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New from CommonWealth Beacon |
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NEW CODCAST: Host Jennifer Smith convenes a start-of-year roundtable on this week’s episode of The Codcast to hear what municipal leaders and advocates want Beacon Hill to do about local budgets, education, and housing. Lynn Mayor Jared Nicholson, The Education Trust in Massachusetts state director Jennie Williamson, and Mass. Housing Partnership executive director Clark Ziegler join. |
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OPINION: Vote Solar Northeast regulatory director Lindsey Griffin, Rewiring America state policy manager Amanda Sachs, and Alliance for Climate Transition vice president of public policy Tim Snyder argue that policymakers should “double down” on locally generated clean energy sources such as solar to both reduce emissions and lower utility bills. |
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Politicians and bureaucrats are usually circumspect when it comes to the future prospects of state contractors, especially when half a decade or more remains on an existing agreement. |
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That made it striking when then-Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack suggested in 2017 that Keolis, the French company in charge of running the MBTA’s sprawling commuter rail network, though not even halfway through an eight-year contract, was unlikely to earn an extension if the Baker administration had its way. |
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A few years later, though, the T changed course and kept Keolis in place. Then officials extended the contract again. And now, as the MBTA and the Healey administration prepare to weigh bids for the next lucrative, multiyear commuter rail operation contract, Keolis is still in the mix, tapped last month as one of three finalists in a joint bid with fellow French rail company Alstom. |
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It’s been a striking turnaround in reputation for a company whose first year in the role was marred by a disastrous winter and scrutiny over its management capabilities. And there may be a fairly straightforward explanation for it. |
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“Over time, they’ve become a much more competent operator,” said Pete Wilson, senior policy director at the advocacy group Transportation for Massachusetts. “Trains seem to be more on-time, the trains are clean when you ride them, you get a pretty good amount of communication from the engineers and conductors if something has gone awry.” |
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Former governor Deval Patrick’s administration picked Keolis in 2014 for an eight-year, roughly $2.7 billion contract. The deal, like others before it, outsources operations and management of the dozen commuter rail lines that collectively transport tens of millions of riders per year, though the T itself owns the trains and the tracks. |
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A good deal of the commuter rail’s dismal performance in the first year was, arguably, outside Keolis’s control. One storm after another slammed into the region in 2015, dumping a record 110 inches of snow that upended virtually every mode of travel. |
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It was also a different, pre-pandemic era. Most employees stranded by canceled trains and buses wound up missing work altogether, unable to pivot to a remote alternative. |
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“In 2015, there was no remote work. Most of us had never been on Zoom,” Pollack, who served as transportation secretary from 2015 to 2021, told CommonWealth Beacon. “If you didn’t get to work, you didn’t work. It wasn’t like you went home and turned on the computer.” |
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But some of Keolis’s issues lingered after the snow and ice melted. Insiders said Keolis in its first few years struggled with staffing, at times failing to have enough operators on the clock to run the full schedule of service laid out in the contract. Fare collection — before the installation of fare gates at North Station and South Station — was at times haphazard. |
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More from CommonWealth Beacon |
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GATEWAY TO CONFUSION: The state’s Gateway Cities designation comes with significant economic perks, meant to shore up the anchors of regional economies. But how does a city get on or off that list? Over time, some cities have met the state’s criteria without being added to the list, while others no longer qualify yet continue to reap the benefits. As Hallie Claflin reports, oversight of the designations seems to have been lost. |
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GASSING UP: The latest data on gas pipe repair in Massachusetts paints a damning picture: gas utilities spent a record amount of money in 2024 replacing leaky pipes, even as the actual miles of replaced pipes remained stubbornly flat since the program’s inception a decade ago. Jordan Wolman has more. |
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OPINION: Boston’s broken land use process is costing the city needed housing, writes John Infranca, professor of law at Suffolk University Law School and visiting professor of law at Yale Law School. Neighbors assert parochial interests to stymie needed housing development or impose additional costs and delays, even when that development advances the city’s purported goals – goals that city leaders appear unwilling to expend political capital to advance. |
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REVOLUTION WIND: A federal judge ordered that construction can resume on Revolution Wind after the Trump administration attempted to halt the project amid a sweeping crackdown on offshore wind. (New Bedford Light) |
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ASSISTED LIVING: The state will embrace a series of reforms intended to boost safety at assisted living facilities, in part a response to the Gabriel House fire that killed 10 residents last year. (WBUR) |
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BOSTON TAXES: Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s proposal to temporarily shift the balance of property taxes in the city will, technically, be up for debate in the Senate, but as an amendment to a bill top senators pitched as their alternative. It’s still not clear if the language has the support of Senate leaders. (Boston Herald – paywall) |
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MARIJUANA: Attorney Thomas Kiley, who is leading a legal complaint alleging the campaign to repeal recreational marijuana use misled voters while gathering signatures, said his own daughter-in-law signed a petition for the effort after organizers told her the effort was about affordable housing. (State House News Service – paywall) |
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FLU: Cases of the flu have dipped in recent days, but experts warn the peak is still ahead of us, urging caution. (GBH News) |
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