I'm a tall building defender bc expensive streets require a lot of density to get the benefits the public wants. I don't care what you think abt Paris, "human scale", or any of that BS. 400+ people, incl the better part of 100 low-income people have transit accessible homes. 1/5

https://twitter.com/berkie1/status/1752392834429157689

And there's no Sweetgreen or Bank of America here. When cities &regions make certain choices over decades, you need to deal w/ those consequences. And this is not armchair QB'ing, it's reality. We need to move past universalizing Euro-centric ideas with plenty of faults. 2/5

Folks who believe that our solution to decarbonizing our transportation sector has to rely exclusively or even primarily on EVs suffer from a lack of imagination. They also fail to recognize who we leave behind, potentially setting up a two-tier transportation system where transit users get the dregs of funding, attention, and road space.

I also commented that while I'm happy to see a lot more work on the Regional Rail program, the timeline remains unambitious. None of the slides refer to the billions of dollars in federal funds that could be used for this project. This graphic shows the danger of a legislature that is not engaged with the MBTA- providing funding for design, holding them accountable for electrification, and funding the local match. Regional Rail could take decades longer.

Some people’s refusal to engage in reality has profound consequences for low income people and people of color. For residents of the W-suburbs, Green Line suburbs, & certain coastal towns- you don’t live in a middle class community. You are middle class living in luxury housing. I wanna say to those folks: Your house with 15-year old appliances, and the same countertops that I have is valued at $950k. It drives me up the wall to see residents in these homes decry $500-750k condos. Like, where do YOU think you live?

It's so disappointing to see the Governor, Environmental Affairs, & the GM seek to activately kill demand for transit, or at least let the agency wither on the vine. Excuses are being made about "the changing nature of work", but they're just excuses. Baker has hated transit since he loaded the T we/ debt to make the Big Dig's numbers work. He wouldn't have ever taken any interest in the T if not for the 2015 winter storm. COVID is providing the perfect excuse for Baker to launch a partisan attack on transit riders & workers.

It's hard to take the T at good faith when they can't explain how you bring service back when people make semi-permanent decisions based on the service cuts- ending a lease, buying a car, switching jobs. These cuts will be a death spiral. Forgive me if I don't give the T

https://twitter.com/jacquegoddard/status/1331041333558063107

the benefit of the doubt here. There's no straight answer about how you gauge demand for lines or services that don't exist. Where's the modeling for lost revenue from weekend passes? From higher income riders, who the T has said in the past buy monthly passes at a higher rate?

I couldn't imagine being the Secretary who presides over the permanent decline of the MBTA. The T is not just an iconic part of the region, but it helps address climate change and traffic, connects people to jobs and opportunity, and is one of the few egalitarian spaces left! To go from an advocate who fought for better transit to carrying water for fare hikes, service cuts, and arguing for hoarding federal funds.

I mean @BostonGlobe & @binajv , John Lewis isn't even buried yet. Publishing cutesy vauge opeds in support of racial justice don't mean anything if you don't challenge the status quo or re-examine your biases. Black people are disproportionately jailed for crimes white people

https://twitter.com/BostonGlobe/status/1286266211760771075

get probation and a slap on the wrist for. We know that black and brown people make up an oversized percentage of the prison population. (@PrisonPolicy).

As folks learn about #BlackWallStreet, they should also learn that the final nail in the coffin was a far more banal form of racism and white supremacy... The highway. After rebounding from such a racist massacre, the district would be cut in half by a noisy, polluting highway. Thousands of white commuters have benefitted from the pain this neighborhood suffered. In addition to reparations paid to descendants, OK should remove or deck the road.

We have to start thinking about land use and density post-COVID. And no, I don’t mean getting less dense. The Iowa versus So. Korea numbers answers that. No, I mean 15-20 min neighborshoods. This means people don’t have to try or even use transit for their daily needs. That can be a little scary for those of us who want to see transit ridership rebound. But we have to rethink what makes transit successful. We have to center equity, livability, and sustainability. This means reviving main streets in EJ communities to have healthy food options.

We're really excited about #RegionalRail Phase 1 being included in this bond bill. This is a transformative project that reimagines what our Commuter Rail network can do for commuters, students, and residents across the region! 👩🏾‍💼🧕🏻👨🏻‍🦼👴🏿👨‍💻 #RegionalRail is about more capacity and more service, it's about #equity, and it's about economic development and more. Thanks to #mapoli for listening. With a few more amendments we can make this a reality.

1/ So I've been reading a fantastic book lately. It has me reflecting on the differences in why transit works so well in London as compared to Boston... 2/ A great deal comes down to the fact that London's civic community largely buys into the Gustavo Petro ethos, (I'm paraphrasing here) "a developed [city] is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich take public transit"