FAQs
Who Are you?
We are a group of neighbors who walk, bike, take the bus, and drive with our families and friends. None of us are full-time activists. We are upset with the way that the Mayor and her administration has not kept true to the promises they made for safer streets, and how we are lied to and given false assurances of change. We’ll get our names up here shortly!
Where do you get your funds?
We don’t have much! We chipped in money to buy this domain and to pay for some copying, signs, and materials - as we grow bigger we’ll try to make this more sustainable. We used the great Boston Public Library printing credit (thank you Boston Libraries, we love you!) to advertise community meetings. If you are a real estate tycoon and want to help and actually believe in safer streets (cough cough), just message us.
What makes you different from other groups?
We admire the work of groups like A Better City, Boston Cyclists Union, LivableStreets Alliance, Transportation for Massachusetts, TransitMatters, and others. (We do not admire the Pedal Safe Boston astroturf group, sponsored by anti-street safety real tycoon Jay Cashman.) We are not full time activists, but Boston residents, parents, families, and single people who want better streets and are frustrated by the lofty promises that don't yield results.
do you just want bike lanes?
No. Bike lanes are the right solution for some streets, and not for others. We want streets that are calm, which work first for the people who live on and near them and then for people who use them to travel, which are safe for our children, and which at times might even be beautiful or pleasurable to use.
Should we vote for the mayoR?
That’s up to you. Many of us will be doing so, and others will not - we disagree on this between ourselves! With a 30-point lead in the polls as of July, you are probably not harming the Mayor by leaving that ballot choice blank. If you want to endorse the Mayor on what she did promise in her first election, it’s really important to keep the pressure up - no one seems to be doing that and she doesn’t have motivation to listen. We think she believes in the platform she ran on, but lacks the political courage to make it happen.
Shouldn’t you be fighting josh kraft instead?
Josh Kraft’s attack on safer streets is disingenuous, politically-motivated drivel that turns a question of public safety into a culture war issue. It’s great that he doesn’t have a remote chance of winning this election.
So what are you planning to do?
We are going to start by documenting the administration’s failure to make good on their promise of better streets, and the delays, backpedaling, and double-talk that has neither placated critics of better street infrastructure nor improved Boston residents’ commutes and trips through the city along or with their families.
We are planning a number of campaigns for the fall, and events which will mark the administration’s failure to act.
What about community outreach?
We believe in community outreach as an essential part of communicating to the city what residents’ needs are. We also insist that at some point, the city act upon those clearly-communicated needs. Too many projects have been delayed for years on end in the name of further, endless stakeholder engagement: at some point, the administration needs to take decisive action on projects that are vital for Bostonians.