‘T’ guide for disabled published
September 20, 2004
(Source: alpha-one.org)

BOSTON, Mass. – Chris Hart knows firsthand how tough it can be for an individual living with a disability to get around on the MBTA.

After all, the 26-year-old, living with cerebral palsy, has been riding T trains and buses in a wheelchair for most of his life.

“What frightens many disabled T users is that they don't know what to expect when they get on the system,'' said Hart, who recently helped author “Getting Around Boston: A Guide to Riding the T for People of All Abilities.''

Hart works for Boston nonprofit Adaptive Environments, which the T hired to produce the free brochure.

Click here for the original article.

Smart Thinking
Franklin, a community south of Boston, became a poster town for sprawl. Now one developer is betting big on revitalizing its downtown. Should the rest of Massachusetts follow suit?
By Bryant Urstadt | February 12, 2006

The next boom in real estate may have started with a wrecking crew. The target was a single abandoned furniture warehouse right in the center of the once-thriving downtown of Franklin. What went down with the warehouse may be the whole idea of living in a huge house on gobbled-up farmland in the suburbs and spending the better part of your life behind the wheel of a car.

The Boston Scenarios Group (http://www.bostonscenarios.org) is a fledgling network of scholars and activists in the Boston region who are trying to develop inspiring visions of Deep Change for the city and its environs in 2050. Following a workshop on June 2, 2005, convened by Tellus Institute, the group is now working to enhance preliminary scenarios for different sectors: the economy, health, transportation and land-use, energy, water, and so on. Small technical working groups have been formed to help develop quantitative relationships for generating the scenarios. There are also complementary narrative visions that need to be elaborated and checked for consistency with one another. The objective is to build a shared conception of a vibrant and socially cohesive city of the future that satisfies sustainability goals. These include racial and economic justice, reduced overall work-loads, and environmental loadings that are consonant with global per capita emissions needed for a sustainable planet. The project is premised on the view that a shared perspective on where we want to go is a necessary (though not sufficient) first step to building the sort of coherent urban movement that could bring about far-reaching social and environmental change over the long term.

The cars that clog our roads also drain our wallets. Can insurance reform help?
COMMONWEALTH MAGAZINE

When Cheryl Travis, an account supervisor at Weber Shandwick, a public relations and marketing firm in Cambridge, moved from Winchester to Charlestown two years ago, there was one cost that caught her by surprise: the $1,500 increase in her auto insurance premium. A call to her insurance company revealed that, because of the theft and accident rates in her new neighborhood, she would have to pay $2,700 a year - more than double the $1,200 she paid in Winchester - to insure her 1999 Acura with more than 85,000 miles on it and plenty of dents.

Fitting Boston to a T
By Philip Warburg | December 2, 2005

WELL-MAINTAINED, accessible, and affordable public transit is a cornerstone of the Massachusetts economy. In Boston, the T connects people to their jobs, providing economic opportunity to diverse neighborhoods and strengthening the businesses and public institutions that make Boston a world-class city. Transit access to sports and cultural events, education, and healthcare further boosts Boston's vitality.

In 1991, the Commonwealth promised to strengthen public transit in the Boston area through a number of specific investments. These commitments were part of an ambitious transportation initiative that included the Central Artery Tunnel project. Today, after spending nearly $15 billion on the Big Dig, the Commonwealth under Mitt Romney's leadership is trying to walk away from its parallel obligation to make good on key transit promises. The reason: insufficient funds.