatters, Manville said our roads are clogged because we have too much demand for scarce road space at certain times of the day. We’ve all been there, inching along because everyone is trying...

Harriette Chandler never had designs on the Massachusetts Senate’s top post, and she readily admits to mixed feelings about landing there. Her unexpected ascension was the result of the scandal swirling around her close ally, Stan Rosenberg, who temporarily relinquished the Senate president’s job last month while an investigation is underway. Congratulated on her new role of acting president as we...

CommonWealth’s Winter issue comes out Tuesday, but we give you a sneak peek in today’s Codcast. We run down our stories Airbnb, Uber/Lyft, ed reform’s 25th birthday, Worcester’s renaissance, Yvonne Spicer and much, much more.

There’s been a lot of talk about the MBTA’s plan to install a new fare collection system, most of it focused on the problems associated with going cashless. The concerns were exemplified by a headline in the Boston Globe last week that said: “The MBTA wants to go cashless. What about people who might be left behind?” A pretty strong response emerged to that question over the weekend. Jim Aloisi, t...

Everyone knows about the retrenchment and redistribution of resources by media outlets, especially newspapers. While some regions have filled the vacuum with blogs purporting to be news but are really opinion pages in disguise, true local news and events often go uncovered.

The Codcast this week is an MBTA twofer: James Aloisi and Josh Fairchild of TransitMatters make a pitch for an overnight bus service pilot and also interview Matthew Casale, a staff attorney from MassPIRG, about the accuracy of a reliability indicator the T is using.

Everyone knows about traffic congestion in Boston. It’s why we’re often late for meetings. It’s why sightseeing firms are paring back their tours because the tourists are spending too much time sitting in traffic. And it’s why many Boston officials are worried Amazon will take a pass on the city -- traffic is just too heavy already. What a lot of people don’t realize is that the federal government...

Buying booze the modern way by CommonWealth Beacon

The tough-on-crime era of the 1980s and 90s has given way to what some are calling the smart-on-crime era, a time in which policymakers and politicians are rethinking what it takes to keep communities safe while also giving criminal offenders the best shot of getting on a more positive path after paying their debt. That debate will come front and center on Beacon Hill this fall, as lawmakers take...