Leadership is scarce in the transportation system in Massachusetts. By that, I emphatically do not mean that the current leadership is weak. Rather, I mean that every management team has a finite capacity to plan and to solve problems and that the range of challenges facing MassDOT’s management team is very broad.
Ridesharing Legislation
The regulations that exist in different cities and towns across Massachusetts do not contemplate the type of service offered by Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft. Five bills have been filed in this session relative to TNCs. The bills offer different flavors of regulation within a few primary areas: state oversight, insurance and public safety. Here are brief summaries of them.
12/11/15 Bowker Overpass Construction Schedule Update
MassDOT has provided this updated construction schedule for the work that is currently underway on the Bowker Overpass. The work on the travel lanes has proceeded from west to east. (Note from Will: the phasing for this project is straightforward and, while the schedule has slid a few months, the basic plan has not changed.)
MBTA cancels contracts for Green Line extension
Dear Will, Following our discussion on the Waverley square ABA renovation, here is another news demonstrate the incompetence of DOT and MBAT http://www.boston.com/news/2015/12/10/mbta-cancels-contracts-for-green-line-extension/WGWg5TobNPN3dQYxD9QXHN/story.html?p1=menu_business_latest Thanks god Beverly Scott was fired during last winter fiasco. And a lot more is needed to correct the ship. Voluntary retirement will not work for MBTA. We need to keep firing …
Continue reading “MBTA cancels contracts for Green Line extension”
No Fly List/No Guns
Blue Mass Group is reporting on a bill introduced by Rep. Lori Ehrlich, H. 4331, which would ban sales of guns in the Commonwealth to anyone on the federal No Fly list. I’m interested in Sen. Brownsberger’s position on this. According to the Blue Mass Group report, the bill has numerous co-sponsors, including Rep. David …
SJC upholds time limit expansion in civil sex abuse cases
The Boston Globe reports on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s (SJC) decision to uphold a 2014 law extending the statute of limitations on civil cases of child sexual abuse to 35 years and makes it retroactive. This was legislation that Senator Brownsberger long worked on. You can read the SJC decision here.