Guest Column: A Call for Reparations in the Built Environment of Cities

A smiling black woman with long braided hair wearing a black-and-yellow plaid patterned sweater

Meghan Volcy

This rendering of Back Bay is from inside the station facing the street. A glass wall shows the Back Bay Logan Express bus passing by. Inside, there is a staircase with blue tiling that leads down to the train platforms. Commuters are walking up the stairs, through the station, and sitting down.

Transit

Construction Is Underway On Back Bay Station Makeover

A map of MBTA communities, with dark blue indicating compliant municipalities, blue striped ones indicating those that are conditionally compliant, light blue indicating zoning plans that have been adopted and/or submitted for review, red indicating noncompliant municipalities, grey indicating adjacent small towns whose zoning plans that were due as of December 31st of 2025, and white indicating inapplicable areas.

Housing

MBTA Communities Act Holdouts Are Losing State Funding

Temporary fencing lines the sidewalk on the DCR-controlled approach to the Beades Bridge. Google Street View imagery suggests that the temporary fencing has been there for nearly 8 years. Photo by Tony Dutzik.

Highways

MassDOT Highway Administrator Discusses Challenges of Aging Highways and Rising Costs

A look at the Fitchburg Commuter Rail Line from the Sherman Street grade crossing in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The train tracks with a white utility truck and industrial buildings on the right and trees, shrubs, and a small parking lot on the left.

Accessibility

Trump’s Budget Cuts Won’t Stop Cambridge From Bridging Its Communities

<p>Got tips? Send them to me via Signal, the encrypted messaging app, at 207-310-0728. You can also follow me on <a href="https://better.boston/@cmilneil" rel="me">Mastodon.</a></p>


Christian MilNeil

A police officer stands next to a police car parked under a traffic light in a wide multi-lane intersection

Crashes

Ambulance Data Reveals That Boston Drivers Are 4 Times More Likely to Run Over Pedestrians From Black Neighborhoods

A group of people hold handmade signs at a public rally advocating for public transit funding. Signs read "FUND TRANSIT NOW!" "TRANSPORTATION FOR ALL!" and "Don’t leave us STRANDED! Save transit."

Equity

Black Transportation Justice: How Mobility Affects Housing, Health, and Freedom in a Modern World

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Streetsblog Network

Connecting people to information about how to improve walking, biking, and transit

Streetsblog Massachusetts

Daily headlines

Friday’s Headlines Wrote Themselves

A rendering of a wide street from a birds-eye perspective. The center of the street features a red dedicated busway, with two lanes (one in each direction) separated from adjacent traffic with landscaped medians and bus stop waiting area platforms. General motor vehicle traffic is confined to 1-2 lanes on either side of the busway. Along the sidewalks are green dedicated bike lanes, which are generally separated from the adjacent car lanes by gardens surrounded by curbs. A label in the upper left denotes the Mattapan Branch of the Boston Public Library, and another label denotes the intersecting street as Walk Hill St.

MBTA

Congress Allocates $80 Million to Build Blue Hill Ave. Busway

Bicycling

Six Mass. Schools Step Up Their Bike Parking Game with New Safe Routes to School Grant

A brown-skinned man in a thick red winter parka and black hat tosses a huge chunk of snow aside as other volunteers behind him dig through a large snow bank.

Accessibility Advocates Press Boston City Council for Better Snow Removal

An MBTA commuter rail train alongside a asphalt-paved, low-level train station platform. In the middle distance is a small shelter over some benches on the platform with a sign reading "BOSTON".

Uncategorized

Washington Pledges $8.7 Million to Support World Cup Transit Service In Mass.

A triptych of "micromobility" vehicles. On the left a woman in a helmet straddles an e-scooter without pedals; in the center, a man in a jacket and a helmet rides a two-wheeled stand-up motorized scooter down a bike lane; on the right, a man rides a nonmotorized red pedal bike.

Legislation

‘Micromobility’ Commission Recommends Improved Classification, Regulation of Motorbikes and Scooters

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Three young black people standing in front of a row of parked bicycles. The woman in the center is wearing a blue t-shirt and glasses and holding a microphone in one hand and raising her other hand high.

Black Transportation Justice Boston Spotlight: Mattapan Food and Fitness

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