One approach rejected by Boston officials.
Boston, which has some of the worst traffic congestion in the world, has adjusted the timing of lights at four intersections in the Fenway, Mission Hill and Jamaica Plain through the use of a Google-based AI application to improve traffic flow- and could extend the application to even more intersections. Read more.
The Boston City Council will consider a proposal by Councilor Brian Worrell (Dorchester) to deal with the issue of big-ass SUVs making it harder for people with driveways to see oncoming traffic as they pull out by letting homeowners create yellow-paint no-parking areas 18 inches on either side of their driveways - and then calling for $25 fines for people who disregard those zones. Read more.
A federal appeals court has tossed a lawsuit by Salem-based Satanists over the way the Boston City Council has local clergy members start its weekly meetings with an invocation - and over the way the city fought the group's efforts to make then Councilor Michelle Wu show up for a deposition way up on the North Shore on the day of the election in which she was running for mayor. Read more.
Mayor Wu announced today the city will offer vouchers, ranging in value from $800 to $2,400, to help lower-income residents, seniors and people with disabilities afford a battery-powered bicycle. Read more.
The Globe reports that Arthur Jemison, who came to Boston two years ago to help move the semi-autonomous Boston Planning and Development Agency into the Boston Planning Department, told his staff today he'll be resigning in September to return to Michigan.
Though I’ve spent most of my adult life in “Greater Boston” but I don’t feel like I know the granular, “Inside Baseball” of what makes Boston tick. I’ve read ‘Common Ground’ and ‘The Last Hurrah and some basic history, but what are the authoritative books that say who’s who and how things really are? Like what’s the story with the BRA? Is there an Encyclopedia Bostonia? What families have power that you don’t read about in the papers? What are politicians’ long term aims?
Horizon Mass reports David Ortiz is an investor in a Florida company called Charge Fast Power that could be about to get a no-bid MassDOT contract for $100,000 to install six EV chargers - but with an option for 50 more, which would make the contract worth closer to $1 million. The site says MassDOT officials couldn't really say why they felt they had to whip up the contract now without soliciting bids or waiting for the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center to complete its study of how to dole out $9.5 million in federal funds for EV chargers that would work with mobile phones.
Remember the glory days back in 2015, after all (well most) of the snow from That Winter had melted and suddenly we were the designated US city for the 2024 Olympics? Read more.
The Globe breaks the news: Mayor Wu is pregnant, expects to have her third child in January.
Maryr asks:
Anyone with an idea of where I could maybe buy a yellow watermelon? Or the best watermelon in general? Where's the Place To Go for fruit and veg with Russo's gone?
Now that he has a North End pied a terre, Josh Kraft is sounding more and more like he'll run for mayor against Michelle Wu next year, CommonWealth Beacon reports. Oh, not publicly yet, but CommonWealth Beacon reports Kraft started dishing on the campaign he'll launch this fall to a friend at a Back Bay coffeehouse - where somebody else sitting nearby took it all in and then re-dished to the site.
Boston is using a $3-millon grant from the Mellon Foundation for a series of temporary art installations and events across the city. Read more.
Mayor Wu today announced Boston's latest rat plan, in a series of rat plans that now date back more than a century, under which several city departments will better coordinate their anti-vermin efforts and businesses and residents will be asked to do their part to put a lid on rats - by putting a lid on their rat-enticing trash and even cleaning their barbecue grills after each use. Read more.
An Illinois lender yesterday sued the city of Boston, a Charlestown towing company and the Registry of Motor Vehicles over the way Boston lets tow companies not just seize cars on the order of Boston Police but sell them off without giving lenders the chance to get the car back first, which it charges is a violation of several of its constitutional rights. Read more.
OK, rather than Detroit in The Heat Is On, we went with a local heat jingle.
Mayor Wu has declared a heat emergency for Boston Monday through Wednesday, with temperatures in the 90s and humidity bringing the "heat index" around or over 100 degrees. If you can't stay cool at home, there's a city mapping system to find chill zones near you - including community centers, libraries and splash pads.
A proposal to begin charging drivers a fee to come into downtown Boston will remain in committee as its sponsors consider what are turning out to be some possibly complex issues. Read more.
The Boston City Council today agreed to look at using rodent birth-control pellets to try to control the city's burgeoning supply of rats, by building on a pilot started in Jamaica Plain last year that one councilor said had meant an 80% reduction in the gnawing, long-tailed vermin. Read more.
WBUR reports on Boston's speed-hump program, which aims to install some 2,000 of the traffic-slowing humps.
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