Christian MilNeil
Recent Posts
Debate Begins Over the Next U.S. Transportation Funding Bill
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Yesterday, House Democrats released a draft bill that establishes a $494 billion, 5-year plan for the nation’s transportation infrastructure – but in spite of language to address climate change, and significant funding increases for rail and transit programs, the lion’s share of the bill’s funding would still go to roads and highways. The proposed legislation, […]
How Transit Closures Escalate Protest Tensions
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Management at the MBTA is facing intense criticism after shutting down core subway stations on recent evenings, leaving thousands of its riders stranded and trapped among the belligerent police forces they were protesting against. On Sunday evening, thousands of people participated in a peaceful march from Nubian Square to the State House. As night fell […]
Streets Need to Be Safe for Black Lives
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It’s been one week since Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, choked George Floyd to death in a Minneapolis street, and three months since a retired Georgia cop and his son gunned down Ahmaud Arbery on a quiet street in Georgia. Both killings were caught on videos that contain damning indictments not only of the […]
MBTA Takes Small Steps to Improve Fare Equity
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Boston's transit overseers approved some small-but-significant changes in the agency’s fare policies at a meeting last week to improve fare equity for minority and low-income riders.
Op-Ed: Rush Hour Is Over – So What Comes Next?
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If we keep equity, sustainability, public health, and livability as our guiding principles, we can build a better world, even if it looks a little different than our vision from a few months ago.
A Large Town Answer to COVID-19 Mobility
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Somerville, Mass. will provide safer walking and biking routes with more room for physical distancing.
‘Essential’ Work Demands Put Areas of Color at Risk
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While much of the nation is staying at home to minimize the risks of COVID-19 transmission, the essential workers who continue to deliver our basic needs are still commuting to their jobs. That puts them at risk.
Mixed Signals: ‘Beg Buttons’ and the Pandemic
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Across the country, engineers are acknowledging the uselessness of push-to-walk buttons at crosswalks — and some are even reprogramming traffic lights to make walk signals automatic for the duration of the outbreak." […]
Car Pollution Makes COVID-19 Health Outcomes Worse
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A new nationwide study from Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health suggests that people living in neighborhoods with higher levels of fine particulate air pollution are more likely to die from COVID-19 infection than patients from areas with cleaner air. That’s especially concerning for many of communities of color in Massachusetts, where the legacies […]
Feds Send $1B to Mass. Transit Agencies
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Massachusetts transit agencies will get just over $1 billion in emergency funding to help sustain service through the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). The funding comes from a $25 billion line-item for transit assistance in the “Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act,” the bill that quickly moved through Congress […]
Congress Urged to Save Transit During Crisis
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A $1 trillion draft economic stabilization plan from the U.S. Senate provides no financial assistance for the nation’s transit agencies, which have been bleeding red ink as the COVID-19 pandemic slashes fare collections and revenues from state sales and payroll taxes. Large transit agencies, whose budgets are generally more reliant on fare revenue, have taken […]
Crisis Stretches Small Transit Providers Thinner
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The coronavirus outbreak is a disaster for big systems — but it might be even worse for the little guys.