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Alan Wirzbicki

Alan Wirzbicki

Boston Globe

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Widett? Well, why not?

Everyone wants the train, nobody wants the train yards.

yesterday 1

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

When the Mass Pike viaduct comes down in Allston, what will go up?

The Allston Interchange plan has changed countless times since the state began planning it a decade ago, and undoubtedly it’ll change many times...

10.12.2024 2

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

Yesterday’s future, today

I’ve been collecting failed predictions related to Greater Boston’s physical infrastructure for the last two years. Some were nuts, but some...

03.12.2024 5

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

The other east-west rail

The Northern Tier isn’t second tier.

19.11.2024 4

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

Someone needs to shake up Beacon Hill

The extreme dysfunction of the Legislature, though, is giving GOP candidates an opening to use the same playbook that Democrats have often used...

02.11.2024 20

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

Getting people back on the T

The very best way for the T to rebuild ridership at this point is to reestablish rider’s confidence that trains run every day without fail.

29.10.2024 3

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

A Kendall Square train station would be grand

The Grand Junction is an increasingly incongruous relic: a sizable chunk of Cambridge real estate that is rarely used anymore and creates traffic...

15.10.2024 5

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

Warren’s GOP challenger faults her on Cape bridges

John Deaton, the attorney who won the Republican nomination last month, faults Warren for failing to bring home the bacon for her constituents.

07.10.2024 20

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

Milton’s case against MBTA law heads to SJC

The closely watched case has critical implications for the state’s housing crisis.

30.09.2024 10

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

Reading the T leaves on late-night service

Is the T going to resume late-night subway service eight years after discontinuing it?

16.09.2024 5

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

Bike lane politics roil Cambridge — again

Bike controversies were clearly part of the Cambridge state representative campaign backdrop — and a potential sign of the political turbulence that...

09.09.2024 6

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

An “existential threat” to transit in New York

There’s always been fare evasion on transit. But New York seems to have reached a tipping point where it’s starting to become the rule on buses,...

02.09.2024 10

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

Boston’s first traffic garden opens

Last Thursday, members of the Wu administration cut the ribbon on the city’s first “traffic garden,” a miniature play streetscape for kids in...

26.08.2024 6

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

A tight deadline for the Fairmount Line

Maybe the Fairmount project breaks the pattern of missed deadlines, but four years is an awfully short timetable to become the first battery-train...

19.08.2024 6

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

More bike lanes? Let’s vote

It’s perfectly reasonable in a democracy to let voters decide how to divvy up a limited public resource – in this case, street space.

05.08.2024 7

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

2024 hindsight on Boston’s Olympic bid

Did Boston avoid a fiasco or miss a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity when it abandoned its bid to host the 2024 Olympics?

29.07.2024 5

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

Navigation apps make directions easy. Maybe too easy.

Navigation apps offer far more and more accurate information than the spiral-bound atlases drivers of yore bought at gas stations.

22.07.2024 7

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

The T gets visionary

If the T can’t be reliable, can it at least be fun?

08.07.2024 4

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

Banning left turns?

Turning left is stressful for drivers, annoying to the motorists stuck behind them, and dangerous.

01.07.2024 6

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

There is no new thing under the sun, Boston edition

We're still arguing about the North South Rail Link, an idea roughly as ancient as the Old Testament but not nearly as exciting.

24.06.2024 6

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

Yes, Beacon Hill should help the T more. But save the millionaires tax for moon shots.

Don’t get me wrong: Saving the T is a good idea and good use of public funds. But saving it with the millionaires tax might not be a great...

17.06.2024 4

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

New York’s congestion pricing plan inspired transit advocates nationwide. Now what?

Governor Kathy Hochul of New York earned herself a profile in cowardice on Wednesday when she indefinitely “paused” New York City’s pioneering...

11.06.2024 6

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

Critics of Wu’s bike lanes get a candidate

Boston’s bike-lane haters will have at least one champion at the ballot box next year, thanks to North End restaurateur Jorge Mendoza Iturralde’s...

03.06.2024 20

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

Hit the beach — without a car

It’s Memorial Day — a time when Americans traditionally honor those who gave their lives for freedom by sitting in endless lines of traffic.

28.05.2024 8

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

What in carnation? A budding insight into my fellow T riders.

A guy walks into the T carrying flowers...

20.05.2024 30

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

Do jerks on planes deserve lifetime bans?

It may be an unpopular view, but banishing people from an airline forever is a pretty serious move.

13.05.2024 40

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

Does anyone get their kicks on MBTA bus 66?

Massachusetts doesn't exactly do the whole romance-of-the-open-road shtick.

06.05.2024 60

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

An elegy for Boomerangs

The thrift shop chain will close in June, after years of supplying the community with used books and records, oddball furniture, and a vast number of...

01.05.2024 10

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

In (sort of) defense of Monica Tibbits-Nutt

If Tibbits-Nutt was impolitic, that doesn’t mean she was wrong.

29.04.2024 10

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

An “erosion of social mores” on roads — and trains?

Not that drivers in Boston were exactly Boy Scouts before COVID-19, but flagrant rudeness certainly seems more prevalent.

22.04.2024 40

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

Will you miss anything about gas cars?

Coming generations will never know what it was like to get oil changes, watch wretched gas station TV, or be able to surmise what’s going on in the...

01.04.2024 10

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

Revving up the Downeaster

Patricia Quinn, who runs the Maine state authority that funds the 146-mile state-subsidized passenger train service known as the Downeaster, spoke...

25.03.2024 6

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

How a small Massachusetts town’s transit service is seeking to lure riders

Like a lot of transit services across the country, ridership on the town of Lexington’s tiny Lexpress service flatlined during the pandemic.

18.03.2024 8

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

Bike deaths surge in New York

There were 30 cyclist deaths in New York City in 2023, up from less than 20 in 2022 and the city’s highest total in decades.

11.03.2024 10

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

A new train station in West Roxbury?

The city is proceeding with a proposal to add a new commuter rail station in West Roxbury, Mayor Michelle Wu said in a meeting with the Globe...

04.03.2024 20

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

Another subway meltdown focuses attention on T’s needs

This is the second large-scale interruption in recent weeks that seemed to come out of nowhere.

20.02.2024 30

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

The seat belts you probably didn’t even know you had

On average, there are about two dozen motorcoach fatalities every year, according to federal regulators.

13.02.2024 8

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

Take the Concord rotary too, please

Does closing the Concord prison mean we can get rid of the rotary, too?

06.02.2024 10

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

Taking personal safety concerns seriously

Safety is a concern that the state can’t shy away from if it wants to rebuild ridership.

30.01.2024 30

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

A planned city in Massachusetts? Well, why not?

In the 20th century, meeting the state’s long-term challenges meant destroying towns. What if meeting this century’s challenges means building...

23.01.2024 10

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

Students chart a vision for the T

A group of sophomore students at Suffolk University took on the ultimate academic challenge: fixing the T.

17.01.2024 7

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

One Michigan town heats its roads and sidewalks to clear snow and ice. Could others?

Plow driver shortages have made digging out from this weekend’s storm even more challenging. But there are other ways to clear snow and ice.

08.01.2024 6

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

The inflate-gate scandal

Paying for air? At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon: What is the world coming to?

05.01.2024 20

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

For Phil Eng, fixing the T is a step toward bigger things

The MBTA has been closing sections of the system to perform overdue maintenance.

19.12.2023 4

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

The stuff that dreams are made of

Is rail service enough to boost the economies of remote areas?

12.12.2023 9

Boston Globe

Alan Wirzbicki

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