Q&A: Boston’s Chief of Streets on better buses, infrastructure, and looking ahead
To lead the City of Boston’s efforts toward a more sustainable and equitable city transportation system, Mayor Michelle Wu appointed Jascha Franklin-Hodge as the City of Boston’s Chief of Streets. Chief Franklin-Hodge previously worked for the City for 4 years, serving as Chief Information Officer. More recently he served as Executive Director of the Open Mobility Foundation.
BostonBRT sat down with Chief Franklin-Hodge, now two months into his role, to talk BRT progress in the region, bus bright spots, and what makes a street truly work for everyone. Answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Boston has made good progress toward BRT in recent years. What bright spots or other lessons are you building on as you look to the future?
We get a lot of questions about BRT and what it means, and there’s no substitute for people seeing it come to life: what it looks like, how it works, and what it does for our communities and streets. Some of the elements people are excited about are dedicated bus lanes with shelters and boarding platforms. The new center-running dedicated bus lanes on Columbus Ave are a great example.
As I look down the road, I’m extremely excited about Blue Hill Ave. We continue to have lots of conversations with the community. The opportunities are unparalleled in this corridor serving 20k+ people a day traveling by bus.
We’re just in the starting, not the ending, place. Columbia Road, Hyde Park Ave., Malcolm X Blvd, Rutherford Ave, Congress St, and others also offer a substantial opportunity for existing or future bus infrastructure, and we look forward to continuing this progress.
We’re learning as we go, increasing our scale and investment.
Bus planning and service require close cooperation among cities, the state, and local community members. In this ecosystem, what do you see as your unique role as Boston’s Chief of Streets?
Boston is in many ways the center of the region, and with many cities and towns working towards better buses, Boston can play a role as a convener and a leader demonstrating what it means to get street and bus changes right.
We’ve seen this cooperation in many ways. Most recently, with the infrastructure investments on Columbus Ave and Mayor Wu’s long-time leadership in advocating for free buses, now a reality with the two-year free fare pilot on the 23, 28, and 29 buses serving Boston’s vulnerable neighborhoods.
As Chief of Streets, I’m making investments in our transit team – budget, time, and staff – for case studies to get the bus right. That’s where I see myself as a champion for BRT and better buses.
What elements create a street that work for everyone?
The elements depend on the street – streets are different. But the key is that a street, no matter what mode of transportation people are using, feels welcoming, safe, reliable, and comfortable, and dignifies whichever way of travel a person uses to travel within that place.
That is not the case in many of our streets because of decades of car-centric street design and planning. Streets can feel hostile, especially for those in wheelchairs and bicyclists traveling in what feels like a sea of cars. And for bus riders, if they are in a bus with 50 people, they should have more space as they travel in a more environmentally friendly and democratic way.
We look at streets to see: what works? What do people value? Whose needs are not being met and how do we design them back in? And a lot of that will come down to infrastructure and significant changes to roadways.
And it takes time, but we can really start to identify the places where there is a tremendous need and opportunity and work toward a standard where everyone has an opportunity to travel in a way that works for them.
What might we expect for Boston streets in the next 5 years?
More bus lanes, a better-connected bike network, and safety interventions to reduce speeding and other unsafe driving behavior, as well as a mix of large projects such as Blue Hill Ave and smaller ones specific to individual intersections or blocks that have safety needs. We expect to build out our department to do more transportation projects faster of all scales, prioritizing more sustainable transportation.
Is there anything else you’d want to add as we look ahead?
Part of having great buses is about infrastructure -- but also service. Good infrastructure without good service doesn’t deliver the promise of BRT and what’s possible for our streets and buses. We continue to work closely with the MBTA on scope and scale of service and will push for an increase in service, especially during off-peak times. We will be looking at how the infrastructure investment that we can make will allow for overall service improvements by allowing more trips along routes and a bus system that functions more smoothly. Ultimately, there needs to be more investment and a sustainable funding stream to truly deliver a system that meets the needs of Boston.
