Transportation

Efforts to subject the Legislature to outside scrutiny, reform the role of standardized MCAS tests, allow cities and towns to regulate rent levels, and reshape rights and benefits for on-demand drivers took steps Wednesday toward potentially being decided by voters in 2024.

Facing a long list of needed safety, service and reliability improvements, the MBTA mined additional leadership from the same place it found its current top official: New York.

House Democrats plan to accept a compromise road and bridge maintenance funding bill Thursday after months at an impasse with their Senate counterparts, though the actual accord itself still hasn't emerged.

Montachusett Regional Transit Authority, or MART, will receive a $685,746 grant from the Federal Transit Administration to develop a regional app to make travel for North County residents easier and less expensive.

The Healey administration on Thursday rolled out its five-year capital spending plan, which calls for $14 billion in spending with a focus on investments in roads, housing, climate projects and economic development.

At the end of 2022, WBJ readers were more pessimistic about the future of the Central Massachusetts economy than they had been at any point in the previous 10 years. The first five months of this year only made them more pessimistic.

Multifamily residential developers have been proposing thousands of apartments throughout Central Massachusetts, but communities are resisting the push for more housing to protect their resources and what residents and officials see as their town’s character.

After being nearly flat over the past two weeks, Worcester metro gas prices came out of Memorial Day weekend up nearly 9 cents per gallon over the previous week.

A group of senators were unable to convince their colleagues to recommend money for the MBTA to run fare-free bus pilot programs.

Cities and towns that help fund the MBTA are concerned it will be "impossible" to restore pre-pandemic service levels and that the agency might need to hike fares given the growing shadow of a budget shortfall that officials so far have failed to address.