Former Boston chief of streets again named to that role in wake of Louisa Gag’s death
“Knowing Chris Osgood’s experience, he’s worked in so many capacities with other mayors. I think like he brings a lot of experience. He brings the right kind of experience,” said Maha Aslam of Livable Streets Alliance.
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FitzGerald, advocates ready to move on new streets policies
Most vocal about changes since Gag’s death has been LivableStreets Alliance, where Gag once worked as a transportation and bicycle advocate.
Maha Aslam, a project manager at the organization, said the mayor’s update covers many of the issues that the group seeks to address.
“It’s unfortunate a tragedy like Louisa’s crash had to happen for us to all step back and re-assess because in some shape and way advocates had been talking about project being delayed or re-introduced and some of it felt dysfunctional,” said Aslam.
“It felt like this was a way to re-think strategic things and re-assess organizational things.”
The group applauded the new leadership positions in the Streets Cabinet filled by Chris Osgood and Tali Robbins, Aslam said. They were also supportive of a new advisory team announced by Wu and the move to think about safety around bigger vehicles like heavy commercial trucks, one of which was involved in the crash that caused Gag’s death.
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What was missing, Aslam noted, was “explicit language recommitting to Vision Zero.” “A lot of things put in there are good policy around Vision Zero, but there’s no authoritative language about re-committing to Vision Zero,” she said.
“We need to acknowledge that in some places cars need to slow down,” she added. “That’s a difficult conversation and people don’t like to hear it…I don’t think anyone driving a motor vehicle wants to hurt anyone. Sometimes slowing down just means literally asking people to drive within the speed limit.”
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More concrete barriers and parking enforcement: Wu outlines street safety plans after cyclist’s death
Maha Aslam — transit and streets program manager at the LivableStreets Alliance, a street safety nonprofit where Gag previously worked — said that Wu’s various promises were encouraging, but that her letter provided no concrete examples of “how community engagement will change.” Aslam and other advocates said they want an explicit commitment from Wu that she will not bow to public pressure to change the design of a project that would make a road safer for bikers and pedestrians.
“There are parts of the city where cars have to slow down, and that is a reality that people need to come to terms with, and not because we want to add more frustration to their life, but because it has a safety cost,” Aslam said.
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Wu delivers promised street safety plan, as outcry over cyclist death keeps up
https://www.wbur.org/news/2026/07/24/boston-mayor-michelle-wu-street-planning-louisa-gag
Maha Aslam is a project manager for transit and streets for LivableStreets Alliance. She said her organization was eagerly waiting for Wu’s plan following Gag’s death. She called the letter a “starting point” to continue the discussion around street safety.
Aslam said she looks forward to re-engaging with the city to help make Boston’s streets safer. Part of that includes finishing the projects Gag was working on.
“ I hope that the city can celebrate her life, her contributions to the city by like, you know, completing some of her projects, like expanding on her legacy and really centering safety and all the projects that they move forward with in the future,” Aslam said.
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This New England City Hasn't Had a Traffic Death in Three Years
The city is “emerging as a national Vision Zero leader,” says Maha Aslam, the transit and streets program manager at LivableStreets, an advocacy group based in Cambridge, Mass. LivableStreets recently published a report assessing the last decade of Vision Zero work in Somerville, Cambridge and Boston. It praised Somerville’s approach to community engagement around traffic-calming projects, which involves working closely with community-based advocacy groups and being firm about making safety a priority over other goals.
“That approach is very, very effective. It helps communities build their expectations around how their feedback will be used,” Aslam says.
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It’s Not Nothing: LivableStreets Report Assesses Progress In Three Cities After A Decade of ‘Vision Zero’
The LivableStreets Alliance has published a new report that assesses how effective Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville have been at realizing their “vision zero” goals to eliminate serious injuries and deaths on city roadways.
The report singles out the City of Somerville, where there have been no fatal crashes since 2022, as a success story with policies worth emulating.
“The one big takeaway is that Vision Zero actually works,” Maha Aslam, a program manager for LivableStreets and one of the authors of the report, told StreetsblogMASS on Thursday. “And it works best when hen a city has a consistent strategy and commitment.”
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Council seen on verge of okaying $4.9b FY27 budget
The mayor’s change was quickly lauded by the transportation advocacy group, the LivableStreets Alliance for “protecting essential staff and ongoing safety efforts.” In a June 18 statement, the group thanked Wu “for taking this important step to preserve the City’s ability to make streets safer for everyone.”
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Warning of layoffs, Wu moves to reverse City Council cut to transportation staff in $4.9 billion budget plan
But a coalition of transit advocates — including TransitMatters, WalkMassachusetts, and the LivableStreets Alliance — slammed the decision and urged the city to pursue “all possible alternatives,” arguing layoffs could jeopardize critical street safety projects and the city’s ability to compete for state and federal transit grants.
On Wednesday, Maha Aslam, transit and streets project manager at the LivableStreets Alliance, thanked Wu for protecting “critical” transportation employees’ jobs.
“Any attempt by the council to reverse this adjustment will be an obvious attempt to hamper the transportation department’s ability to deliver safer streets,” Aslam told the Globe.
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Mayor Wu Vetoes City Council’s Proposed Transportation Department Layoffs
“We want to thank Mayor Wu for addressing this budget issue head-on and preventing layoffs of transportation staff who work to keep our streets safe and properly maintained,” said Maha Aslam, a project manager for the LivableStreets Alliance.
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Boston Press Release: Boston/MBTA extend fare free buses through Dec. 2026
"Boston's fare free bus program serves as a national model for how government can respond to the needs of its residents,” said Jeff Rosenblum, Interim Executive Director, Board Chair, Co-Founder, LivableStreets. “We have heard directly from riders on the positive impact on their lives: less stress every time they need to get somewhere and more money available for groceries. More people are choosing transit over driving, and some have started riding the bus for the first time because it's free."
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Advocates Call for Accountability From Boston’s Streets Cabinet As a Condition for Budget Approval
“We are in a financially bad year. We need to be very sure about where we spend our money,” said Maha Aslam, program manager for the LivableStreets Alliance, during the hearing’s public testimony.
The LivableStreets Alliance has called on the City of Boston to align its spending with long-standing transportation plans like GoBoston 2030 and the Vision Zero strategy, which was last updated in 2023.
“Don’t sign off on a budget that doesn’t have timelines, that doesn’t have detailed deliverables,” Aslam urged the city councilors.
Stacy Thompson, a Boston resident and volunteer for the LivableStreets Alliance (as well as a former StreetsblogMASS board member), asked the City Council “to step up” and demand better clarity on what the Streets Cabinet is spending its money on.
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OPINION: The injustice of debt-based driver’s license suspensions in Mass.
OPINION PIECE by Rachel Lea Scott & Maha Aslam
When people can get to work, our economy is better for it. We all want people to show up for work on time, when they say they are going to be there. Our workplaces function better when employees have consistent and reliable transportation to reach their places of work.
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OPINION: Now’s the time to focus on how better to clear away post-storm piles of snow
There are gaps in Boston’s snow clearance that leave vulnerable people behind. We should fix it now, says LivableStreets Alliance…
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Delayed projects, low morale: Boston’s streets department is stalling under Wu, long a transit champion
Maha Aslam, transit and streets program manager of the nonprofit LivableStreets Alliance, said she had hoped Wu would allow work to resume on the stalled projects after she overwhelmingly won reelection in November.
“Unfortunately, that didn’t happen,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Blue Hill Avenue project recently secured more than $80 million from a federal grant program. But according to LivableStreets, those funds, plus nearly $50 million in state and MBTA funds allocated for the project, are contingent on the design including a center-running bus lane, which is opposed by a vocal group of residents and some elected officials.
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‘We’ve got it backwards.’ Cameras are everywhere in Mass. So why can’t they catch speeders?
“We don’t want more policing. But do we want to support people there who are constantly facing a fear of speeding?” said Maha Aslam, LivableStreets Alliance’s transit and streets program manager.
The ultimate goal of traffic cameras, Aslam said, is to alter drivers’ behavior, and effectively “force people to think twice before they act irrationally.”
“They’re taking pictures all the time,” she said of cameras, “and they’re making sure people are on their best behavior.”
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Policy Riders In Governor’s Budget Proposal Would Legalize Speed Enforcement Cameras, End Debt-Based License Suspensions
The practice of taking away a driver’s license to enforce compliance with laws that are unrelated to their ability to drive safely has come under fire from civil liberties groups like the ACLU and from transportation advocates like the LivableStreets Alliance and Transportation for Massachusetts.
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Years ago, Boston put bus lanes in the middle of this busy street. Has it worked?
LivableStreets Alliance, a Cambridge transportation advocacy nonprofit, surveyed more than 150 Columbus Avenue bus riders in December 2021, shortly after the lanes went live. Around three-quarters of respondents reported faster and more consistent trips, according to a report summarizing the group’s findings. Just under one-quarter of respondents said they took the bus more frequently after the lanes were introduced.
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Mass. Pike redesign project jeopardized by federal funding cuts
"I think this is a once-in-a-generation kind of project," said Maha Aslam of LivableStreets Alliance.
She says the funding cut is a setback, but agrees that cuts can be made to the project and the state can bankroll it.
"There are parts of this project that we still hope we can move forward with, even despite not having all of the funding that we had hoped for," said Aslam.
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Is federal funding for the Mass. Pike redesign in Allston still coming?
"We don't think you need this layover space. It's impacting the community, think differently about it," said Stacy Thompson with the Allston Multimodal Project Task Force.
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Faster bus commutes in Boston? That’s the goal with coming traffic signal upgrades.
Makayla Comas, co-executive director of the advocacy group LivableStreets Alliance, welcomed the plan for the new signals as a “great investment,” particularly for areas where dedicated bus lanes may not be the strongest option available, or even viable. The majority of folks who take the bus, which Comas called “the unsung hero of the system,” are low-income, people of color, disabled, and older adults.
“If we are trying to think about, ‘How do we make Boston streets work?’ and ‘How do we make sure that folks who deeply rely on public transportation are able to take it and feel like they want to take it consistently?’ — I think we need to do a deep evaluation of our bus system," she said.
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Coalition drops report on dire state of mass transit in Massachusetts
"That’s one of the few positive notes in “Funding Our Future: A Roadmap for Equitable and Sustainable Transportation Action in Massachusetts,” a publication of the Transit Is Essential coalition. Thoroughly reported and backed by more than 40 organizations spanning Transit Matters, Walk Massachusetts and Livable Streets to the Conservation Law Foundation, Boston Center for Independent Living and MassBike, the overall assessment is clear: “The current state of transportation is unsustainable for our climate and public health, our economy and ultimately for the people of Massachusetts.”"
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Reversing Course Again, Sec. Tibbits-Nutt Says Allston Project Will Include Multi-Acre Train Yard After All
"In a March letter co-signed by advocates from TransitMatters, the LivableStreets Alliance, Boston Cyclists Union, and several neighborhood groups called the proposed Allston layover "unnecessary, inconsistent with the MBTA’s Regional Rail vision, (and) incompatible with economic development.""
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Groups Urge Rainy Day Fund Diversion To Balance Budget
"The MBTA is facing an operating budget deficit of over $600 million in the upcoming fiscal year. The Commonwealth has over 600 structurally deficient bridges. The Commonwealth also needs to expand our EV charging infrastructure to meet our climate goals and address rural infrastructure for communities that rely on mostly gravel roads to get around," the coalition of more than two dozen groups wrote in a letter Tuesday to House and Senate budget chiefs. "Diverting $225 million from the Education and Transportation Fund only hinders our ability to address these investments moving forward."
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Groups urge rejection of Healey budget maneuver using millionaire tax funds
“We believe that shifting funds from the Education and Transportation Fund [the account where surplus millionaire tax revenues are kept] to backfill accounts that were previously funded by the General Fund sets a bad precedent for future budgets,” the advocates said in their letter. “Using the Fair Share dollars to balance budgets rather than make new investments in transportation and education moving forward risks damaging public trust. We believe a much better approach would be to use funds from the Stabilization Fund, as historically has been done, to close out prior year’s budgets.”
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MBTA launches new reduced fare program for low-income riders
“That group of folks 18 to 64, you know, they're in the midst of life and working every day and dropping kids off at child care and, you know, working poor," said Makayla Comas of the Livable Street [sic] Alliance.
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Boston using Google AI in Green Light pilot program to improve traffic
"You want to make sure that the technology is thinking about everyone at the intersection whether they're walking, biking, using transit or taking a car. My understanding is that the city is considering all these users because that same impact happens regardless of your mode."
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Boston implements traffic flow changes recommended by artificial intelligence
"That's a lot, when you think about the amount of time that you spend in a vehicle or maybe standing on a street corner waiting to get through the intersection," said Stacey Thompson, executive director of the Liveable Streets Alliance.
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Where the T Meets the Streets w/ Stacy Thompson from LivableStreets
On this episode of Spilling the T, we speak with Stacy Thompson from LivableStreets Alliance about transit advocacy, transit oriented development, and how LivableStreets is trying to help shape the region into an affordable, connected and climate resilient community.
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Slow down: Boston is installing more than 2,000 speed humps on city streets
"Lowering the speed limit alone, unfortunately, doesn't necessarily change driver behavior," Gleason said. "Having that physical addition to the road that really forces drivers to think about how fast they're driving and slow down their speed so that they don't experience any, you know, discomfort when they're driving over it or potential damage to their vehicle."
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