LATEST ARTICLES

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 […]