More Evidence That Bigger Parking Lots Generate More Traffic, Hurt Transit

<p>Brian Kane is Executive Director of the <a href="https://mbtaadvisoryboard.org/">MBTA Advisory Board</a>, a quasi-state body providing budget oversight of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority on behalf of 178 cities and towns in the Commonwealth. He is also the volunteer Chair of the Brookline, Massachusetts Transportation Board. Established in 1974, by statute this board manages parking, traffic, and multi-modal transportation in New England’s largest town by population. Previously, Kane worked in both operations and budget management at the MBTA.</p>


A middle-aged man in a suit stands in the operator cab of a light rail train.

Brian Kane

A crowded train hall filled with people, many of whom are carrying luggage. A large electronic sign hanging from the high ceiling displays upcoming train departures.

Housing

Guest Column: South Station Is Not An Adequate Emergency Shelter

<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 view down a long, straight two-lane highway lined with street lamps and newly planted trees. To the left is a large grassy area, several hundred feet wide, with rows of multi-story houses in the distance on the other side.

MassDOT Begins Marketing Former Freeway Land In Fall River For Transit-Oriented Housing Development

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Meghan Volcy

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Elections and Politics

Healey’s ‘State of the Commonwealth’ Boasts About MBTA Turnaround, Promises to Fill Budget Shortfall

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.

MBTA Communities Act Holdouts Are Losing State Funding

A drone's-eye view of the massive Alewife parking garage in Cambridge. The top level of the garage is roughly the size of 3.5 football fields, and is completely empty of any parked cars in the image.

Parking

MBTA Terminates Alewife Redevelopment Plan

A view from above of a wide 6-lane highway with a two-lane frontage road in the foreground. To the left is a large mostly empty parking lot. In the middle is a newly-built sidewalk, and a sign with the circular MBTA logo. In the distance, on a hillside above the highway, are a handful of taller buildings in a city neighborhood.

New Bedford City Council Considers Parking Reforms

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Header

Streetsblog Network

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

Streetsblog Massachusetts

A photo taken from an elevated vantage point of a bulldozer parked in a bike lane with a bucket full of white plastic bollards.

Globe Report Implicates Mayor Michelle Wu In Street Safety, Transit Project Cancellations

Daily headlines

Monday’s Headlines Zero In

A chart titled Massachusetts Average Weekly Retail Gas Prices Per Gallon with dates from Jan. 18 to March 1 on the x axis and prices from 0 to $4 on the y axis. A blue line indicates weekly average prices, which hover just above $3 per gallon for much of the winter until the end of February. The right-most data point is at $3.47 per gallon. An annotation near the March 1 data point indicates the start of the US-Israel attacks on Iran.

Car culture

Trump’s Oil Crisis Is Already Costing Massachusetts Drivers Over $2.4 Million A Day In Higher Gas Prices

A person rides their bike along a straight, flat, paved trail lined with trees to the left and a power line at right. The rider is approaching a small traffic circle junction with a street sign at left that reads "Speen St". In the middle of the junction is a stone column with the words "Natick Cochituate Rail Trail"

Trails

Natick’s Rail Trail Now Connects to Its Downtown MBTA Station

Transit

Trump’s Funding Freeze Derails Transit, Undermining Growth and Economic Opportunity For All Americans: Report

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A view down a two-lane, one-way street with a wide shared-use path on the right side and a wide grassy lawn to the left. Across the lawn is another street lined with low-rise buildings, with one taller 6-story building standing out in the middle distance.

Highways

Eyes on the Street: The Fall of a Freeway in Fall River

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