To listen to the state’s newest regulatory commission in its meetings, the tenor and terms, for the most part, are no different than hearings regarding oversight of most industries in the state. But the big difference is the industry they are charged with overseeing – legal marijuana – and members of the Cannabis Control Commission have just hit a historic milestone, finalizing regulations to get legal recreational sale and use of marijuana ready to roll. “July 1 is the start date, not the end d...
Mar 12, 2018•28 min
This week’s Codcast features representatives from the two opposing camps -- Robert Rio, the senior vice president of government affairs at Associated Industries of Massachusetts, one of the founding members of the Coalition for Sustainable Energy, and Elizabeth Turnbull Henry, the president of the Environmental League of Massachusetts, which also represents many members of the business community. Listen and get up to speed.
Mar 05, 2018•26 min
Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration has spent three years whipping the MBTA into shape. Costs have been pared back and revenues have been increased -- all so more money could be invested in long-range improvements. But as the race for governor starts to heat up, Baker finds himself asking riders for more patience, saying his administration is dealing with decades of neglect at the MBTA. The governor called last Wednesday’s derailment, which knocked out the Red Line between JFK/UMass and Broadway...
Feb 26, 2018•30 min
On this week’s Codcast, Josh Fairchild and Jim Aloisi of TransitMatters interview David Bragdon, the executive director of TransitCenter in New York City, and Neil Smith, the executive director of Transit Systems, an Australian company that provides transportation services to government agencies in Australia, Singapore, and London. (Transit Systems is the company that acquired Bridj, the Boston-based firm that tried to launch on-demand bus service.)
Feb 20, 2018•34 min
Could the Massachusetts Gaming Commission really pull the plug on the $2.4 billion Wynn Resorts hotel and casino going up in Everett? Chip Tuttle and Jay Gonzalez are at the forefront of those pressing for the commission to do just that. They say the resignation of Steve Wynn as chairman and chief executive of Wynn Resorts is not enough – that top company officials were either aware or should have been aware of the sexual misconduct alleged by the Wall Street Journal. As a result, they say, the ...
Feb 12, 2018•27 min
Jeff Riley won the backing last week of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to be the next state education commissioner based in large part on his work over the last six years as the state-appointed receiver for the Lawrence schools. Riley says he tried to “build a plan that was collaborative,” including a strong voice for teachers, parents, and other community stakeholders in Lawrence. That’s the same approach he wants to bring to his state post, where he hopes to help “heal” ...
Feb 05, 2018•27 min
State officials announced on Thursday that they had selected a project called Northern Pass to import a massive amount of hydro-electricity from Canada, enough to supply between 15 and 20 percent of the state’s electricity needs. Northern Pass, a partnership between Hydro-Quebec and Eversource Energy, immediately came under fire from environmental groups concerned about the route of its transmission line through New Hampshire and the way in which the project was selected. On the Codcast, we talk...
Jan 29, 2018•28 min
Michael Manville, an assistant professor of urban planning at UCLA, says the best way to ease congestion in Boston is to put a price on it. In a Codcast interview with Josh Fairchild and James Aloisi of TransitMatters, Manville said our roads are clogged because we have too much demand for scarce road space at certain times of the day. We’ve all been there, inching along because everyone is trying to get to work or head home at the same time.
Jan 21, 2018•27 min
Harriette Chandler never had designs on the Massachusetts Senate’s top post, and she readily admits to mixed feelings about landing there. Her unexpected ascension was the result of the scandal swirling around her close ally, Stan Rosenberg, who temporarily relinquished the Senate president’s job last month while an investigation is underway. Congratulated on her new role of acting president as we kicked off the Codcast conversation, Chandler wondered if that’s the right word.
Jan 16, 2018•24 min
CommonWealth’s Winter issue comes out Tuesday, but we give you a sneak peek in today’s Codcast. We run down our stories Airbnb, Uber/Lyft, ed reform’s 25th birthday, Worcester’s renaissance, Yvonne Spicer and much, much more.
Jan 08, 2018•22 min
In this week's Codcast, the folks from TransitMatters (Josh Fairchild and James Aloisi) sit down with Jessica Robertson and Ari Ofsevit, two members of the Allston Interchange Task Force (Ofsevit is also a TransiMatters member) to hash out the West Station issue. All of them believe the station needs to be built at the beginning of the development process, so don't expect a point-counterpoint type of debate. What their discussion reveals, however, is how the debate over West Station has become a...
Dec 18, 2017•32 min
Rosenberg's fall by CommonWealth Beacon
Dec 11, 2017•23 min
There’s been a lot of talk about the MBTA’s plan to install a new fare collection system, most of it focused on the problems associated with going cashless. The concerns were exemplified by a headline in the Boston Globe last week that said: “The MBTA wants to go cashless. What about people who might be left behind?” A pretty strong response emerged to that question over the weekend. Jim Aloisi, the former secretary of transportation and board member of TransitMatters, said not to worry. In a co...
Dec 04, 2017•24 min
It was 10 years ago that MassINC launched its Gateway Cities initiative with a report documenting the challenges -- and huge opportunities -- in the state’s once vibrant industrial cities. “Massachusetts’ proud, old manufacturing cities must be counted, on balance, as distressed,” it said. Yet, concluded the report, “For the first time in decades, these cities’ reconnection to prosperity seems at least imaginable.” A decade later, MassINC, the non-partisan public policy think tank that publishes...
Nov 20, 2017•26 min
Everyone knows about the retrenchment and redistribution of resources by media outlets, especially newspapers. While some regions have filled the vacuum with blogs purporting to be news but are really opinion pages in disguise, true local news and events often go uncovered.
Nov 10, 2017•30 min
The Codcast this week is an MBTA twofer: James Aloisi and Josh Fairchild of TransitMatters make a pitch for an overnight bus service pilot and also interview Matthew Casale, a staff attorney from MassPIRG, about the accuracy of a reliability indicator the T is using.
Nov 03, 2017•30 min
Everyone knows about traffic congestion in Boston. It’s why we’re often late for meetings. It’s why sightseeing firms are paring back their tours because the tourists are spending too much time sitting in traffic. And it’s why many Boston officials are worried Amazon will take a pass on the city -- traffic is just too heavy already. What a lot of people don’t realize is that the federal government is subsidizing this congestion. Tax policies approved in the 1970s and 1980s give a break to people...
Oct 27, 2017•32 min
As you pore over the bids for Amazon’s second headquarters, put your headphones on, call up The Codcast, and listen to Shirley Leung and Chris Dempsey talk about what’s at stake. Leung, a pro-growth columnist for the Boston Globe, and Dempsey, the director of Transportation for Massachusetts and one of the leaders of the No Boston Olympics campaign, find more common ground than you might think. But they also have some fundamental differences, which makes the conversation both entertaining and en...
Oct 20, 2017•26 min
Buying booze the modern way by CommonWealth Beacon
Oct 13, 2017•28 min
The tough-on-crime era of the 1980s and 90s has given way to what some are calling the smart-on-crime era, a time in which policymakers and politicians are rethinking what it takes to keep communities safe while also giving criminal offenders the best shot of getting on a more positive path after paying their debt. That debate will come front and center on Beacon Hill this fall, as lawmakers take up bills that would address perceived shortcomings in the current system. The most ambitious proposa...
Oct 06, 2017•25 min
When it comes to the November match-ups for mayor in Boston and Lawrence, it looks like very different tales of two cities, one where a highly competitive race is now on tap, and one where that seems unlikely. That’s the assessment from this week’s Codcast with Yawu Miller, senior editor of the Bay State Banner, and Ted Siefer, a CommonWealth contributor who penned a feature for the magazine’s summer issue taking stock of Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera’s first term and teeing up the reelection race h...
Sep 28, 2017•23 min
Everyone talks about equity these days. Pay equity, gender equity, racial equity. You can add to that list mobility equity and neighborhood equity, areas that are affected by all other social and economic equity issues. Chris Osgood, Boston’s chief of the streets, says successful transportation planning now has to start at those equity points in order for the city to have a viable system that meets everybody’s needs. In a conversation with Josh Fairchild and Jim Aloisi of TransitMatters for The ...
Sep 22, 2017•32 min
Boston’s streets and sidewalks comprise 9 square miles in a city that is only 48 square miles in total. Chris Osgood, with the odd but apt title of Boston’s chief of the streets, is the person in charge of not only maintaining that infrastructure but making sure that residents have access to it whether they drive, bike, or walk. Osgood, joined by Vineet Gupta, the director of policy and planning for the Boston Transportation Department, and Josh Fairchild and James Aloisi of Transit Matters, sai...
Sep 15, 2017•29 min
New pot czar a breath of fresh air by CommonWealth Beacon
Sep 07, 2017•23 min
With last year’s election of Donald Trump, complete with his campaign talk about about bad hombres and Mexican rapists, it’s hard to feel too optimistic about the prospects for comprehensive — and reasoned — immigration reform. Trump adds a loud exclamation mark to what had already become a starkly partisan divide on the issue. But Ali Noorani — the guest on this week’s Codcast — says a solution to the immigration debate isn’t just a matter of the political dynamics in Washington. (Noorani may b...
Sep 01, 2017•38 min
After this month’s white nationalist rally in Virginia, statues of Confederate leaders are falling across the South. Protests by white supremacists against the planned removal of a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville has set in motion a rush to rid town greens and parks of icons to the Confederate cause. The context in which many of the Confederate statues were erected is an important part of the debate, says Boston University historian Nina Silber on this week’s Codcast. Many were put up in...
Aug 25, 2017•30 min
Riding the T sometimes feels like a step back in time. Red Line cars that are 40 years old. Payment systems that are slow and inefficient. Underground stations that leak whenever it rains. But David Block-Schachter, the MBTA’s chief technology officer, says the transit authority is changing. In an interview for The Codcast with Josh Fairchild and James Aloisi of TransitMatters, Block-Schachter, who doesn’t own a car or a driver’s license, provides a glimpse of what technology can do for the T.
Aug 18, 2017•39 min
What Gov. Charlie Baker calls a common-sense approach to dealing with federal immigration officials, Carol Rose of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts dismisses as fraternizing with the “Trump deportation machine.” Rose calls Baker “well-intentioned,” which is fairly mild since many of her political allies on the immigration issue are calling him racist or worse. But Rose makes clear she believes there is no middle ground in the fight over state cooperation with federal Immigrati...
Aug 11, 2017•23 min
While “not in my backyard” has become the default response to development proposals in many communities, in a few places NIMBY is starting to meet its match. YIMBY — which stands for “yes in my backyard” — is a fledgling national movement, concentrated largely in already densely populated and high-cost urban areas, that is pushing a very different message: We want to see more housing, more density, and a tempering of the run-up of housing prices in our community to make it more accessible to all...
Aug 04, 2017•28 min
On this week’s Codcast, Paul Levy, the former CEO of Beth Israel describes Partners as a regulated monopoly. He is skeptical that a merger of the BI, Lahey, and several other hospitals will steal a lot of business away from Partners or produce dramatic savings that will be passed along to patients in the former of lower insurance rates.
Jul 21, 2017•25 min
