Barring a successful (or incredibly lengthy) appeal, Sal DiMasi will spend the next 8 years in jail. It’s a jarring sentence that will consume almost half of his expected remaining years. For many of his former colleagues, this should be sobering news. There have been a string of scandals facing politicians in state government. For the most part, these have resulted in relatively short jail terms, if any. DiMasi’s sentence will likely be viewed differently — its longer and he was no ordinary legislator. DiMasi was, at least on a dissenting vote basis, the most powerful speaker in recent memory. He managed to get resoundingly reelected as Speaker despite ethics questions hanging over his head. Even after the trial, sitting […]

In Boston, school starts tomorrow (except for K1 and K2, which starts on Monday). For those newcomers to the Boston Public Schools, congratulations, you’ve survived the much-feared school lottery (see previous comments here, here, here, and here.) Many lottery survivors are again tested by the Advanced Work Class “AWC”) program. 3rd grade students are tested and those scoring highly enough are invited to participate in Advanced Work Class, described as “an accelerated academic curriculum for highly motivated and academically capable students” by the district. These classes are viewed as the gateway to the prestigious exam schools and there’s clearly a link. About half the exam school students come from the public school (a surprisingly low number, in my view), and […]

Opposing Wal-Mart seems to be in vogue these days. Mayor Curtatone of Somerville is doing it, so is Mayor Menino. Menino, along with many community leaders, is opposing the expansion of Wal-Mart into Dudley Square. Their opposition is built on two objections – that Wal-Mart will damage the existing retail infrastructure in Dudley Square and that Wal-Mart is bad corporate citizen. But it’s a short-sighted attempt by government actors to tilt the playing field in favor of certain businesses. For one, the mega-marts are already here. The city has one – the Target in the South Bay Shopping Center (and Target’s masterful branding as the ‘good citizen’ compared to Wal-Mart is a whole separate story). But if you look at […]

What’s the 28X? It was the MBTA’s attempt to put a version of bus rapid transit on the existing 28 bus line. Route 28X would have converted portions of the bus route, particularly on Blue Hill Avenue, into a dedicated bus lane. It would have implemented many of the principles of bus rapid transit, like the dedicated lane and more widely spaced station stops, to allow faster service and greater throughput for one of the system’s most heavily used bus lines. And it would have done it with the help of federal funds and at an incremental cost to the existing system (as opposed to a large greenfield capital expense). As this space has noted before, there’s no money out […]

This space generally takes a dim view of several MBTA expansion projects, but there is one we can get behind — the Indigo Line. What’s that? Its the MBTA’s expansion of the low volume (~1600 passengers per day) Fairmount Line to create more stations and improve the existing ones. The Fairmount Line is unique in the MBTA’s commuter rail network — its starts and terminates in Boston (South Station – Readville) and only has five stations. Officially known as the Fairmount Line Improvement Plan, the project will add four stations to the line. So what’s good about that? First, it will provide rail access to a dense urban population center that is currently dependent on slower buses. Take a look […]