Printer-friendly versionSend to friend

April 9, 2009

Madison Square Plaza
Trial plaza in Madison Square, NYC
(Photo courtesy Streetsblog SF)
 

Highlights

  • House approves a transportation transformation (Boston Globe)
Madison Square Plaza
Trial plaza in Madison Square, NYC
(Photo courtesy Streetsblog SF)
 

Highlights

  • House approves a transportation transformation (Boston Globe)
    Restructuring bill still faces changes
    By Noah Bierman -- The Massachusetts House of Representatives approved a bill late last night to eliminate the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and reorganize the rest of the state transportation system, paving the way for a debate on increasing the state gas tax. The wide-ranging bill would change the working conditions and fringe benefits for thousands of state workers, putting the transit system and most state highways under a single authority.

     

  • Walk this way (Boston Globe)
    It's healthy, green, and in fashion. Just how walkable is your neighborhood?
    By Kathleen Burge -- If you live on one of the short streets that loop around Lexington Center, you can easily walk to nearly everything you might desire: food (Super Stop & Shop), a drug store (Theatre Pharmacy), caffeine (Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts), a movie theater, a gym, a shoe store, a library, and plenty of restaurants and bars.

     

  • Cottage Farms neighbors put brakes on Carlton Street bike plans (Brookline TAB)
    By Neal Simpson -- BROOKLINE -- Cottage Farms is a neighborhood bound on all sides by bicycle routes. To the north and south of the tiny historic district, brand-new bike lanes on Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue have invited swarms of new bicyclists to join the commute. And soon, proposed bike lanes on the Boston University Bridge will draw even more. But now Cottage Farms neighbors are putting the brakes on a plan to create yet another bike route through the middle of their neighborhood, on a street that — by some counts —is already one of the most heavily traveled bike route in Brookline.
    Related:
    • Opinion: Safe bike route to the Charles is a small price for a big benefit (Brookline TAB)
       
    • Opinion: Bicycle lanes and parking spaces: A gaggle of gripes (Brookline TAB)
       
    • Letters: Healthy earth just as important as healthy businesses; Parking belongs on Carlton Street; Keep parking spaces on Carlton (Brookline TAB)

       

  • Museum-market building proposed alongside Greenway (Boston Globe)
    By Casey Ross -- A $120 million museum and food market would be built along the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway under a plan to transform streets near Faneuil Hall Marketplace and the MBTA's Haymarket Station into an arts and culture district.

     

  • News From New York: The ABC's of Trial Plazas and Complete Streets (Streetsblog SF)
    By Matthew Roth -- When we wrote about the trial pedestrian plaza on 17th Street and Market Street that DPW expects to start this May, the story generated numerous doubts about how the city would create a successful public space out of a busy street abutting a gas station. [...] Though we can't make guarantees on a pilot project that hasn't been built, we thought we'd highlight some of New York City's temporary plazas and street treatments as best practice analogs, knowing our DPW and MTA are also looking to the Big Crabapple for inspiration. 

     

  • 'Job sprawl' threatens urban poor, study says (Philadelphia Inquirer)
    By Diane Mastrull -- Against the drumbeat of distressing reports about job loss in America comes a gloomy assessment today about a time when jobs were being created. Between 1998 and 2006, nearly all U.S. metropolitan areas - including Philadelphia's - experienced a drop in downtown employment as jobs migrated to the suburbs, in many cases out of the reach of city residents without cars or other means of getting to them, according to the Brookings Institution.

"Streets"

Walking

Bicycling

  • Cottage Farms neighbors put brakes on Carlton Street bike plans (Brookline TAB)
    • Opinion: Safe bike route to the Charles is a small price for a big benefit (Brookline TAB)
       
    • Opinion: Bicycle lanes and parking spaces: A gaggle of gripes (Brookline TAB)
       
    • Letters: Healthy earth just as important as healthy businesses; Parking belongs on Carlton Street; Keep parking spaces on Carlton (Brookline TAB)
       
  • Hit the Ground Pedaling (BU Today)
     

Transit

Cars/Parking

Transportation financing/Government

  • Editorial: A 'finance only' transportation model (Boston Globe)
     
  • Lonely job in desolate depot a punitive one, T worker says (Boston Globe)
     
  • Hands off Massport, says its board chairman (CommonWealth Unbound)
     
  • Massachusetts Looking to New York for Clues on Funding Transport (Transport Politic)
     
  • Gov. Deval L. Patrick, in Chicopee, hangs tough on gas tax (The Republican)
     
  • State agencies leaving lease with MBTA at South Station (Boston Globe)
     
  • Pike issues 75 percent more 'free' toll transponders (Brookline TAB)
     
  • House approves a transportation transformation (Boston Globe)
     

Parks

Development projects

Land Use/Zoning

  • Beal Companies Withdraws Kendall Square Upzoning Petition (CCTV)
     
  • Smart Growth and Housing Affordability -- Round Three (Planetizen)
     
  • Rezoning Broadway from Winter Hill through E. Somerville discussed (Somerville News)
     
  • When green is not "green" (CommonWealth Unbound)
     

Out-of-state

National trends

International news