Clean Air Matters in Mattapan

Hard to believe it's been five years since Mattapan Environmental Action Network (M.E.A.N.) featured this video to launch its quest for ongoing assessments of the air quality in Mattapan, MA.  

According to the MA Department of Transportation, on average 80,000 cars and trucks blow through Mattapan every day.  Since fewer than 50% of Mattapan residents own a passenger vehicle, the vast majority of these trips are commuters passing through here. Add to that the multiples of MBTA bus lines tripping through Mattapan 20-30 times a day, and you can begin to get a sense of what the air quality must be like here.

Of the 30,000 people who live here, the elderly and children under 18 (the two age cohorts most susceptible to developing respiratory conditions from breathing bad air) together constitute 40% of Mattapan's population.  So the rates of asthma and emphysema have spiked in recent years.

While the volume of traffic continues to build, the number of large trucks-- especially semis with diesel engines--have increased as well.  Some enter, park, and idle here in conjunction with commercial operations or real estate developments; others appear to simply use our streets in ways other than permitted--e.g., an alternative route to an interstate highway connection.  

Whatever the case may be, the emissions make walking down the street or standing at a bus stop untenable for many.  M.E.A.N. hopes to gather air quality data and/or create opportunities for us to crowdsource potential infringements of air quality standards. So HELP!

Transit Woes: Why is it...?

Recent observations while riding the T brought this old track to mind. 
Here are just a few of the questions keep surfacing while riding the T:  

1. Are MBTA buses exempt for having to comply with Boston's anti-idly law, the Clean Air Act, etc.?
2. Why is it that...MBTA fares are structured so Mattapan commuters have to pay more to get around the city?
3. Why does dollars on a Charlie Card go farther than the same amount of dollars on a paper ticket?
4. What's the justification for honoring transfers in some instances, but not in others?
5. Why are outbound trips between downtown and JP less expensive than outbound trips between downtown and Mattapan, for example?

The list could go on, but enough said for now.  We're interested in crowdsourcing other "questions" Mattapan commuters might have as a result of their experiences using the MBTA, so feel free to comment here.

Future posts will seek to explore the answers to such questions.

Meh! Tuning N2 the Mayoral Race

The 'choice' for Mayor of Boston comes down to this: Marty Walsh or John Connolly.  While Walsh has the backing (and endorsements) of the Democratic Party establishment, Connolly still has sufficient 'juice' to wage a viable contest for the Mayor's Office.  

So both men have followed traditional paths to office within the Democratic Party. Here and now, this leaves us with a mayoral race that is culturally-coded as a class-based tension between those who rose through the ranks, however brief (as in the case of Marty Walsh) and those bred to hold office (e.g., John Connolly).  

Even though both men have been public officials for years now, neither are forwarding their voting records as a basis for comparison. Marty Walsh has been a State Representative  (Dorchester) since 1997; and has sponsored legislation and taken key votes that might give Boston voters some insight on how he'd govern the City as its Mayor.  

John Connolly has served as a Boston City Councillor-at-Large since 2007.  He has taken on two committee assignments that should be of interest to Boston voters: Education, the one he's made the linchpin of his campaign; Environment and Health, the one he's relying on to paint himself 'green.' 

(See upcoming post cautioning against political 'green-washing' campaigns hurt movements to build civic engagement capacity overtime.) 

Yet voters are basically expected to (quite literally) overlook the track records of candidates Walsh and Connolly in favor of the implicit frame of class-based warfare.  Once Marty Walsh and John Connolly are successfully cast as the working-class hero versus the hero of political elites, voters can simply prefer one or the other on that basis.  

So which one will I choose?  Meh!