Co-hosts Ben Forman, Juana Matias, and Dr. Tracy Corley highlight innovative approaches to development in small and mid-size cities, while providing a platform for policymakers, researchers, and leaders in the Gateway Cities to share their best practices. GATEWAYS is a product of the Gateway Cities Innovation Institute at MassINC, and is produced by Libby Gormley.
Episode 72: The need for Complete Streets in Springfield
12/21/20-- 2020 is at last coming to a close, but the damage done this year by the pandemic will be felt for months and years to come. Tracy sits down with Jarred Johnson, executive director at TransitMatters, to talk about what went wrong (and right) this year for transportation in Massachusetts.
Later, Betsy Johnson of WalkBike Springfield drops by to discuss what she describes as an urgent need for investment in the MassDOT Complete Streets Funding Program. The goal of Complete Streets is, as Betsy describes, that "streets and sidewalks should be configured so that they improve the safety, wellbeing, and opportunities for all users — pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles.”
Betsy points to her home of Springfield as a Gateway City that would benefit immensely from more funding for projects that make streets safer and more accessible to all. The city has "some of the highest crash intersections and streets in all of the commonwealth of Massachusetts," she says. "And a lot of that goes back to the road designs that came about primarily in the 60s and 70s that now need to be modified.” Betsy describes dangerous areas where pedestrians are forced to cross five lanes to get from point A to point B. And while the pandemic invigorated interest and initiative in opening up streets for dining, walking, and cycling, Betsy says, Gateway Cities like Springfield still need much more state funding to significantly improve the safety and accessibility of their roads.
4 Dec 2020
Episode 58 Re-Release: Ideas for Equitable Small Business Recovery
12/4/20-- In light of recent data from Opportunity Insights which show 37% of small businesses in Massachusetts have closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, we are re-sharing Dr. Tracy Corley's conversation with Segun Idowu, executive director of the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts from May of this year.
In early March, when coronavirus materialized as a real threat to the United States, the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts (BECMA) sent out a survey asking its roughly 300 members how the rumblings of a global pandemic affected their businesses. 90% of respondents reported experiencing “a somewhat to severe financial impact.”
“We can only imagine that that number is at 100% now,” Segun Idowu, executive director of BECMA, told us in May.
Also in this episode:
From Transactional to Transformative: The Case for Equity in Gateway City Transit-Oriented Development (massinc.org/research/equity-report/)
19 Nov 2020
Episode 71: How MBTA cuts would cripple communities like Chelsea
11/19/20-- This month, the MBTA proposed cuts to transit service in an attempt to close its budget gap induced by COVID-19. Transit advocates and community organizations have been vocal in their objections to the cuts, which would disproportionately impact minority, lower-income, and Gateway City communities.
Roseann Bongiovanni is the executive director of GreenRoots Chelsea, a community-based organization with a primary focus on environmental justice. Her organization joined the Transit Is Essential coalition that is urging the MBTA to make no permanent or long-term decisions regarding service, and instead advance affordability for all transit riders.
Roseann has witnessed firsthand just how insufficient transit options are already for Chelsea residents, who desperately depend on them.
“They're often waiting up to 45 minutes to get on the bus to get into and out of the city. We've heard dozens and dozens and dozens of stories of folks in Chelsea who have been stranded on the 111 or who have been delayed and missed picking up their children. Daycares are calling them, threatening to report them,” she says.
Cutting services even further would exacerbate the already dire needs of a community that’s been one of the most hard hit in Massachusetts by the pandemic. Roseann says the pandemic has made life in Chelsea “incredibly difficult.” Data show 80 percent of all workers in Chelsea are in essential positions. Roseann describes the effect of potential transit service cuts as “devastating.”
“This is our lifeline to work,” she says, as the luxury of being able to work from home is rarely an option for Chelsea workers. The reduced transit options would be yet another strain placed on the many residents in Chelsea and other Gateway Cities who owe back rent from losing jobs and wages, and face eviction and homelessness.
Roseann desperately wants for state and federal leaders to acknowledge the outsized burden cities like Chelsea are shouldering, thank them, and start investing in assistance ranging from food to health to housing and beyond.
“You know,” she says, “we can't take on all of the burdens. We can't continue to sacrifice our lives every single day.”
Inside a recent episode
BONUS: Conversations from the Gateway Cities Innovation Summit & Awards
Published 31 Dec 2019 · Transcript excerpt
[…] That really was the inspiration for the Pinto Urban Art Museum to change the narrative in the neighborhood by giving people something positive and beautiful to enjoy and talk about, but also giving folks a good reason to come visit because we realized in the process of that plan that a lot of people, a lot of well -meaning people who are not point residents hadn't really had personal, genuine in -depth experiences in the point, and they might have visited a business for five minutes here or there, but they didn't necessarily know friends there. And we wanted to begin to break that barrier down so that people could visit their neighbors. […]
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