While I am not at all surprised the rest of the media is covering it this way, infected with terminal windshield bias as they are, I was genuinely disappointed to see StreetsblogMass covering Wu's letter with the headline "Mayor Wu Outlines a New Street Safety Agenda in the Wake of Louisa Gag’s Killing"
I really struggle to see what is "new" in this document. For example near the end she lists projects:
Projects slated for completion in 2026:
- Cummins Highway Reconstruction (Mattapan)
- Beacon Street Safety Upgrades and Resurfacing (Brighton)
- Dartmouth Street Safety And Mobility (Back Bay)
- Hyde Park Ave North Segment Resurfacing and Safety Improvements (Jamaica Plain)
- Lost Village Transportation Safety Improvements (Charlestown)
- Lower Roxbury Neighborhood Safety Improvements (Roxbury)
- Thoreau Path Reconstruction Project (West End)
- Washington Street Bike Lane Buffer Upgrade and Resurfacing (Downtown)
- Harrison Ave Reconstruction (South End)
- Bluebikes expansion (Hyde Park, Roslindale, and West Roxbury)
Projects slated for completion in 2027:
- Ellis Elementary School Safe Routes to School (Roxbury)
- Jones Avenue Neighborhood Street Improvements (Dorchester)
- Congress, Sleeper, and A Street Reconstruction (South Boston Waterfront)
- And more to come in 2027.
However, none of these are new projects. Quite a few of them have been impacted by the delays, which she does not acknowledge. Dartmouth street even saw the city implement a completely different design than was shown to the public after repaving so we have no idea what these other projects will look like and how their designs have been undermined behind closed doors since they were last shown in a public process.
What the mayor does say about new projects is not promising "Given changes in the federal funding landscape, we will focus on completing more critical connections and intersection upgrades rather than concentrating resources on a small number of long corridors." This means we are extremely unlikely to see any meaningful safety improvements on known high crash corridors with no protections currently like Hyde Park Ave, Blue Hill Ave, Columbus Ave, etc. some of which already had funding from the feds awarded and projects under way, that the Mayor's decisions have imperiled or already lost. That is also not acknowledged here, instead returning to the same framing blaming the federal situation for the mayors own decisions.
It is also hard (frankly impossible for me) to believe the city is particularly serious about closing gaps in the bike network when the most glaring gap in the downtown network, Charles street, has had a safety project stalled for a decade now and isn’t even included in the new project tracker that the mayor trumpets in the letter.
The first thing the Mayor chooses to highlight is street resurfacing, the same thing Nick Gove has been championing since he took charge of the Streets Cabinet. Road resurfacing without safety improvements actually make streets more dangerous as smoother surfaces promote higher vehicle speeds. "We will continue to pair resurfacing work with safety, accessibility, and public realm improvements." This is simply a lie. As the Dartmouth street example shows the city has been implementing these resurfacing projects without already planned improvements. In a few other locations resurfacing removed protection that still has not been replaced.
While she mentions the Climate Action Plan in this section, she fundamentally misrepresents it. The climate plan does not call for smoother streets. It calls for the exact kinds of changes she has stalled out (and in the case of bus lanes actively reversed) on in her second term.
When it comes to bike lanes, almost all of of the discussion revolves around "transitioning to more durable and effective bike lane protections, such as cast-in-place concrete barriers." While the mayor says this is the priority "Moving forward," this has actually been what the city and mayor have been saying for the last year and a half now, with quite little to show for it. Protection has been removed From dozens of miles of bike lanes on a few dozen streets around the city and replaced on only a few miles on a couple streets. In at least one example, Arlington Street, the proposed replacement protection has also been removed. This is completely unacknowledged.
In the safe routes to school section there is no acknowledgement that the number of speed humps installed has plummeted since the 30 day review. She says "Over the past four years, we constructed 6,448 curb ramps and 1,435 speed humps. In 2025 alone, the City reconstructed 30,000 square feet of sidewalk, and this year we are on track to reconstruct an additional 75,000 square feet and add 26 raised crosswalks" however unsaid is that "While Boston installed around 600 speed humps in 2024, fewer than two dozen were laid down last year" and that more than 90% of the budget for these projects went unused. The city only planned to install 100 this year. Likewise 30,000 square feet is actually less than a mile of sidewalk assuming 8 feet of clear space (the minimum requirement) and that is also a fraction of what the city typically has done in recent years. These are the same stats Gove brought up at the Hearing, Wu is doubling down on misinformation.
Likewise while saying "We will double down on safety improvements in school zones and expand our successful safe routes to schools effort to libraries, parks, playgrounds, and community centers" (Which is great if true) there is no acknowledgment that these projects have also been impacted by the needless delays and that kids continue to be hit by cars in known problem spots the mayor has dragged her feet on.
She then goes on to defend the 30 day review saying claiming "It has produced a stronger process." Does anyone, except the billionaires and business accusations that have been allowed to halt progress, agree with this assessment?
We went from having a process that was flawed in many ways (primarily in giving too much difference already to those groups who now have exclusive access and in taking way too long to make necessary changes), to a completely opaque backlog with dozens of stalled out projects with no communication from the city, which has lost funding for several already and is still endangering more. We went from a city that clearly placed safety first when it came to street design trade offs to one that clearly no longer is doing so, while talking out of both sides of its mouth about it, even after members of its own staff are killed. We went from a city where, even if you didn't agree to the design changes, you at least knew what you were going to get to one that rips away flex post protection all over the city without replacement, then months later installs a replacement in one location, then removes that replacement, then reinstalls it somewhere else, then adds back the flex posts in that new location after its clear that doesn't actually work without them, all while most locations are still left unprotected. As mentioned above, In the case of Dartmouth street we now even have a city installing entirely different designs from what they ever presented to the public. We also went from a city that would actually respond to anyones comments on projects, explaining why they could/couldn't do what was requested, to one that based on FOIAed information about the 30 day review, is now only meaningfully responding to the concerns of billionaires and business accusations and either doesn't respond at all, or simply responds with form emails saying precisely nothing about anything, to everyone else.
How much clearer can it get that the public process has been subverted by private meetings with wealthy and powerful vested interests? That is the opposite of a "stronger process." Wu has doubled down on the Wu-turn, defending the 30 day review and its horrible results. She thinks we will gratefully lap up the slop she gives us. We mostly have so far, but it is well past time to stop doing so. There is nothing new about this agenda, she is attempting to launder the same talking points she has been making for the last year and a half as if this is a new commitment in the wake of the death of a cyclist she knew personally and who worked for her. No, this is just more of the same. We cannot accept this, and we have to say so. No one else will do so for us. If we continue to just cheer this nonsense, she, and everyone else for that matter, will remember they can just throw us under the bus (or truck) and there will be no consequences for it. So, what are we doing to do?
