Tracking Transportation

Keeping track of transportation

Baker faces same choice Sargent did in 1972

Don’t elevate a highway above an urban community

By Anthony Pangaro and Kenneth Kruckemeyer MBTA, Transportation 0 Comments Jan 23, 2021

IN 1972, Republican Gov. Francis W. Sargent confronted the question of whether to perpetuate a decades-old plan to run the I-95 highway through Boston neighborhoods, or to adopt a forward-looking, community-inspired plan that swept away outdated ideas. It took courage for the governor to abandon the obsolete notion of building an elevated interstate through Roxbury(...)

T general manager receives $20,800 bonus

Poftak’s 6.4% payout was for work in 2019

By Colman M. Herman MBTA, Transportation 0 Comments Jan 22, 2021

MBTA GENERAL MANAGER Steve Poftak, who receives a base salary of $324,800 a year, recently received a bonus of $20,800 for 2019. Based on pre-established performance goals, Poftak was eligible for a bonus equal to 10 percent of his salary in 2019, the first year of his three-year contract. Instead, he received a 6.4 percent(...)

Pollack headed to Federal Highway Administration

Tesler to serve as acting transportation secretary

By Bruce Mohl Charlie Baker, Transportation 0 Comments Jan 21, 2021

THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION on Thursday tapped Massachusetts Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack as deputy administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, creating a yawning void in the state’s transportation bureaucracy. Gov. Charlie Baker announced that Jamey Tesler, who currently runs the Registry of Motor Vehicles, will serve as acting secretary once Pollack steps down on Tuesday. The(...)

Baker appointee ‘mourns’ transportation vetoes

Tibbits-Nutt calls governor’s actions ‘heart-breaking’

By Bruce Mohl Charlie Baker, Transportation 0 Comments Jan 20, 2021

ONE OF GOV. CHARLIE BAKER’S top transportation appointees took to Twitter on Tuesday to mourn four ”heart-breaking vetoes” the governor made last week to the transportation bond bill. Monica Tibbits-Nutt, who serves on the boards of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and the MBTA’s Fiscal and Management Control Board, said in a long series of tweets(...)

Baker vetoes key policy initiatives in transportation bond bill

New Uber, Lyft fees and Spilka toll restriction scrapped

By Bruce Mohl Charlie Baker, Massachusetts Legislature, MBTA, Transportation 0 Comments Jan 15, 2021

GOV. CHARLIE BAKER signed the Legislature’s transportation bond bill into law on Friday, but used his line-item veto to remove proposals raising fees on Uber and Lyft rides, establishing means-tested fares on public transit, and an initiative pushed by Senate President Karen Spilka that would prohibit increases in Turnpike tolls to help pay for the(...)

Proposed Uber, Lyft fees could raise up to $112m

Assessments included in bill on governor’s desk

By Bruce Mohl MBTA, Transportation 0 Comments Jan 14, 2021

NEW FEES on Uber and Lyft rides contained in the transportation bond bill sitting on Gov. Charlie Baker’s desk could raise somewhere between $56 million and $112 million, according to an analysis by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. The state currently assesses a 20-cent fee on all Uber and Lyft rides. The proposal in the(...)

Most T cuts will stand even with new fed money

Most of the aid will replenish capital spending

By Chris Lisinski MBTA, Transportation 0 Comments Jan 11, 2021

STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE THE MBTA will receive at least $250 million in federal funding under the latest COVID-19 stimulus package, but agency officials plan to move forward with most of their planned service cuts and direct most of the new money toward the capital budget. MBTA General Manager Steve Poftak said Monday that the(...)

Edit averts fight over Allston project

Pollack, Aiello clash over funding resolution

By Bruce Mohl MBTA, Transportation 0 Comments Jan 11, 2021

THE MASSACHUSETTS Department of Transportation board avoided a potentially divisive fight on Monday between several of the state’s top transportation officials by watering down a resolution on how to fund the Allston I-90 interchange project. Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack pushed a resolution that stirred unusually strong pushback from Joseph Aiello, the chair of the MBTA’s(...)

Finances take center stage on Allston project

If funding falls short, MassDOT eyes barebones approach

By Bruce Mohl MBTA, Transportation 0 Comments Jan 10, 2021

AFTER YEARS of trying to reach consensus on what to build at the Allston I-90 interchange, state transportation officials now appear to be shifting gears and planning to let finances dictate what gets constructed there. Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack has been struggling for most of four years to reach agreement on how to rebuild a(...)

Weekend commuter rail ending on most, but not all, lines

Five lines spared cutbacks coming Jan. 23

By Chris Lisinski COVID-19, MBTA, Transportation 0 Comments Jan 8, 2021

STATE HOUAE NEWS SERVICE COMMUTER RAIL riders will feel the pinch of reduced weekend schedules later this month. In the first salvo of MBTA service cuts approved in December, trains starting January 23 will no longer run on weekends on the commuter rail’s Fitchburg, Franklin, Greenbush, Haverhill, Kingston/Plymouth, Lowell and Needham Lines. Five lines —(...)