Mayor Wu and her transportation chief today announced new measures to make Boston streets safer - including a revival of plans to turn Centre Street between the Holy Name Rotary and Spring Street in West Roxbury into a three-lane road with dedicated turn lanes, pedestrian islands and signal changes aimed at slowing down drivers and giving pedestrians better odds of being able to get from one side of the street to the other. Read more.
The Boston Transportation Department (BTD) is looking at adding new dedicated bike lanes and crosswalks and traffic-slowing measures to the maelstrom at Cleveland Circle, where pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and trolleys all share an increasingly congested and complex intersection. Read more.
The Boston Transportation Department has proposed installing parking meters along the streets of Roslindale Square as a way to help remove the area's current parking lampreys, who suck up spaces for hours at a time as they commute downtown or wherever, making it harder for people who want to actually visit the square's stores and restaurants to find a space. Read more.
The Boston Licensing Board today began grilling operators of new restaurants how they plan to keep their establishments from becoming street-clogging destinations for food-delivery drivers who insist on parking right out front even if that means double or even triple parking. Read more.
The BPDA board this afternoon will vote on spending $100,000 for a consultant to recommend ways to turn Dartmouth Street between the BPL main library and the Copley Square park into a permanent mall for pedestrians and bicyclists - with space set aside for a lane for emergency vehicles. Read more.
Incoming Gov. Healey announced today she will appoint former BTD Commissioner Gina Fiandaca as secretary of transportation once she's in office. Read more.
A disgusted citizen files a 311 complaint about a car with Rhode Island plates just parked on Barnes Avenue overnight without a single orange ticket or tow truck pulling it away, and he or she is getting rather fed up: Read more.
The Dorchester Reporter reports on a city meeting at seeing what people might want to see in a redesigned Mattapan Square:
Boston Transportation Department (BTD) officials, the MBTA, and other planners provided information on the two transformative projects against a backdrop of a DJ playing music and a cash bar with food inside Kay’s Lounge right on the avenue.
The Herald reports the city has suspended six workers and is looking at six more in a scheme in which they allegedly wrote bogus tickets to make it seem they were working their shifts when they weren't.
BTD's Vineet Gupta discusses expansion of free bus service in Boston.
Boston city councilors say they support expanding the current free-fare pilot on the 28 bus to the 23 and 29 routes next year but say they also want to know who pays for continuing or even expanding the service once a planned $8-million, two-year pilot runs out. Read more.
WCVB reports a BTD worker who had pulled up to Charles Street South and Stuart Street to write some parking tickets early this morning was injured when somebody jumped into the car and drove off - with the worker's hand initially still in the door. Police caught up with the car, and the Brighton woman who allegedly stole it, on Southampton Street.
A concerned citizen notes the impending centralization of Uber/Lyft pickups and drop offs at Logan Airport and poses a question via 311 to BTD: Read more.
Boston transportation officials tomorrow will show off their formal plans for curbing vehicular mayhem along Centre Street, spurred on by a pedestrian's death at Centre and Hastings in February. Read more.
Just yesterday, the Boston Transportation Department put in one of those traffic-counting cable things on Conway Street in response to neighborhood concerns about unsafe drivers. Tim West reports that less than 10 hours later, a public-works street sweeper tore it up.
Mike Cauley shows us the $25 ticket he got at 9:33 a.m. today for parking on Comm. Ave. in Allston despite having used the city parking app to pay for parking between 8 a.m. and 10:02 a.m.
15/16 cars had tickets. No checking of payment via the app. Technology should add convenience not be troublesome
The Dig reports that until recently license-plate data going back to 2012 was available on a publicly accessible server on the Web, because somebody at either the Boston Transportation Department at the private companies that run the system was unable to figure out the basics of data security.
Left unanswered is the question of why garbage trucks are roaming the city with license-plate scanners, although the Dig also notes that Boston Police - which said it stopped its own license scooping in 2013 - was getting daily reports from the database.
A concerned citizen reports on an incident Friday evening on Washington Street in the South End:
Unprofessional conduct by BTD employee: at 7:45pm, female BTD exited BTD van ticketed car on Washington St whose meter just expired (15 min prior to end of enforcement) then did a ridiculous happy dance before getting back into van. As van drove by crowed outdoor restaurant (Toro) she hung out the window and yelled, "Everyone else is free tonight!" Was this some kind of competition? Either way, this behavior should be reprimanded.
Interesting photo that shows what happens when a vengeful neighbor slashes your tires for daring to park in "their" space and then the local meter maid decides to issue you a steady stream of tickets. Brought to you by the neighborhood of East Boston.
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