The Codcast

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...

Everyone talks about equity these days. Pay equity, gender equity, racial equity. You can add to that list mobility equity and neighborhood equity, areas that are affected by all other social and economic equity issues. Chris Osgood, Boston’s chief of the streets, says successful transportation planning now has to start at those equity points in order for the city to have a viable system that meet...

Boston’s streets and sidewalks comprise 9 square miles in a city that is only 48 square miles in total. Chris Osgood, with the odd but apt title of Boston’s chief of the streets, is the person in charge of not only maintaining that infrastructure but making sure that residents have access to it whether they drive, bike, or walk. Osgood, joined by Vineet Gupta, the director of policy and planning f...

With last year’s election of Donald Trump, complete with his campaign talk about about bad hombres and Mexican rapists, it’s hard to feel too optimistic about the prospects for comprehensive — and reasoned — immigration reform. Trump adds a loud exclamation mark to what had already become a starkly partisan divide on the issue. But Ali Noorani — the guest on this week’s Codcast — says a solution t...

While “not in my backyard” has become the default response to development proposals in many communities, in a few places NIMBY is starting to meet its match. YIMBY — which stands for “yes in my backyard” — is a fledgling national movement, concentrated largely in already densely populated and high-cost urban areas, that is pushing a very different message: We want to see more housing, more density...

On this week’s Codcast, Paul Levy, the former CEO of Beth Israel describes Partners as a regulated monopoly. He is skeptical that a merger of the BI, Lahey, and several other hospitals will steal a lot of business away from Partners or produce dramatic savings that will be passed along to patients in the former of lower insurance rates.

Stephen Lisauskas, a vice president at Waste Zero, a North Andover company that advises municipalities on ways to reduce their trash disposal costs, says cities and towns can fairly easily boost recycling and reduce trash generation. He worries that inertia on Beacon Hill and out-of-sight-out-of-mind attitudes toward trash among residents of the state are likely to discourage recycling and lead to...

After a dumbfounding outburst by House Speaker Robert DeLeo on Wednesday evening, it appears the House and Senate are finally getting down to business. A fiscal 2018 budget is slated for a vote on Friday and the House and Senate lawmakers trying to broker a deal between the branches on marijuana legislation are finally getting back to work. In this week’s Codcast, CommonWealth’s Michael Jonas, Jac...

The Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway Conservancy gained a measure of stability this week as the state, the city of Boston, and park abutters agreed to provide $2 million a year to help cover the organization’s operational expenses. The Codcast provides two interesting views on the deal. James Aloisi, the former secretary of transportation who played a hand in the formation of the Conservancy, said...

Jay Gonzalez and Bob Massie grabbed some badly needed media attention this week when the two candidates for the Democratic nomination for governor issued a joint press statement attacking Gov. Charlie Baker for refusing to take a stand on the millionaire’s tax.

Today’s Codcast features the TransitMatters guys who put the brakes on an $11 million MBTA redesign of the Auburndale commuter rail station that was going to improve handicap accessibility but result in poorer service on the Framingham-Worcester Line.

Probation, patronage, and power struggles by CommonWealth Beacon

The phrase “mealy-mouthed politician” often seems redundant, so closely do we associate political figures with an aversion to direct answers that cut through the usual fog. That does not describe Seth Moulton, the second-term Democratic congressman from Salem. Moulton answers questions with a degree of candor that is refreshing and sometimes jarring. When CommonWealth sat down with him for this Co...

Our Spring 2017 print issue has you covered. We've got stories on invasions, interesting people, politics, education, health policy, and even sports.

Massachusetts is about to submit to the US Department of Education its plan for monitoring and holding schools accountable under the new Every Student Succeeds Act, the law passed in late 2015 that replaced the No Child Left Behind law. The new law, which, like the No Child statute, is really a reauthorization of landmark 1965 legislation creating a bigger federal role in overseeing and funding ed...