I moved to the Boston area in early 2020 and have since completed my masters from Northeastern University in Urban Informatics with a focus on transportation. While not a journalist by trade, my various academic and personal projects have often involved some level of research, interviewing and storytelling.
My final student project, Bus Stops and Perceived Safety Through a Gender Lens, focused on how safety perceptions can vary both by gender and time of day and how this may be influenced by the type of bus stop amenities present in the area. I’m grateful to have been immersed in different transportation areas through her fellowships with ITDP and the MBTA.
After a brief hiatus in Texas, I’m excited to be back in Boston at a time when critical projects like the Bus Network Redesign are beginning to materialize. I’m also excited about exploring more of the region by bike this summer with the help of the commuter rail. My favorite commuter rail + bike combo is riding the Fitchburg line to Ayer and hooking onto the Nashua River Rail Trail - this is a particularly stunning ride in the fall with the glimmer of the river bouncing off the red and yellow leaves along the trail. I highly recommend this one and welcome any recommendations!
To me, transportation is more than just how people get to work, it’s also about how easily folks can move around their city at different times of the day, how pleasant or frustrating it is to travel in the summer heat or in the winter when snow removal schedules may not be keeping up with demand. How we move through our cities can be such an intimate experience and can even play a role in our mental health. How many walks did folks take during the thick of Covid to keep sane? Were those routes equally safe at 10 o’clock in the morning vs 10 o’clock at night?
I care deeply about the social implications of transportation and can’t wait to hear all about your travel stories - how you get to your favorite spots of your city, the time your train was twenty minutes late and you wondered whether it would come at all, your first ferry ride; any and all your mobility highs and lows. What about moving through your city is fun or frustrating? What policies do you think deserve more attention?
Reach out to me at grecia@streetsblog.org or follow me on twitter at @grecia_white
