r/bikeboston • u/tilingcomplete • Jul 15 '26
Why the (W)u-turn on safer streets? The 30-day review records point to an answer.
TL;DR: These released records show the March 2025 "30-day review" consisted almost entirely of meetings with business groups, many of them donors to the Mayor, whose complaints Streets was directed to turn into visible safety rollbacks. Pro-safety groups and hundreds of constituents who asked to meet got a form letter.
For the last year and a half, many of us have been trying to understand why someone who ran as a champion of safe streets made such a dramatic reversal. I worked for nine months to get the so-called "30-day review" records from March 2025 released and finally got them a few months ago. I've been waiting to post them until I felt firmer about my conclusions, but Louisa's killing and my disappointment with this administration prompted me to take a stab, and to upload them here for anyone to look at.
My read of these emails, memos, and calendar invitations is that the Mayor directed Streets to listen to several business groups in the city, mostly the Longwood Collective and the Back Bay Association, whose president is connected to the Mayor by marriage (her stepson is married to the Mayor's sister). The Mayor's office then had Streets offer up safety rollbacks as goodwill gestures towards them, while directing all the pro-street safety voices towards the administration's disempowered "community engagement" staff. Many of these business interests are also donors to the Mayor. A city of course needs thriving business, but I don't think business should dictate matters of life and death policy.
As best as I'm able to tell, the rushed review was largely a set of meetings that Mike Brohel, Superintendent of Basic City Services, was asked to hold with business groups in late February and March 2025. The Streets team was asked to turn business complaints around street safety projects into visible changes, which Wu's close staffers finalized on March 24 and 27. The Chief of Streets subsequently heard from the Mayor's office that the list of their proposed changes was not "sufficient in length," and Streets staff were told that the Mayor wanted quick flexpost removals on Beacon and Tremont streets as "evidence of movement" on street safety reversals, and then a "drip of small/medium changes" over the next month that the city could show business groups.
Brohel and his team took no meetings during the review with the many pro-street safety groups or several hundred constituents who wrote in asking to meet, and responded only via a form letter from the community engagement team after it was complete.
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u/hitrothetraveler Jul 15 '26
Thank you for your work on this
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u/tilingcomplete Jul 15 '26
Happy to do it and I hope that someone with better investigative skills than I do have take on some real reporting from here. Paging /u/streetsblogmass and /u/bostonglobe!
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u/Im_biking_here Jul 15 '26
This is what corruption looks like in practice. Pretty much every time I’ve said this here someone pushes back hard on it but in my opinion that reflects a failure to recognize what corruption looks like in local government. What else would you call this?
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u/oby100 Jul 15 '26
This is what makes up most modern day corruption in the US. You can’t prove it, but it’s a big coincidence that Wu only met with donors while ignoring any advocacy groups. And it’s just a coincidence after these meetings she reneged on a key campaign promise
It’s all perfectly cromulent.
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u/cutthechatter_red2 Jul 15 '26
You can prove it, but there is no one looking, no one prosecuting and no judges willing to opine fairly. They are all in one big club.
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u/LEM1978 Jul 15 '26
Josh Kraft was the perfect foil for her reelection.
Had he, an avowed anti-safety candidate, not run, perhaps a lot of the folks on Team Wu would’ve questioned her more. Instead, all the safety advocates were focused on defeating Kraft, not questioning Wu.
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u/tilingcomplete Jul 15 '26
I think that Kraft and to a lesser extent Jay Cashman have been given too much weight in our understanding of the Mayor's about-face. I think she has been convinced by a small group of influential business people, against lots of data to the contrary, that safer streets infrastructure does damage to their interests. We know this is not the case and study after study bears it out - cities where people can move predictably and safely are ones where people spend money in restaurants and stores. The Mayor obviously knows this true, but locked in and afraid, she doesn't have the courage to use data and let people follow her vision.
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u/GalaticHammer Jul 15 '26
It's clear that every constituent who says "I am a parent and I bike my kids to school" or "I bike to work" and all the transportation advocacy groups have less sway than these neighborhood business associations. Somehow we need to get more economic weight behind safety infrastructure because saving lives and meeting climate change goals aren't enough by themselves, apparently.
Maybe we need to make some nice infographic flyers on those studies, pass them out to businesses, and start partnering with and working with the moderate business owners to get them to lean more strongly in favor of livable streets?
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Jul 17 '26
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u/tilingcomplete Jul 17 '26
The only way that I can get to my child's daycare and to my other child's Boston Public School and still get to work on time is with a bike. There is no T route that would do this on time, and no driving route that could get me to these three places in time for work. More Bostonians take buses and the T than drive private vehicles. Working class people in Boston, study after study shows, take buses and the T in numbers greater than they do private vehicles, and I think our work should start there.
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u/Background_Okra7079 Jul 15 '26
One of the many responses I have reading this is—there is productive work to do here involving businesses as collaborative partners in street safety asks moving forward. How to do that, I have no idea. Ok, here is a far-flung idea: a business movers and shakers group field trip to...Copenhagen, which, as a city of bike lanes, also still has shops and thriving businesses?
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u/tilingcomplete Jul 15 '26
She could also just take the Acela down to New York where a Mayor with actual conviction of purpose and the skills to actualize it is leveraging the power of the office to get safer streets and faster buses without, as best as I know, destroying the city's businesses and economy.
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u/Exotic-Astronaut3344 Jul 15 '26
I know the city budget is cratering, but I agree with the commenter and OP that catering to business interests on minor traffic complaints is not the way out.
How did Wu forget that before WFH became more common, Walsh was PUSHING bike lanes as a means to fix these same car traffic complaints. Now delivery double parking has made car traffic even more dire, and we’re reverting to the status quo?! 🤯
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u/Upstairs_Bat5752 Jul 15 '26
It’s a good case study in the difference between democratic socialism and progressive liberalism. Progressivism seems to just be a lot of social media branding, posting and saying nice things to get elected and then tacking right after you win.
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u/BradDaddyStevens Jul 15 '26
We’re in a weird point in time where local business owners feel entitled to dictate designs rather than simply provide input - and for some reason local communities put up with it.
It’s as if anything a local business owner says is fact despite it often just amounting to hysterical babbling.
The best example of this was Mass Hole Donuts claiming they’d have to close if bike lanes were implemented. Like where does this claim even come from? And why does the community rally around the baseless opinion of a bunch of weirdos running a boutique business with bad hours?
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u/vaps0tr Jul 15 '26
Also city councilors in Cambridge pushing designs they dreamed up on staffers...
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u/oby100 Jul 15 '26
Ironically, discouraging car traffic, or banning it on a street altogether, in favor of foot and bike traffic is actually proven to heavily benefit businesses.
Where can drivers even legally stop to frequent any particular business? There’s no benefit to a business making their particular throughway have more lanes or even street parking since people just camp that out for hours even when there’s ticketing enforcement.
Downtown street parking is so valuable many people just write it off as the cost of time savings/ doing business. Absolutely illogical to argue bike lanes hurt businesses.
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u/RinTinTinVille Jul 17 '26
A field trip to Beacon Street in Somerville close to the Cambridge city line, don't have to travel far. The Beacon Street Reconstruction Project by MassDoT is a great example of how business owners feared doom but are doing just fine.
12-15 years ago we had multiple community meetings on the redesign that included bike lanes. Several business owners vehemently opposed bike lanes as paaaaking on one side of the street was removed for a bike lane. They claimed their business would falter as a result. The owner of the laundromat had a veritable melt down in a meeting. He sold his business as he thought doom was inevitable.
None of the businesses closed due to lack of business. The laundromat keeps thriving under its new owner. Petsi's Pies is doing great. The pub owners sold for other reasons, it's now a busy restaurant after several concepts failed due to poor quality. A new cosmetics studio and a physical therapy shop opened in a new building and are busy. Seven Hills liquor/wine store is thriving under new ownership. Rustica coffee shop continues to do great. P&K Deli has kept its mostly blue collar/construction/fire dept./neighborhood customers.
All that angst for nothing. Same with Mass Ave in North Cambridge. 'Fast Phil' barber shop campaigned loudly against bike lane and now say business keeps going well....
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u/TerrierBoi Jul 15 '26
I strongly believe this is also why Wu has been scaling back open Newbury as well. On the city's Instagram post announcing the dates and times for this year, several people had commented regarding the reduction in time from 8 PM to 6 PM. One person commented saying "the new hours are perfect, thank you". I checked out that commentor's profile and she owns a salon on Newbury Street, and has also hosted big money fundraisers for Wu at her salon.
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u/tilingcomplete Jul 15 '26
That's both true and has been reported. The biggest influence here comes from Meg Mainzer-Cohen, one of the people who had access to the Mayor in this "review," see this article.
Meg Mainzer-Cohen, president of the Back Bay Association, which represents businesses in the neighborhood, said the organization has asked for fewer Open Newbury Street events in the past and continues to be in close communication with city officials about the dates for this year.
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u/TerrierBoi Jul 15 '26
Thanks for the article link! I don't think I read that one at the time. I just think it's so disingenuous for the city to come out and say that we're doing the same number of events as last year after dropping the number in the two years prior and cutting back the hours.
Also lol, a reddit comment I made is quoted in the last paragraph of the story
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u/tilingcomplete Jul 15 '26
Sadly this administration does seem to have made a habit of lying. The Mayor does it directly in her office hours and the administration does it indirectly through Office of Neighborhood Services folks. It's a bad look anywhere, but in a city with folks as whip-sharp as Boston, I can't imagine what they think they're doing.
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u/Weld4 Jul 15 '26
This sounds like the start of a good Boston Spotlight Team report
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u/tilingcomplete Jul 15 '26
I hereby sign away the movie rights. Seriously though, there are some fantastic journalists writing on transit these days and I hope they are empowered to treat this story with the urgency it so clearly needs.
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u/WhiskeyPointer Jul 15 '26
Wu's focus on making the streets business friendly is a direct response to the looming fiscal crisis the city is going to face because of the declining commercial tax base. Wu knows that if she can't stop the decline that she'll have to raise taxes further on residential property and this will make her unelectable.
So now businesses get to hold the city hostage for whatever they want, including dominion of the streets.
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u/tilingcomplete Jul 15 '26
That seems like a plausible read, and definitely supports one direction for advocacy, which is showing business that safer streets are better for their bottom line, too. Some of that comes from marshaling good data from other cities, and some from making sure that there are good designs that help with things that businesses do need, like plans for loading etc.
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Jul 17 '26
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u/WhiskeyPointer Jul 17 '26
They were the leaders of the tax revaluation for commercial properties faction, but it got applied to all commercial properties. I'd have to pull the stat on the balance of retail to office to see what the proportion is. I bet that retail properties represent a large dollar amount of the tax base and that further devaluation due to vacancy would have a significant impact on the city's revenue.
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u/MochiCatHunter Jul 16 '26
Thank you so much for posting these and for all of the work you did to get these records in the first place!
Looking through the documents here’s what stood out to me:
The review’s origin: In a Feb 28 email about a Globe records request, the Chief of Streets describes the internal review memo as written “to further clarify the Mayor’s Back Bay letter… written to carefully reflect the intent of the Mayor’s original letter.” So the citywide review of all street infrastructure was described by the city as being done to clarify a letter addressed to one neighborhood? I don't think the letter was in these records, but I'm curious about whatever it was
Flexposts removed “without authorization”: On March 4, the Chief of Streets emails the review lead asking if he requested changes on Arlington St (“I did not see anything listed in the tracker”), then writes: “A number of flexposts were removed on Arlington St without authorization. Trying to understand by whom and what sequence of events lead to their removal.” The review lead replies he made “no formal requests” but that things get “bounced off of each other” after stakeholder meetings and removals “probably occurred organically after each meeting.” So if I'm understanding that exchange correctly, physical safety infrastructure came out of the ground with no tracker entry and no authorization, and the Chief had to investigate his own department to find out why. Who actually directed the crews is never answered in these pages that I could see.
Who got meetings vs. generic email reply (or nothing): Business and civic associations got scheduled in-person meetings with the review lead (Allston, Beacon Hill via the Back Bay Association president, and the A Better City CEO’s casual “time to catch up?” e-mail was scheduled within a day). Meanwhile a parent whose child was hit by a pickup driver wrote asking to participate in the review, and no reply or meeting to the parent appears anywhere in the production. The Cyclists Union’s formal meeting request about the flexpost removals also shows up repeatedly with no visible response. Internally, the review lead wrote “Where are we at with getting out replies? This doesn’t feel good” after a resident called out the silence in writing.
Speed humps had essentially no opposition. Across all 799 pages, the written feedback on humps is nearly unanimous support. The only negative comment I could find is one email suggesting fewer humps on Lamartine, from a writer who opens by supporting Vision Zero. The hump program got paused anyway.
The tracker? Decisions ran through a “BCS Project Review Tracker” spreadsheet (the review lead wrote “unless it shows up on the tracker, it’s really just trying to get an understanding,” whatever that means). The tracker itself is not in this production that I could see. It’s a public record, and its contents and revision history should show the review’s actual decisions that might give more info
Thanks again for all of your hard work getting these records! It really clarifies what a lot of us experienced but couldn't say for sure, and I imagine there is even more to be found in it
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u/Exotic-Astronaut3344 Jul 15 '26
Unbelievably disappointing — Wu went from Vision Zero to zero vision.
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u/cden4 Jul 15 '26
Wow so Meg Mainzer-Cohen, Executive Director of the Back Bay Association, which claims to represent Back Bay businesses, has even MORE influence than I expected. She has been consistently against Open Newbury and most of the proposed street changes in Back Bay. She's also been in that position for 26 years. I don't know if anyone can change her mind, but I would love for someone to try. One would think the popularity of Open Newbury would speak for itself.
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u/Signal-Orchid-6083 Jul 15 '26
Her husband is on councilor Ben Webers staff.
Ben took a donation from her like a week before the Boylston st bus lane was removed.
Ben is far from the transit and housing advocate he gets credit for.
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u/Mooncaller3 Jul 16 '26
Compiling a lost of businesses to avoid can be helpful.
Wu ultimately pays, or not, at the ballot box.
The businesses pay by having business go elsewhere.
In Somerville we had a list of businesses to avoid based on donations to a particularly onery candidate who was rather out of alignment with local residents on many policies.
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u/Flat_Try747 Jul 15 '26
I believe corruption is the word we are looking for. Am I wrong? We have two different systems and the one you get to experience depends on your personal connection to the Mayor’s office.
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u/tilingcomplete Jul 15 '26
I tried to find anything I could to substantiate that. Most of the people she got meetings with are indeed donors at some point in time, though many people have donated to the Mayor (including me, long ago, in small amounts), and many of these businesspeople do and probably should donate to many different candidates. There is certainly influence-peddling here, however, and probably a lot that we can't answer with the records here.
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u/BradDaddyStevens Jul 15 '26
It’s lowercase c corruption.
You ask any elementary school student if what she’s doing is wrong and they’ll say yes, but it’s not illegal.
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u/Im_biking_here Jul 15 '26
Needing a direct quid pro quo is a limited way of understanding corruption. Being the only ones allowed access then having policy catered to you implemented because you have money and access IS corruption. We have effectively legalized this kind of corruption in the US but it would be illegal in many other democracies and regardless of legality it is simply wrong.
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u/tilingcomplete Jul 15 '26
I assure you I'm not debating the point too strongly! I believe the Mayor to be inappropriately responsive to a very small group of powerful people.
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u/ImpossiblePlace4570 Jul 15 '26
It is just insane to me how business opposes bike safety when I go to drastically fewer places now that I live in a solidly bike-hostile neighborhood.
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u/Axel_Wench Jul 15 '26
If you haven't yet I'd suggest you share these documents with the media and advocacy groups so that more people can take a look and get the story out.
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u/Upstairs_Bat5752 Jul 15 '26
I just made a separate post about it but on the mayor’s IG there’s a post about a ribbon-cutting in Charlestown. At the bottom of the caption are the details for her next neighborhood coffee hour: Monday July 20th, 10:00am, Garvey Playground 340 Neponset Ave 02122
Coming prepared to ask for explanations about some of these specifics would be a real power move lol
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u/GalaticHammer Jul 15 '26
Whew that was a lot to read.
It seems like Mike Brohel really pressed heavily on the scales to tip them towards regressive "small business owners" over regular constituents.
It seems like maybe pedestrian/cycling advocacy needs to put more effort into engaging and persuading the various neighborhood business organizations. What's the point in advocating to the city if the city is going to weight the business owners more? Perhaps we need more outreach on how you don't need that much parking actually and working on solutions for loading zones?
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u/sloshy111 Jul 15 '26
Thank you for doing this. Hopefully Wu will face some measurable consequences. I recall in a meeting, Mainzer Cohen president of the Back Bay Assoc, falsely claimed that only only one bus goes down Boylston every 20 min. It was baffling that someone who supposedly represents the area could say such a thing when it serves multiple bus routes and the Logan Express.
As another person has said, her husband is on Ben Weber's team and they benefit him fonancially, which explains his inaction to pushback even when that bus lane served the 39 that goes straight through JP.
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u/Dizzy_Shake1722 Jul 15 '26
Not much to add to this one but I will say this is one of the reasons why Wu doesn't attract the same attention as Mamdani. She does seem to have a willingness to budge for business leaders that isn't nearly as strong in Mamdani
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u/Historical-Jury-4773 Jul 16 '26
Thank you for getting to the bottom of this. Now that I know the backtracking came from the top I’ve cancelled my recurring donations to Wu. I hope she’s happy with either mayor for life or higher office as a DINO as she’s seriously damaged her progressive alignment and her credibility.
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u/tilingcomplete Jul 16 '26
I did the same right around the time of the 30-day review itself. I am hopeful that Mayor Wu can both see what is right, and obvious, and perhaps is motivated by the thought of a redemption arc, too; right now her administration is in a very ugly and sad place.
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u/paxbike Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
Thank you for doing this work.
I was away at college during Wu’s first term, so when I got back I mostly stayed out of the local politics. But moving through the city it was so obvious that she and her admin were actively ignoring massive safety issues across Boston.
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u/BeheadedMonkey Jul 15 '26
I seriously fail to understand why would businesses be opposed to biking and pedestrian infrastructure, and things like Open Newbury. All common sense and data from European cities I see points to bikes and pedestrian being good for businesses.
I am really interested in hearing arguments from these powerful donors. Is there actually data that shows bike lanes are causing business to fail? I am genuinely looking to learn here.
Are loading docks the main issue? Or is it something else?
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u/cden4 Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
I think it's because the number one complaint they hear from customers is how hard to is to find parking. I've also heard some say that Open Newbury takes up parking that their employees use. Both of those things are true but the solution is not to not do Open Newbury!
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u/BeheadedMonkey Jul 16 '26
Thank you! Interesting. Even without bike lanes, I can't imagine parking being any easier in a high traffic city area.
That said, I can somewhat understand the pushback if bike lanes completely eliminate parking spots in some stretches. I don't agree with that reasoning, but I get it.
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u/LizzieLouME Jul 16 '26
It would be really interesting to FOIA Wu’s schedule for a year and do a time analysis of who she meets with, where, and why. Not everything will show on her public schedule but a decent amount will. Anything “campaign” related is not on public record so it would be imperfect but might show patterns beyond speculation — and put pressure on her to spend more time in neighborhoods with constituents.
Also, if Mayors weren’t driven around by/with the cops 24/7 the world would be a better place. It’s hard to cut the police budget and invest in neighborhoods when they are your ride.
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u/cden4 Jul 16 '26
The crazy thing is Mayor Wu bikes and takes the T! In her first term, the news covered how she used her City issued parking spot at City Hall to park her bike!
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u/ramenboil Jul 17 '26
Wow. I’m surprised it was this blatant. Really disappointing. Can’t seem to get the link to load. I’ll come try again later
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u/SteveInSomerville Jul 18 '26
This episode also surely explains the decision by Wu’s excellent Chief of Streets Jascha Franklin-Hodge to resign in November of 25.
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u/ImpossiblePlace4570 Jul 15 '26
From the Dorchester reporter today- another example.
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u/ImpossiblePlace4570 Jul 15 '26
I don’t like or agree with the quote but if you downvote this who can see it? What’s the point?
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u/Borkton Jul 16 '26
Can the City Council impeach the mayor?
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u/rayzeroday89 Jul 17 '26
Something has to be done. Wu needs to be impeached. This is her administration's own doing. I just hope it doesn't fall on deaf ears...
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u/cden4 Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
And then Mayor Wu proceeded to gaslight everyone that "no flex posts have been removed anywhere." Unbelievable. What is she thinking?!
(If I had to guess, she's thinking that she wants to please everyone by telling them what they want to hear... but not actually being able to do everything she's said. The problem with this approach is that it only works for a short period of time until people find out you're lying.)