Free Republic

Talk to neighbors and transportation activists, and you’ll get pretty much the same answer: The best option for replacing the aging Massachusetts Turnpike viaduct in Allston is a new stretch of highway at ground level. Ask state Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack, who will make the final call, and, well, she’s still wondering if the state should just build another viaduct. Pollack will know more soon, when a consultant is expected to weigh in with a deep analysis of the options for the $1 billion-plus project to straighten the turnpike where it curls around an old rail yard in Allston, the...

The Massachusetts Turnpike is in uncharted water as EZ Pass has replaced cash along the state’s turnpike system and many toll collectors have been laid off. In a world where many systems have gone electronic from payment for movies to parking, it was only a matter of time before the personless, electronic system eventually took over toll roads, as well. Along the Massachusetts Turnpike, it happened this weekend with toll collectors working their last shifts and the state moving quickly to tear down the booths where collections happened for decades. According to the Boston Globe, the new cashless collections system...

[Mass.] Pike drivers might get a free ride for an entire day or several hours during traffic-heavy holidays such as Thanksgiving and Memorial Day, according to a report on the Easter traffic debacle released today. The report, which blames understaffing and a fragmented “wave through” policy for the seven-mile backup on the Massachusetts Turnpike April 12th, called for a study into creating “toll free days.” “A review should be completed to determine whether it is possible to have entire toll free days or extended toll free periods during expected high traffic delays,” an official wrote in the report. The toll...

BOSTON — A state official says Massachusetts Turnpike Executive Director Alan LeBovidge has resigned. LeBovidge’s agency has been under fire for turning off the Zakim Bridge lights and allowing massive traffic backups on Easter. The state official said LeBovidge submitted his resignation Wednesday, effective immediately. The official spoke on condition of anonymity before the news was publicly released. LeBovidge became wealthy as an accountant, before turning in his later years to public service. He served as Revenue commissioner for former Gov. Mitt Romney. Most recently, he has been charged with cost-cutting at the Turnpike, a notorious patronage haven.

Howie thread for the week starting off with his Sunday Herald column

The announcement will blame the intense traffic tie-ups over Easter weekend on the decision by turnpike chief Alan LeBovidge to avoid calling in overtime workers to replace sick workers, a cost-cutting measure. ... Despite some calls for LeBovidge's resignation, he will not be quitting or be forced out, according to the administration official and LeBovidge's chief of staff, Jennifer Flagg.

Massive Easter traffic backups caused by no-show Turnpike toll takers have hatched new levels of driver rage - and Pike managers are promising Memorial Day could be just as bad. Traffic was snarled for hours and backed up for miles on the Massachusetts Turnpike Friday and Saturday. But the worst was Sunday, when it backed up from Allston as far as Sturbridge. It was all because an untold number of toll takers called in sick, and managers were forbidden to call more in on overtime. At one point, the Allston-Brighton tolls were left with just one lane inching past a...

Massive Easter traffic backups caused by no-show Turnpike toll takers have hatched new levels of driver rage - and Pike managers are promising Memorial Day could be just as bad. Traffic was snarled for hours and backed up for miles on the Massachusetts Turnpike Friday and Saturday. But the worst was Sunday, when it backed up from Allston as far as Sturbridge. It was all because an untold number of toll takers called in sick, and managers were forbidden to call more in on overtime. At one point, the Allston-Brighton tolls were left with just one lane inching past a...

If you’re having trouble figuring out what Gov. Deval Patrick’s really trying to do with the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, just keep in mind the ABC’s of Beacon Hill budgeting: Anything But Cuts. While your wages have likely remained flat the past five years, state government spending has gone up 8 percent each year. During the past year, while the private sector was losing 1.4 million jobs, USA Today reports that state and local governments added 160,000 - the second-fastest growing sector of the economy. So when you hear that Patrick is “getting rid of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority,” you should...

Remember the public debate last year over whether the state should raise the gasoline tax or tolls to pay for the rotten roads around here? Well, the debate’s over. There’s been a compromise. We’re going to raise both the tolls and the gasoline tax. Or so says the Mass. Transportation Finance Commission. They haven’t officially come out and said they want higher gas taxes and tolls. First they’re going to have the traditional “public hearings.” Of course it’s all a complete bag job. Just look at the tell-tale phrases in the news stories about the “shocking” conditions of the state’s...

Mocked for millions of dollars in Big Dig cost overruns, the Turnpike Authority has one cost-saving measure solidly in place: charging thirsty workers for sipping at the office water cooler. The Turnpike is sticking by the no-free-water policy even as ax-wielding Transportation Secretary John Cogliano has agreed to pick up the bubbler tab this month for another state agency – MassHighway. Cogliano made the call after learning that MassHighway rank-and-file were paying to drink up, while brass at his Executive Office of Transportation were hydrating for free. "It came to his attention that some people in other departments had water...

Jane M. Swift, aka Winthrop Murray Crane, admitted in her deposition in a messy case brought by former Pike board member Christy Mihos that she communicated with her senior staff as lieutenant governor and acting governor with an e-mail handle identifying her as the former GOP governor, whose portrait she chose to hang above her Corner Office desk.