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Here’s what to know about Mayor
Wu’s vision for green
transportation
Speaking at the Boston Transport Summit Tuesday, Wu
shared several recent and upcoming initiatives to make
Boston's transportation more climate-friendly.
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Mayor Michelle Wu was a keynote speaker as local leaders and representatives from 13
cities gathered inside Rabb Hall in the Boston Public Library for the C40 Boston
Transportation Summit. Lane Turner/Boston Globe Sta
By Abby Patkin
28
July 12, 2023
Like many Bostonians, Mayor Michelle Wu has her share of public transportation
anecdotes, some dating back to the days of the Joovy Caboose Ultralight — the type
of stroller she once carted around while commuting with two young sons.
Navigating a stroller through public transit,
she said, “you notice when things donʼt go as
smoothly as they could or should. You notice
MORE ON BOSTON TRANSIT:
when the sidewalk is cracked, when the
elevator is broken, when the bus or train is
delayed, when the next oneʼs too crowded to
t you and your kids.”
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Speaking at the Boston Transport Summit
Tuesday, Wu grounded her talking points in
those street-level experiences as she shared
her vision for a transportation system that
pays heed to quality of life, climate needs,
and social justice.
“Our economic mobility depends on, well,
mobility,” Wu said. “Reliable, convenient,
a ordable transportation will be the critical
factor in revitalizing and stabilizing
businesses as we continue recovering from the pandemic and rebuilding our
lives.”
Her remarks served as the keynote address for an event themed around
“Creating People-First Electri ed Cities,” part of a transportation workshop
that included representatives from 13 cities across the U.S. and Canada. The
workshop was a joint venture from Boston and C40, a global network of
mayors working to confront the climate crisis.
“If weʼre serious about delivering a Green New Deal for cities, we must tackle the
biggest contributors to the problem head-on,” she said, noting that about a third
of the greenhouse gas emissions within Boston come from transportation.
“In the most immediate sense, transportation has an enormous impact on our
quality of life,” Wu added.
She pointed to some of the transportation-related accomplishments her
administration has seen already, including a pilot initiative to make several
MBTA bus routes fare-free.
Ti any Chu (le ), chief of sta to Mayor Michelle Wu, moderated a panel discussion with Jascha
Franklin-Hodge, chief of streets for the City of Boston (center), and Kate Dineen, president and CEO
of A Better City. Local leaders and representatives from 13 cities gathered inside Rabb Hall in the
Boston Public Library for the C40 Boston Transportation Summit. – Lane Turner/Boston Globe Sta
However, Wu also acknowledged that Bostonʼs public transit — plagued at
times by shutdowns, derailments, and the occasional fire — can sometimes seem a
lackluster alternative to single-occupancy cars.
“I wonʼt pretend that here in Boston, with the oldest subway system in the
country, it hasnʼt been incredibly frustrating to watch the consequences of
decades of deferred maintenance play out in real time,” she admitted.
Still, the mayor seemed optimistic as she shared some of the building blocks in
her vision for Bostonʼs transportation.
Pedal to the metal
Wu laid out several plans to make Boston more bike-friendly, including learnto-bike workshops, a $1.5 million e-bike rebate program for seniors and riders
with disabilities, and a program that will o er 10,000 free Bluebikes
subscriptions to residents with a Boston Public Library card.
By this winter, she said, Boston will have added nearly 10 more miles of bike
lanes “as part of our commitment to making Boston 100% cyclable by 2030.”
The city is also adding 100 new Bluebikes stations to expand public bike shares
by 40%, according to Wu.
“Today, more than 95% of Bostonians live within a 10-minute walk of a bike
share station,” she said. “In the next year-and-a-half, our vision is for one in
every two people in Boston to live within a three-minute walk of a protected
bike lane.”
Going electric
Meanwhile, Boston is also accelerating its electric vehicle initiatives.
According to Wu, the city recently released a request for proposals seeking
new means of providing curbside EV charging in Bostonʼs neighborhoods. The
goal, she said, is that every Boston resident will be within a 10-minute walk
from an EV charging station or car share by 2030.
Boston is currently in the process of replacing its diesel school buses with
electric ones, adding 20 electric buses to the eet this year and bringing in 18
more next year, Wu said.
And later this summer, the city will launch Boston Delivers, a distribution
service for local businesses to deliver packages by electric cargo bikes.
An eye on the future
Looking ahead, Wu said the city is tinkering with a Green New Deal dashboard
that will establish clear metrics in certain climate-minded areas — building
decarbonization and clean energy, for example — to keep tabs on its progress.
“We have to choose to act on what weʼve all noticed: That things need to
change — and quickly, and at scale — to save and improve lives in all our
cities,” Wu said. “And to do that, we need to work across industries and sectors
and every level of government.”
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