Photographs by Meghan Moore WHILE GREATER BOSTON AGONIZES over the multibillion-dollar MBTA project to extend the Green Line a mere five miles, another transit tug-of-war is going on across the rest of the state. The Bay State’s regional transit authorities have their own expansion dreams, albeit modest ones. Their dreams don’t involve complex rail construction […]
Gabrielle Gurley
Gabrielle covers several beats, including mass transit, municipal government, child welfare, and energy and the environment. Her recent articles have explored municipal hiring practices in Pittsfield, public defender pay, and medical marijuana, and she has won several national journalism awards for her work. Prior to coming to CommonWealth in 2005, Gabrielle wrote for the State House News Service, The Boston Globe, and other publications. She launched her media career in broadcast journalism with C-SPAN in Washington, DC. The Philadelphia native holds degrees from Boston College and Georgetown University.
Posted inState House News Service, Transportation
Bridj revs up
AS THE MBTA Fiscal and Management Control Board mulls axing late-night buses and trains to save money, the chances of some sort of wee-hours bus service surviving may rest with a start-up called Bridj. Matthew George, Bridj’s 25-year-old founder and CEO, sees his two-year-old bus company not as a competitor to the MBTA, but as a […]
Posted inState House News Service, Transportation
MBTA Control Board lays out ‘tough choices’
The MBTA Fiscal Management and Control Board outlined the steps that the MBTA needs to take to stabilize its finances and operations in its first annual report released Tuesday. The report is an exhaustive summary of previously released data points and stopped short of advocating that specific recommendations be set in motion. Instead, the board […]
Posted inState House News Service, Transportation
Keolis GM knows winter is coming
GERALD FRANCIS, the general manager of Keolis, the French company that operates the MBTA’s commuter rail system, is a man with an ambitious plan. He wants to make Eastern Massachusetts home to the number one commuter rail system in the US. That seems like a tall order for a system that basically fell apart last […]
Posted inEnvironment, State House News Service
From journalist to climate crusader
IN 2013, WEN STEPHENSON sat down with his son and daughter to explain why he might end up in jail. “How do you explain to your children that climate change is so serious, so urgent and scary that Daddy’s going to go risk getting arrested to try and do something about it?” says Stephenson, a […]
Posted inState House News Service, Transportation
Straus says MBTA can raise fares 10 percent
One of the leaders of the Legislature’s transportation committee said Tuesday that state law allows the MBTA to raise fares 10 percent next year, twice the level that transit advocates say is permitted. “I think the language permits it, yes,” said Rep. William Straus, the House chairman. Transportation advocates claim that two provisions in the […]
Posted inEnvironment, State House News Service
Marlborough gasoline spill upends lives
KAREN BUCKLEY WANTS out. But she can’t go anywhere because she and her husband — along with three other Marlborough families — are stuck in homes that have lost a huge amount of their value because of a gasoline spill from a neighborhood Citgo station three years ago. The Buckleys and the other families find themselves […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service, Transportation
Overlords of the MBTA
Photographs by Michael Manning THE NAME JOSEPH AIELLO probably means nothing to most MBTA riders. But the first major snowstorm might change that. Aiello is the chairman of the five-member MBTA Fiscal and Management Control Board that has the job that has overwhelmed governors, transportation secretaries, and the system’s general managers for more than a […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics, State House News Service
Lexington lawmaker looks to the people for tax boost
REP. JAY KAUFMAN has been a reliable member of the House Democratic caucus’s progressive wing for more than 20 years. In the 1990s, he was part of a small band of liberal lawmakers who clashed regularly with then-Speaker Tom Finneran — and found themselves relegated to legislative Siberia as a result. But Kaufman found his […]
Posted inState House News Service, Transportation
T control board may hire Green Line consultant
THE MBTA FISCAL AND MANAGEMENT CONTROL BOARD’S lack of confidence in the transit agency’s ability to build the Green Line Extension to Somerville and West Medford plunged to new lows Tuesday as the board members signaled their interest in possibly recruiting an outside firm to analyze the current cost overruns and develop new project management […]