About StreetsblogMASS

StreetsblogMASS is a daily news source connecting people from all walks of life to information about how to improve conditions for walking, biking, and transit in order to promote human-centered, equitable, and environmentally sustainable places.

Our streets are public spaces, and we need our public spaces to favor safer, more affordable, and more equitable transportation options.

Since 2006, Streetsblog has covered the movement to transform our cities by reducing dependence on private automobiles and improving conditions for pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders. Our reporters have broken important stories about transit funding, pedestrian safety, and bicycle policy from day one. And our writing has raised public awareness and promoted reform on arcane but important topics like parking prices and induced traffic.

Today, hundreds of thousands of readers rely on Streetsblog, and our online community is the connective fiber for people all over the country working to make their streets safer and more sustainable. Streetsblog New York City, Los Angeles, Massachusetts, San Francisco, Chicago, USA, and the national Streetsblog Network connect local, grassroots transportation reform advocates with one another and to a national movement for reform.

StreetsblogMASS is independent from other Streetsblog sites, which have no control over StreetsblogMASS policies or editorial content.

Our editorial independence policy

StreetsblogMASS adheres to standards of editorial independence adopted by the Institute for Nonprofit News.

StreetsblogMASS staff and board of directors retain full authority over editorial content to serve our organization’s mission and protect the best journalistic interests of our organization.

The Editorial Committee of the StreetsblogMASS board of directors works with the editor-in-chief to set and monitor the direction of our reporting and to resolve conflicts in ways that protect our staff’s editorial independence and avoid conflicts of interest. You can reach the Editorial Committee by emailing streetsblogmass.editorial [at] streetsblog.org.

We accept gifts, grants, and sponsorships from individuals and organizations for the general support of our activities. Acceptance of financial support does not constitute implied or actual endorsement of donors or their products, services, or opinions.

Our editors and reporters make their best efforts to make news judgments – i.e., decisions on what stories we cover, and how we cover them – independently, without regard to donor support.

Our organization may consider donations to finance the coverage of particular topic areas, but our organization maintains editorial control of the coverage. We will cede no right of review or influence of editorial content, nor of unauthorized distribution of editorial content.

For the sake of transparency, StreetsblogMASS discloses all donors who give a total of $5,000 or more per year. We will consider anonymous donations for general support only if robust safeguards are in place to ensure that the expenditure of that donation is made independently by our organization, and in compliance with Institute for Nonprofit News membership standards.

Our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion

Transportation in Massachusetts reflects and exacerbates our society’s inequities. For generations, policy-makers have moved heaven and earth to make travel easier for (often) affluent, (often) white car commuters at the expense of low-income people, people of color, women, people with disabilities, youth, older adults, and those who cannot or choose not to drive.

The destruction of poor and working-class neighborhoods for highway construction; the daily rush of noisy, polluting traffic through communities of color; disinvestment in public transportation; the refusal of public officials to protect the health and safety of people traveling on foot or by bike – these are just the most obvious results of a public policy system where the voices of some people matter, and others don’t.

They are also the result of the systemic racism - from redlining to persistent residential segregation to disinvestment in Black and brown communities - that has shaped the Commonwealth in which we all live and move.

As an outlet for advocacy journalism, StreetsblogMASS aims to amplify the stories of and about those who have been left behind by our automobile-centered transportation system, and to draw attention to efforts in our communities to ensure a safer, more equitable and more sustainable transportation system for Massachusetts. At the same time, we are aware of the potential for transportation reform campaigns - and our own journalism - to reflect and perpetuate the biases in our society.

StreetsblogMASS aims to achieve diversity and inclusion, and contribute to transportation equity, by:

Covering stories in areas of the Commonwealth that are often unrepresented in mainstream media.
Developing a diverse board of directors and roster of writers/contributors to shape our coverage.
Highlighting transportation equity in our coverage, and highlighting the transportation challenges experienced by members of marginalized communities.
Periodically reviewing our coverage to ensure that the subjects of our stories, the places we cover, and the people whose voices are included in our stories represent the full and rich diversity of the Commonwealth.
Inviting our readers and other members of the community to share their thoughts on our reporting and how we can be doing better.

StreetsblogMASS is a Boston-based non-profit under the fiscal sponsorship of the Conservation Law Foundation, with financial support from generous readers like you.

You can download a copy of our fiscal sponsor's IRS Form 990 here.

We also thank our major financial sponsors: