“If most of the team is from inside [the MBTA], you’re not getting that outside perspective that’s pretty desperately needed right now.”

"But we didn't really see Gina out front a lot," she said. "It's hard to exactly name what she was or was not doing."

“We have a year to get this right,” said Stacy Thompson, executive director of transit advocacy group LivableStreets, citing the Biden administration’s ambitious infrastructure plans under the Inflation Reduction Act. “If we don’t take this moment now, we’ve missed a generational opportunity. We don’t have another decade.”

Adam Reilly discusses with Brendan Kearney, the deputy director of WalkMassachusetts, and Stacy Thompson, the executive director of Livable Streets.

The mounting nationwide data are quite clear—there are many benefits of eliminating fare collection, especially on buses.

"The reality is free transit is working. We are seeing massive transit improvements in Boston, Merrimack Valley, and Worcester— these systems are bucking the trends of downward transit ridership that was happening before the pandemic," Thompson said.

 “Gina was always friendly and collaborative. She served as commissioner while Go Boston 2030 was being drafted, so we didn’t have very much time to see her in action implementing the plan”

“She needs to be able to catch up while expanding the systems,” said Stacy Thompson, the executive director of LivableStreets Alliance. “We have to keep the state moving, literally.”

“We know that traffic safety is achievable without police enforcement,” Catherine Gleason, public policy manager of LivableStreets Alliance, said in a statement. “Banning non-traffic-safety related stops is a clear step toward dismantling the discriminatory role law enforcement plays in traffic safety.”