GREATER BOSTON’S BOOMING HOUSING MARKET may be lucrative to real estate speculators, but the constricted supply of housing isn’t helping those who make long-term investments in their homes, according to a Boston city councilor and housing advocates. Councilor Lydia Edwards, who chairs the Housing and Community Development Committee and represents East Boston, Charlestown, and the […]
Andy Metzger
Andy Metzger is currently studying law at Temple University in Philadelphia. Previously, he joined CommonWealth Magazine as a reporter in January 2019. He has covered news in Massachusetts since 2007. For more than six years starting in May 2012 he wrote about state politics and government for the State House News Service. At the News Service, he followed three criminal trials from opening statements to verdicts, tracked bills through the flumes and eddies of the Legislature, and sounded out the governor’s point of view on a host of issues – from the proposed Olympics bid to federal politics.
Before that, Metzger worked at the Chelmsford Independent, The Arlington Advocate, the Somerville Journal and the Cambridge Chronicle, weekly community newspapers that cover an array of local topics. Metzger graduated from UMass Boston in 2006. In addition to his written journalism, Metzger produced a work of illustrated journalism about Gov. Charlie Baker’s record regarding the MBTA. He lives in Somerville and commutes mainly by bicycle.
Posted inPolitics
Thornton squeaks out a win from divided FEC
THE POLITICALLY WIRED ATTORNEYS at Thornton Law Firm won a partial — and ironic — victory at the Federal Election Commission last week. Andrea Estes, an investigative reporter at the Boston Globe, wrote what could wind up as the epilogue to a story she helped break three years ago. Back then, Estes and Viveca Novak […]
Posted inTransportation
Isolation problem: T fares rising faster than cost of driving
IN NOVEMBER 1990, Bill Weld won his first election as governor, NBC aired the first full season of Seinfeld, and someone driving from Melrose to catch a Bruins game could expect to pay 87 cents more for the car trip than the $1.65 train fare into North Station. A lot has changed since then. Looking […]
Posted inUncategorized
Pulling the data together
It’s not easy comparing the cost of different modes of travel. With driving, for example, there are a lot more costs than just the per-mile cost of driving – the cost of the vehicle, insurance, maintenance, tolls, parking etc. This appendix delves into some of those costs and how they have changed over time. It […]
Posted inUncategorized
Beacon Hill housing debate centers around local control
THE LATEST BATTLE over state housing laws and what can be built where is a familiar one, pitting those who prize local control against those who think more top-down requirements are needed to create homes that people can afford. Gov. Charlie Baker has aligned himself with mayors, the Massachusetts Municipal Association, developers, and some housing […]
Posted inEconomy
State turns profit on GE HQ sale
MAYBE LESS IS MORE in Fort Point. Since announcing it would move to Boston in 2016, General Electric has scaled down the scope of its business, and on Thursday it sold off a 2.7-acre Boston property once slated to be part of the company’s headquarters. The company will have a more modest presence than the […]
Posted inTransportation
Impact of Uber, Lyft driver strike unclear
UBER AND LYFT drivers and their supporters did a good job getting the word out to the public about a strike and boycott on Wednesday, but it’s an open question what effect, if any, it had on the businesses. Uber, which along with Lyft dominates the local ride-hailing market, said it has not seen any […]
Posted inUncategorized
Senate budget stirs ire of MassBIO with drug pricing proposal
SENATE LEADERS are proposing two ways to reduce the ballooning cost of pharmaceuticals used by Medicaid patients, but an industry group claims one of the ideas is “radical” and “unproven.” “Over the past five years, MassHealth pharmacy spending has doubled from $1.1 billion to $2.2 billion – twice the growth of other MassHealth spending,” Senate […]
Posted inTransportation
T notes: South Shore customers want later trains
MBTA ADVISORY BOARD Executive Director Paul Regan thought he had given the MBTA everything needed to change up schedules of commuter rail trains to make them useful to South Shore riders spending a night on the town. “It’s the only area of the commuter rail service that doesn’t have service after 11 o’clock,” Regan told […]
Posted inUncategorized
Poftak: MBTA needs more capacity to meet spending goals
MBTA OFFICIALS WHO have struggled to meet existing capital spending goals want to pour much more into upkeep and modernization projects, a goal that could fuel activists’ demands for more revenue for the system. To spend $1.5 billion annually on state-of-good-repair projects, the T will need to boost its own operational capabilities, MBTA General Manager […]