Modernizing Mobility

The Future of Mobility, a joint project of CommonWealth and Meeting of the Minds, a San Francisco-based organization that seeks to build alliances around urban sustainability.

Putting multiple transport options at your fingertips

With Mobility as a Service, usership could replace ownership

By Jonathan Bray Transportation 0 Comments Dec 1, 2019

IT’S OFTEN DUBBED the Netflix of transport by its advocates for bringing together multiple transport and mobility choices into a single, digital platform which users can either purchase via subscription packages or on a pay-as-you-go basis. Its supporters herald it as the solution to a host of transport challenges within our cities. But can Mobility(...)

Gen Z changing the transportation dynamic

For this generation, cars are more like appliances

By Marcus Gamo Transportation 0 Comments Oct 5, 2019

A SHORT TIME AGO, the auto industry viewed millennials as the lost generation. Automakers expected car sales to plummet and prepared for change. But that didn’t happen. Instead, millennials delayed their adoption of cars until they started getting married, having children and discovering the suburbs. Simultaneously, the growth of the smart mobility movement with the(...)

Moving toward one card to pay for all transport options

It’s possible to integrate MBTA, bikes, scooters, rideshares into one system

By Matt Cole MBTA, Transportation 0 Comments Feb 3, 2019

MOBILITY AS A SERVICE (MaaS) has now offered a vision for the future of transportation for several years. The ideas are ambitious: Providing travelers with the services they need to get from point A to point B under a single payment account. Integrating disparate modes of mobility under one customer experience to better serve the(...)

Keolis exec: T commuter rail shows progress

Ridership and revenue are up; on-time performance improving

By David Scorey MBTA 0 Comments Sep 21, 2018

WHETHER YOU LIVE in the Worcester area or the North Shore, in Walpole or Weymouth, we tend to have the same thing in mind when thinking about the MBTA’s commuter rail: going to work in Boston, with trains feeding into two urban hubs at North and South Stations. Many still prefer driving, but for a(...)

Transportation equity: Is it a good thing?

Those who fear displacement don't see it that way

By James Aloisi and Jarred Johnson MBTA, Transportation 0 Comments Jul 29, 2018

What do we think about when we think about transportation equity? There is regional equity – the question whether every region in a state, or every neighborhood in a city, is equitably treated from a funding perspective. There is modal funding equity, which goes to whether public sector decision makers treat each mode fairly when it comes to the allocation(...)

For walkers, the last six inches are important

Linking bus and walking networks critical to transit improvements

By Wendy Landman and Brendan Kearney MBTA, Transportation 0 Comments Jun 25, 2018

WALKBOSTON HAS BEEN TALKING about transit as the middle leg of a walking trip for many years. We understand that even the most avid walker or walking advocate knows that many trips are too long to make a single-mode-walk trip possible. Now, the transit and active transportation worlds have become more attuned to the facts(...)

Impose a series of fees and use the funds for public transit

By James Aloisi MBTA, Transportation 0 Comments Jun 13, 2018

Second of two parts (First part can be found here.) MASSACHUSETTS STATE AND MUNICIPAL DECISION MAKERS must push a reset button and develop a template for a more comprehensive and robust regulatory framework that will guide the operation of Transportation Network Company and autonomous vehicle business models. It’s a necessary first step in the process(...)

TNCs existential threat to public transportation

Ride-hailing apps are a disruptive auto-centric technology

By James Aloisi MBTA, Transportation 0 Comments Jun 12, 2018

First of two parts ADVOCACY IS WHAT LIKE-MINDED people do, usually in an organized fashion, to effect change in the way government or public policy impacts their lives. Advocacy can take many forms and approaches, from energizing and activating people at the grassroots, to persuading decision makers at the grasstops, to knocking on doors in(...)

A question of access: Shifting the transportation conversation

Equity, climate, and choice are keys to developing a workable plan for the future

By Alice Brown Boston 2030, Clean Energy, Economy, Energy, Environment, Infrastructure, Massachusetts Department of Transportation, Taxes and Budget Issues, Transportation 0 Comments Jan 20, 2018

TRANSPORTATION AND MOBILITY matters to everyone who commutes, travels, or runs errands on a daily basis, and these everyday trips create a sense that we are all experts on transportation. For creative problem solvers, every traffic jam, transit delay, confusing intersection, or missing bike lane connection provides an opportunity to brainstorm possible solutions. But what(...)

Bus stops and the future of digital placemaking

We have to remember public transit is public space

By David Block-Schachter and Beaudry Kock MBTA, Transportation 2 Comments Aug 30, 2017

THE TYPICAL URBAN BUS STOP is a miserable thing: a piece of metal attached to a pole; a strip of colored paint on a curb; a beaten-up shelter. Such bad design is often compounded by locations only a vehicle could love: on lonely medians; next to terrifying off-ramps; along deserted and dimly lit blocks; and(...)