Monday, December 7, 2020

The Day the Trains Stopped Running

They will start moving again once everything has been Greatly Reset:

"MBTA cuts imperil transit-oriented building boom" by Tim Logan Globe Staff, November 26, 2020

When developer Jim Goldenberg opened the first phase of his planned 675-unit Harborwalk apartment complex alongside the Plymouth commuter rail station last year, he hoped to persuade state transportation officials to schedule more trains at the stop.

Now Goldenberg’s wondering whether the Plymouth station will have any trains at all, after the Baker administration included it on a list of planned closures and service cuts designed to help narrow a half-billion-dollar budget gap at the MBTA. That, in turn, has him rethinking how much more to build at the complex, which was on track to become one of the largest new apartment developments on the South Shore.

Transit advocates worry that the proposed MBTA cutbacks will weaken a system that was already struggling before the pandemic. Housing advocates, too, are concerned. They say closing commuter rail stations and reducing subway frequency flies in the face of a decade of state housing policy largely designed around the notion that the best place to build new homes in a traffic-choked place like Greater Boston is next to a train stop.

“It’s just an incredibly shortsighted decision,” said Jarred Johnson, director of TransitMatters and a board member at Abundant Housing MA. “Yes, it has been and will be a devastating 12 or 14 months for the transit system, but they’re letting that change the trajectory of 10 years of housing policy.”

MBTA officials stress that the cuts — which the agency’s board will vote on in December — would be temporary, with service restored as demand returns, perhaps sometime in 2021. 

Perhaps?

Even some who shape housing policy for the Baker administration describe the cuts as a necessary evil, essential to preserve the state’s transit system for the immediate future, but unlikely to change the longer trajectory of housing development. Despite the pandemic, the state is continuing to fund transit-oriented developments, said Chrystal Kornegay, executive director of housing finance agency MassHousing, and adding housing near rail stations remains a priority.

“This is a temporary solution to what we see as a temporary challenge,” said Kornegay, who also sits on the MBTA’s Fiscal Management Control Board, which will vote on the cuts. ”

Advocates say they understand the T’s budget woes. But the message the cuts would send — both to riders and those who might build housing along the T — is that the trains could stop running at any time.

Clark Ziegler, the executive director of the Massachusetts Housing Partnership, said, “Any signal, real or perceived, that there’s less commitment to a robust transit system is going to make it harder to convince riders to live in transit-oriented housing, developers to build it, and cities and towns” to permit it, Ziegler said.

It also runs counter to both state and local housing policy in much of the region. 

At full buildout, Goldenberg predicts, the complex will generate more riders heading up to Boston, and better train service would draw more people from Plymouth in general, but with a relatively small number of riders currently, and the budget crisis looming, Plymouth instead is on the closure list. Without train service, Goldenberg wonders, will such a big project make sense?

If there’s a silver lining, some advocates say, it’s that this episode could prompt a rethinking of how the region uses the MBTA, particularly the commuter rail, with its focus on shuttling office workers to and from Boston. It might be wiser, said Andre Leroux, longtime head of the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance and now a consultant, to plan suburban neighborhoods that have more jobs, and a downtown that has more residents. That would mean a transit system that’s less hub-and-spoke and more like a web, but it might better serve a broader population.

“The commuter rail system as we’ve been operating it has been problematic for a long time,” Leroux said. “Its whole fare structure and frequency of service is designed for middle-to-upper-income commuters going downtown and, as we’ve seen, that model can change very quickly. Maybe this isn’t the system we need,” but that’s a long-term project, he notes. In the short run, eliminating things like weekend service will only intensify the commuter rail’s focus on servicing people going to weekday jobs. Johnson agrees, and he worries about the message the cuts will send to anyone trying to build a life, or a place to live, around the MBTA. Coming from a governor who has said he wants to add 135,000 homes in the state by 2025, it’s a confusing message indeed.

“People are making multimilllion-dollar decisions, long-term decisions, about these projects,” Johnson said, “and the administration is sending a message that they really don’t care.”

--more--"

You will have to start driving again:

"A lot of Boston commuters expect to start driving after the pandemic, survey says; A return to normal could also mean the return of Boston’s grueling traffic congestion" by Adam Vaccaro Globe Staff, November 26, 2020

Coronavirus vaccines may be on the horizon, bolstering prospects that daily life will return to normal sometime in 2021 — and with it, the region’s grueling pre-pandemic traffic congestion.

Actually, no, it won't, not by a long shot.

When is someone going to stop the a$$hole liars of the pre$$, or at least jam them up?

A new survey conducted by the city of Boston and the business group A Better City suggests that many commuters are planning to take to the roads when they eventually return to Boston’s busiest commercial centers. About 38 percent said they plan to drive alone to work once the crisis is over, compared to about 23 percent who drove before the pandemic. 

F**k Bo$ton.

Meanwhile, just over half of regular subway riders plan to return to public transit, from 29.2 percent of overall commuters to 16.4 percent. Buses and commuter trains would see declines in returning riders, too, according to the survey.

This data could have troubling implications for Greater Boston, whose stifling congestion and aging transit infrastructure were near the top of the political agenda before the virus emptied the roads and rails and undercut the efforts to improve the strained transportation system.

“We should all be worried that once the public health issues are overcome, we wake up to a world where our transportation issues are even worse than they were in March 2020,” said Chris Dempsey, director of the advocacy group Transportation for Massachusetts.

That all depends on what kind of world we will be waking up to, and what type of monstrosity it will have become thanks to these monsters.

The survey’s authors were more sanguine, noting that the majority of commuters said they would return to their pre-pandemic transportation mode of choice, including taking public transit, with others moving to biking or walking. In other words, it could be worse. 

So they think, and it is going to get worse.

“The drive-alone rate, I thought it might be higher than it was,” said A Better City president Rick Dimino.

Speculating about future commuting patterns has been something of a COVID-era parlor game for transportation experts and advocates, but the survey of more than 4,000 workers offers some concrete data about how a subset of commuters is approaching the question. 

Now I AM GOING TO BE SICK! 

Our lives and freedom of mobility are a PARLOR GAME for the ELITE $CUM, huh?

Some caveats: The survey isn’t representative of all Boston-area commuters; it is heavily weighted toward white-collar college-educated professionals and workers in the health care industry, and it focused primarily on major commercial areas such as the downtown area, Kenmore Square, the South End, Back Bay, and the Seaport. Most respondents — 60 percent — have been working from home full time during the pandemic, but how these workers return to downtown workplaces — if they do at all — will play a major role in shaping the region’s new transportation landscape, and those decisions may come just as Massachusetts officials are scheduled to reduce transit service across the MBTA because of revenue losses and low ridership during the pandemic. Those widespread cuts are expected in the first half of 2021. 

The rest of us will be long gone by then, vaccinated to death or jailed in our homes or in a camp (taken there by train?).

At a public meeting Monday, Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack argued that even an effective vaccine rapidly deployed in the spring would not solve the T’s budget trouble, with transit ridership likely to still lag for many months.

“Ridership and revenue is not just a function of a vaccine or the economy. It is also a function of behavior changes,” she said. “That does not make your riders come back, if they’re working from home a day or two a week, or a quarter of them are working from home a day or two week; the fare revenue takes a while to get back.”

Indeed, the survey found that 80 percent want to spend more time working at home in the aftermath of the pandemic. While 21 percent of respondents suggested they hope to work remotely every day, 47 percent said they’d favor doing so a few times a week. Even that kind of change could create more room on the roads or in transit vehicles, but Dimino said service reductions will only exacerbate the struggle to rebuild ridership, he said.

“The T is moving in the wrong direction relative to thinking about service cuts,” Dimino said. “When the workplace return is expected to begin growing, that’s the obvious wrong time for transit to be less available for the workforce.”

The survey suggested policy makers may be able to influence commuting decisions, as some drivers acknowledged they could be coaxed into using public transit by either cheaper fares or if they had to pay a fee to drive in congested areas, and not everybody leaving the MBTA would necessarily wind up behind the wheel; the survey also suggested a post-pandemic surge in both cycling and walking commutes.

“People are open to riding a bicycle to work,” said Vineet Gupta, planning director at the Boston Transportation Department. “That’s why it’s important we step up to install more bike lanes.”

OMFG! 

They DO WANT UIS TO BE COMMUNIST CHINA or CUBA -- as CHINA adds CARS in place of BICYCLES!

Yeah, the "solution" to the COVID HOAX is more BIKE PATHS to please the GREAT RESET FA$CI$TS!

The authors of the survey also theorized the results may undersell the number of commuters who will eventually resume taking public transit if a vaccine helps eradicate the virus.

Oh, now the "disease" that carries with it a 99.997% survival rate and is so deadly you don't even know you have it needs to be eradicated. 

You know, there is something that needs to be eradicated all right, and it isn't a non-existent, never-isolated, fancy-named fake virus that is simply seasonal cold and flu dressed up in the pre$$ rags of fear.

“The majority of those planning to make the switch indicate that their primary motivation is safety, suggesting that some amount of this behavior change could be impermanent in a post-vaccine future,” according to a report on the survey findings, but Robin Chase, a transportation researcher and founder of Zipcar, noted that once people begin driving to work, they may be less amenable to switching to public transit. Those downtown commuters, Chase said, may end up lamenting the very gridlock they helped cause.

“Even though they know the congestion was horrific, somehow people just forget about it,” she said.

Maybe they will finally appreciate if it ever returns, although I'm sure this is part and parcel to the planned culling: free up road space for the uber-elite who will rule of the over-vaccinated $lave serfs in their cities.

--more--"

{@@##$$%%^^&&}

Time to hit the exit:

"Huge Mass. Pike project pushed back another year; State officials are suggesting postponing the $1.3 billion-plus reconstruction even longer to resolve a stalemate over the layout of road lanes, rail lines, and paths" by Adam Vaccaro Globe Staff, November 18, 2020

The Baker administration is putting off a key decision about the layout of the $1.3 billion reconstruction of the Massachusetts Turnpike in Allston, delaying a megaproject beset by indecision and debate for another year — and possibly much longer.

Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack said Wednesday that the state would skip a self-imposed fall deadline to decide about replacing the elevated section of the turnpike along the Charles River with a new viaduct or putting the Pike at ground level.

“We owe it to ourselves and the public to do more homework,” Pollack told a transportation department committee.

For now, the state has pushed back until mid-2021 its design choice for a section of the project known as the “throat,” where multiple road lanes, rail lines, and a bike path must squeeze through a narrow strip of land between the Charles River and the Boston University campus, but a long-running stalemate over this section prompted other key transportation officials Wednesday to suggest they are inching toward a more nuclear option: putting off the project altogether by as long as a decade, and instead doing a smaller repair job on the existing, aging viaduct that supports the Pike before it becomes unsafe.

“There might be real wisdom in waiting,” Betsy Taylor, a member of a state transportation board, said at the meeting Wednesday. 

Now roll up your sleeve.

The biggest regional highway project in a generation, the turnpike rebuild represents a massive opportunity to reshape the western edge of Boston, opening the way for Harvard University to construct a new neighborhood where the highway currently winds on a loop toward Brighton, and for the state to add a new train station, transit options, and improved access to the riverfront. 

Remember the looting that came with the Big Dig? 

Helloooooooo?

The latest setbacks stem from the ongoing lack of consensus between the state and many stakeholders, from the City of Boston to environmental groups, transportation advocates, and nearby residents, over the best course of action for the quarter-mile throat section. 

Stakeholders is a Schwab, WEF, Great Reset term.

Pollack warned on Wednesday that the ever-heightening ambitions around the highway project plan could ultimately sink it.

“I am concerned that the project is actually in danger of collapsing under the weight of expectations for the project,” she said.

At this point, the state is considering two designs, yet some MassDOT board members suggested Wednesday that given the lengthening timeline, it may make more sense to walk away from the project for now and, for a fraction of the cost, simply patch up and strengthen the current viaduct. That could buy another 15 years of useful life for the elevated section and allow the seemingly endless debate to continue for another decade or so, but punting on the larger-scale project “may be the way in which we move forward with this project and get people to come together,” said Robert Moylan, a member of the MassDOT board, at Wednesday’s meeting, adding that it would give more time to assess the long-term impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on commuting and travel patterns.

That viewpoint may have a key ally at the State House, where Representative William Straus, who leads transportation policy in the House of Representatives, indicated that the smaller, interim repair may be necessary.

“If the parties continue and have no consensus, then I think public safety concerns become stronger and stronger every day to ensure the integrity of the existing viaduct,” Straus said in an interview, but several advocates said the state’s indecision may have long-lasting consequences.

Harvard also pushed back at the prospect of more delays. A delay would restrict Harvard’s development plans, since the highway would remain in its current configuration, though the university is already undertaking significant expansion elsewhere in the Allston area.

The state may come knocking at Harvard’s door for money to help fund the project, which does not currently have a financing plan. While tolls and debt may cover some of the costs, Pollack suggested major project stakeholders — including the City of Boston — may need to contribute a “fair share.”

If it looks like communi$m, walks like communi$m, or $tinks like communi$m, well, no sense riding the rails.

O’Rourke countered that Harvard has already committed more than $50 million to help build the transit station, and paid to remove a railyard from the site to help facilitate the project.

Back in 2014, the administration of former governor Deval Patrick forecasted that the highway project would begin in 2017.

Since then, the project has been subject to numerous public meetings, revisions, and lobbying campaigns. Now, the state hopes construction could begin in 2023 or 2024, but even that timeline is dependent on getting a financing plan together by 2022.....

I'm sure it will all be reset, 'er, re$olved by 2025 or 20230.

--more--"

Related:

Allston project could put Walsh, Baker administrations at odds

I'm told the the Allston Mass. Pike project must address commuters' needs and provide at least six lanes of turnpike and two tracks of rail service at all times, while those in East Boston call the project idiotic and encourage city authorities to derail the proposal because they are already heavily burdened with environmental problems and question whether the infrastructure is necessary. 

Meanwhile, across the region, officials and passengers are seek to put the brakes on the MBTA service cuts, saying scaling back public transit will hinder frontline workers while undercutting the region’s post-pandemic economic gains, which is why Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh is part of a chorus of opposition that aims to protect the North End, Dorchester from climate change -- even with billionaire David Geffen’s yacht docked at the New Bedford State Pier.

Be $ure to $anti$e your hands with cancer-causing agents before boarding your car:

"Maryland company settles allegation it misled MBTA on hand sanitizer for $550,000" by Adam Vaccaro Globe Staff, November 18, 2020

The MBTA was so desperate to find hand sanitizer amid a national shortage last spring that it ordered an “alternative” product from a Maryland company, which has now agreed to a $550,000 settlement over claims that it misled the transit agency about the product, Attorney General Maura Healey’s office announced Tuesday.

In March, the MBTA struggled to find hand sanitizer as the pandemic took hold and organizations around the world sought cleaning and hygiene products. Federal Resources Supply Co. pitched the transit authority a product called Theraworx Protect, a foamlike substance that was supposed to form a sort of barrier against infections but does not include alcohol, the main ingredient in effective hand sanitizers.

Looks like a market that will benefit from the medical tyranny based on false pretenses and lies.

On its website, Theraworx is described as an alternative to “soap and water” and other “hygiene products.” The site says it is largely intended to prevent infections in medical settings but can work as “an enhancement to hand hygiene protocols.”

Around the start of the pandemic, however, Federal Resources said in a marketing e-mail sent to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority that the product was well-suited to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, according to the settlement, filed in Suffolk Superior Court.

The MBTA asked Federal Resources whether Theraworx worked as a sanitizer. The company asked its supplier, which responded: “Yes it does,” offering the extraordinary claim that it would also provide the user six hours of protection, according to the settlement. “Meaning 6 hours if you touch something it will fight it off,” Federal Resources told the MBTA in an e-mail.

The CDC has since come out and said focus on hands, not surfaces when it comes to transmission risk, so..... stop wiping down your groceries and mail.

The MBTA then ordered more than $1.6 million worth of Theraworx.

The court filing noted that Theraworx does not contain alcohol, while the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention has said that an alcohol-based hand sanitizer is the best substitute for soap and water. Federal Resources claimed Theraworx was an effective substitute “without adequate evidence or well-controlled and reliable studies,” Healey’s office alleged. 

Just like the vaccines!

The MBTA said Theraworx was used by workers, but passengers never had access to it. Once the attorney general’s investigation began, the Theraworx dispensers at MBTA worksites were accompanied by signs that said it was “not a replacement for hand sanitizer or hand washing.”

In a statement, the MBTA’s general manager, Steve Poftak, thanked Healey, saying her office “held this company accountable and recovered the T’s costs.”

“The safety of our employees is a top priority, and it’s shameful that, during a pandemic, a vendor would make false claims about a product’s effectiveness,” Poftak added.

Now take the hideous Pfizer vaccine.

Federal Resources did not respond to a request for comment.

The MBTA never paid for the Theraworx. Under the agreement, Federal Resources will credit the MBTA more than $150,000, essentially forgiving the agency for the product it did use. Federal Resources will also pay $400,000 to the state’s general fund, has agreed to pick up the rest of the unused product from the MBTA, and will no longer “market or sell this product to any Massachusetts agency,” Healey’s office said.

The MBTA eventually installed hand sanitizer dispensers at many stations across the system, though not until the summer.

--more--"

{@@##$$%%^^&&}

While they were wringing their hands, the budget problems are getting worse:

"The MBTA’s fare revenue slide may be worsening" by Chris Lisinski State House News Service, November 23, 2020

For months, warnings about the MBTA’s dire financial outlook have come alongside reports of low, but better-than-expected, fare revenue amid the pandemic.

That streak is now over.

The MBTA took in about $1.7 million less in fares than it budgeted for in October, officials said Monday, while ridership numbers on buses and subways now appear to be declining or at least leveling out — hinting that the trend that pushed transit officials into planning a package of unpopular service cuts may be worsening.

The train won't only stop running, it will never arrive.

MBTA general manager Steve Poftak told the Fiscal and Management Control Board that average daily tap-ins at subway stations have dropped from about 140,000 in September to between 110,000 and 120,000 more recently, while bus trips have similarly declined from recent daily highs of 185,000 to about 160,000.

“We don’t know if that’s in response to fewer folks wanting to travel, but it nevertheless does seem to, at a minimum, be flat over a significant period of time with an aggregate, on a rolling average, of a decline, albeit a modest one,” Poftak said.

Ridership has been down significantly amid the pandemic, draining the T of anticipated fare revenue and contributing to a budget gap of more than half a billion dollars looming in fiscal year 2022.

While outlining proposed cuts, MBTA officials said this month the system now carries out about 330,000 trips per day, compared to the 1.26 million it hosted before the pandemic with about the same level of service offered.

Despite the harrowing outlook on the horizon, the first few months of fiscal 2021 went somewhat better than expected and fare revenues surpassed budgeted amounts. In October, fares came in below projections for the first time this fiscal year, prompting Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack to warn that the agency still has “a pretty big hole to climb out of.”

The budget gap forecast for next year — now sitting at $584 million after the latest revision factoring in updated projections — could shrink by more than $100 million if ridership trends follow a more optimistic pattern, perhaps influenced by the arrival of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Yeah, the vaccine will $olve all our problems.

MBTA staff suggested that any revenue above expectations should be used to cushion against the next deficit that will hit in fiscal year 2023 — likely at a similar scale to the problem in fiscal 2022 — rather than to reverse any of the service cuts or spending alterations under consideration now to close the gap.

No room on the train for you as they SIT ON LOOT and CUT SERVICES!

Pollack warned that the winter might see even fewer rides than the roughly 25 percent of prepandemic levels currently observed across the system. If that happens, she said, it could mute any of the positive revenue effects from a rebound in ridership in spring 2021 — an optimistic outcome that is by no means guaranteed.

Sick of the official $hell game yet?

Even a significant improvement in the public health or economic outlooks, she said, might not guarantee a change in commuting behavior. “I don’t want to be Debbie Downer, but if we just go ahead and cross our fingers and hope the riders appear and that nothing is changed with telework and nothing is changed with the number of enrolled college students and nothing is changed with telemedicine and all the rides just come back, and it doesn’t happen that way, then you have a budget gap at a time when you can’t fix it,” Pollack said. 

She is one of the state's untouchable $kanks.

The fiscal board is set to vote Dec. 7 on a set of major cuts to the T’s services. The plan officials drafted includes halting all ferry service and weekend commuter rail service, trimming subway frequency by 20 percent, and ending 25 bus routes.

So far, that proposal has met with widespread public pushback. Riders, elected officials, and activists have warned that it could push even more drivers onto roadways, disproportionately affect low-income or nonwhite riders, and impose long-lasting changes onto the system; however, there has been no groundswell of support in the Legislature for a package of revenues that might spare T services from the chopping block.

--more--"

The Globe is concerned because the future of public transportation is on the line in Massachusetts and the proposed budget cuts could unravel public transit at a time when it needs to grow.

Of course, it is a MONEY GRAB as U$UAL:

"MBTA is overstating budget problems ahead of service cuts, report says; Its financial situation may be good enough to avert major cutbacks, independent panel found" by Adam Vaccaro Globe Staff, December 3, 2020

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is overstating its coronavirus budget problems and may not have to impose major reductions in service planned for next spring and summer, an independent transit panel reported.

The MBTA Advisory Board, which represents the cities and towns served by the T, said Thursday that there was “no budgetary justification” for a host of proposed changes that would reduce bus and train service across the system, including eliminating weekend commuter rail and ferry trips.

Transportation officials say the reductions would help offset a yawning gap in the coming fiscal year that could reach $600 million or more, largely caused by a plunge in fare collections during the pandemic.

The advisory board, however, suggested the MBTA hold off on making such severe changes, arguing it’s not in as dire a financial predicament as officials have suggested

You mean they LIED to get $$$ and CUT SERVICE?

MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said the additional money is a “contingency fund” that could be used to “prevent further service cuts in the instance that cost-saving measures are not fully realized.”

Cut now, $ave now?

The MBTA has not budgeted for a contingency fund in past years, but Pesaturo said the pandemic is different because of the lack of “certainty around operating costs, ridership, and revenue.”

I just caught the whiff of a big belch of bus and train $pew!

The advisory board did not outright oppose all service cuts, noting that it may make sense to adjust frequencies slightly downward or consolidate nearby bus routes, given the sharp drop-off in transit ridership, which is still about 75 percent below pre-pandemic levels, but eliminating certain services, like weekend commuter rail and the ferry, are steps too far, Kane said.

That has been a common complaint of MBTA riders who have called into more than 10 virtual public meetings on the cuts over the past month.

The MBTA has referred to the cuts as a “last resort,” but state officials have sometimes acted otherwise, regularly suggesting that low ridership — not money — is driving the decisions. 

The duplicitous and disingenuous authorities protecting you from the mythical COVID!

The T has previously said that it would likely move forward with many of the cuts, even if it had state or federal funding to avert them. On Thursday, it said that even if the advisory board is correct and the budget gap is much smaller than projected, the report still forecasts “a significant deficit that underscores the need to realign service with low ridership.” 

They need to RESET the TRACKS for the New World Order!

--more--"

Also see



The transit cuts seem likely to hit cities across the country without federal help so that should MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER, Bo$ton!

NEXT DAY UPDATES:


The proposed cuts have angered riders and politicians. On Monday, Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh blasted the MBTA plan and called on state officials to solve the issue, possibly by raising taxes.

Raise taxes? 

On who?


It’s the latest in a series of major developments proposed for around the Boston Landing commuter rail station.

Let me gue$$, more bike paths:

"The Pan-Mass Challenge, an annual bike-a-thon for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, said it has raised $50 million this year for the Boston treatment and research center, despite the pandemic pushing its charity ride online. When the health crisis forced nonprofits to turn their annual in-person events and galas into online offerings, the Pan-Mass Challenge, like other organizations, braced for a drop in donations. Billy Starr, PMC’s founder and executive director, said in the charity’s virtual recap ceremony Saturday, “The pandemic changed everything. We found that goal to be fair and daunting.” In the end, PMC outperformed its adjusted goal by about $9 million, tapping into a growing trend during the pandemic: bike riding. “In March, the pandemic pushed all of us outside as it was the safest environment to exercise — and it still is,” Starr said....." 

We have all been taken for a ride.

Yeah, there is a cancer out there and the pre$$ is their mouthpiece.

Related:

 "New eviction cases in Massachusetts climbed to a high for the year last week, reinforcing fears of a wave of people being pushed from their homes even as a second surge of the COVID-19 pandemic worsens. It’s not clear how many of those cases were simply delayed while courts were closed, and how many were driven by job loss and other effectsof the pandemic. Another factor is the federal ban on evictions, announced in September by the Centers for Disease Control. That rule prevents many renters from being removed from their homes through the end of December....."

It's the CDC at the controls, not any politician!

Also see:


One of the cash cows is named Thrasio, and the name comes from Thrasos, which in Greek mythology is the personified concept of boldness, according to  Cashman and his cofounder, Josh Silberstein.

Last stop:

Redevelopment shouldn’t lead to total demolition of Hurley building

UPDATE:

"The T’s next set of battery-powered buses wouldn’t reduce much pollution" by Adam Vaccaro Globe Staff, December 8, 2020

The MBTA has hardly been a pioneer among transit agencies in weaning itself off fossil fuels altogether, with just 33 electric-powered buses in its overall fleet of nearly 1,100, the rest mostly a mix of diesel powered or diesel-electric hybrids, but the agency is planning to take a measurable step forward in 2021 by launching a plan to buy at least 35 battery-powered buses, its biggest acquisition yet of a technology that despite its many promises is still unproven.

Where does the power come from that charges the battery?

There’s a catch, however: the T is not planning to use the new electric buses to replace the older, rumbling diesel ones, or even the hybrids that still emit some greenhouse gases. 

OF COUR$E!

Instead, the agency would use the new electric buses to replace the bulk of its current electric-powered fleet, meaning it wouldn’t actually result in much of a reduction in emissions.

“It doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s a like-for-like replacement,” said Veena Dharmaraj, director of transportation at the Massachusetts Sierra Club. “It won’t reduce emissions or pollution.”

Nothing makes sense anymore. Just go with it!

The 35 new buses would arrive in 2023 and replace the 28 vehicles that have been powered by overhead electric catenary lines in Cambridge, Belmont, and Watertown for decades.

Those buses are 16 years old and due for replacement.....

PFFFFFFFFFFFT!

--more--" 

So who is building them?