It's a hustle-home-early-from-work kind of Tuesday so you can enjoy this spectacular fall weather (and also the 6:08 p.m. Red Sox-Yankees first pitch). Let's get to the news: Fifteen-minute flights: Boston's Logan Airport may be losing its longest domestic flight this fall — but it's getting a new quickest one. Cape Air officially launched daily service yesterday between Logan and New Bedford. The route costs $79 each way. And with an official block time of 35 minutes, it's now Logan's briefest flight (though, technically, Cape Air's Boston-to-Provincetown route is two miles shorter). In fact, the planes are only in the air for 15 to 20 minutes, according to Cape Air's vice president for planning, Aaron Blinka. "It is a very short flight," he told WBUR's John Bender. - Why is it necessary? If such a short flight sounds silly to you, here's Blinka's sales pitch: the drive between Boston and New Bedford is an hour to two hours depending on traffic; the security lines at New Bedford's city-owned airport are shorter; and parking at New Bedford is just $10 a day, compared to $30-40 at Logan. That might make it worth it for South Coast residents traveling to more distant locales — Florida, Europe, the West Coast — via Logan, as well as local businesses willing to shell out for international employees or clients. (For comparison's sake, getting to Logan from New Bedford via South Coast Rail /the Silver Line clocks in at just $12.25 each way, but takes at least two hours.) "It is also designed for anyone that's coming out of New Bedford, or that South Coast region, to go to Boston for the day and then come back," Blinka added.
- The deets: Cape Air is running two flights a day in both directions, each carrying up to nine passengers in little twin-engine planes. From New Bedford, there's an 8:15 a.m. and a 2 p.m. departure. From Boston, there are 1 p.m. and 6:40 p.m. flights.
- What's next: Blinka says they'll run the new route for at least six to nine months before assessing if it's getting enough business. It was only made possible by New Bedford's airport getting TSA staff and screening equipment, which could open up opportunities for more service from New Bedford to other larger airports.
- Fun fact: The shortest commercial flight route in the U.S. is a 1-mile seaplane flight between two remote Alaskan communities, according to Travel & Leisure.
The latest: The Trump administration is opening a new front in its pressure campaign against Harvard. The Department of Health and Human Services recommended yesterday that Harvard be formally "debarred"— or banned — from receiving any federal funds for allegedly "acting with deliberate indifference toward discrimination and harassment against Jewish and Israeli students on its campus." (Harvard has said it's taking steps to address both antisemitism and anti-Arab bias on campus.) - The backdrop: The new move comes as negotiations to settle the Trump administration's attacks on Harvard have reportedly stalled, in the wake of a Boston judge's ruling earlier this month that the government must restore $2.6 billion in previously frozen funding. (The White House has vowed to appeal.)
- What's next: Debarment is a multi-step process that starts with a one-year suspension, but could lead to a permanent ban, according to The Wall Street Journal. Harvard has 20 days to request a hearing to challenge the recommendation in front of an HHS administrative law judge.
In Quincy: The effort to roll back Mayor Thomas Koch's recent 79% pay raise has fallen short of the necessary signatures to get on the November ballot. Quincy Citizens for Fair Raises organizers say they delivered 7,100 signatures to the city — well above the 5,673 needed to put the question to voters. However, 1,851 were rejected for “illegibility,” according to the group. - What's next: Organizers say they're exploring legal options to get the question in front of voters. "Many legal signatures are not naturally legible, and the printed names should reasonably be used to match signers to the voter file," the group said in a statement, adding, "true democracy demands that voter intent take precedence over bureaucratic technicalities."
No more minimums: Salem is now the third city in Massachusetts to fully get rid of minimum parking requirements for new multi-family housing developments. Mayor Dominick Pangallo signed the ordinance yesterday, striking down a decades-old rule that in most cases required one-and-a-half parking spots for every new unit. (Somerville and Cambridge have also abolished local parking minimums.) - Pangallo originally proposed the change after a city analysis found the rule was leading to hundreds of unused spaces. "We wanna create homes for people, not empty asphalt," Pangallo told WBUR's Stevee Chapman.
P.S.— Boston Mayor Michelle Wu was on WBUR's Morning Edition today, discussing everything from the Trump administration to electric scooters. Keep an eye on wbur.org for takeaways from the conversation, or listen to a snippet here. |
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