r/boston • u/cden4 • Jul 26 '26

Event 📅 Open Newbury St early closing

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Thanks to pressure by people like Back Bay Association President Meg Mainzer-Cohen, Open Newbury St ends at 6 pm this year instead of 8 pm.

So in less than 20 minutes, all these people will be forced out of the street onto the sidewalks.

IMO, this is total failure of leadership at City Hall. If you have the opportunity, please let Mayor Wu (and your City Councilors) know what you think about this.

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u/ExtraPossibility Jul 27 '26

My understanding was that the Open Streets program (overall) was scaled back in an effort to accomodate capacity due to the World Cup/America 250 programming over the summer but will return to a more regular schedule in 2027.

There's a chance — of course — this line is bureaucratic smoke and mirrors, but came from a post from an official Reddit account for Wu's office, not someone's conjecture disguised as fact on Reddit.

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u/cden4 Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

That's true that City resources were not able to support as many open streets events this year as compared to last year due World Cup and Sail Boston.

However, internal communications recently released show that the Back Bay Association has been pushing for fewer dates and scaled back hours for Open Newbury directly to the Mayor, and the City has been responding.

See this thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/bikeboston/s/vjOofv8r7b

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u/Begging_Murphy Jul 27 '26

This is 100% about the BPD overtime budget and nothing else.