Transit activists expressed anger over what some say is the Wu administration’s inaction on major infrastructure projects that include adding dedicated bike and bus lanes on Blue Hill Avenue during a City Council hearing last week that featured testimony from key officials from the Transportation Department.
“While we wait, people are dying,” said Tristan Thomas, policy director for Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE). “Just last month, someone was killed in a car crash in our streets. That is the real cost of inaction.”
Councillors peppered the city’s interim Chief of Streets, Nick Gove, with questions about delays to road and street improvement projects that some argued could result in the loss of substantial federal funding. The answers, however, weren’t immediately forthcoming.
“How many ongoing major street projects have reached the point where federal funding has been obligated?” Council President Liz Breadon of Allston-Brighton asked.
“We can provide a thorough update of all of the state and federal projects that are funded within the city,” Gove responded. “We can provide that background, but it is a pretty detailed discussion.”
Gove presented a slide deck showing what he said are the values and vision for the city’s roadwork — stressing a commitment from the Wu administration for safe, efficient, and connected streets. While the city moved quickly to test new ideas during Wu’s first term, Gove said, her administration is now committed to lasting, neighborhood-specific infrastructure.
“This next phase is not about slowing down on progress,” he said. “It’s about getting the design right and avoiding unintended consequences for residents, communities, and businesses.”
When pressed for answers on questions such as how neighborhoods can expedite speed bumps, Gove offered assurances that he would share information, but provided little in the way of specifics.
“Thank you for coming here and presenting,” said District 6 Councillor Ben Webber. “It’s really an act of good faith. But I was hoping for something a little more cooked.”
Under the administration of Mayor Thomas Menino, Boston began planning and implementing a network of bicycle lanes across the city to make travel safer for cyclists and reduced the city’s speed limit to 25 miles an hour.
Under the administration of Mayor Martin Walsh, city officials began rolling out speed bumps on residential streets where residents requested them as part of a 2015 Vision Zero road safety plan aimed at eliminating pedestrian deaths by 2030.
In the early years of her administration, Mayor Michelle Wu embraced traffic calming measures and bike and bus lanes. But last year, during a mayoral race in which challenger Josh Kraft latched on to growing frustration over proliferating bike and bus lanes that critics said were installed with little community input, Wu placed a moratorium on new safety infrastructure and removed bike and bus lanes on Massachusetts Avenue and Boylston Street.
The Boston Globe reported in March that Wu is now requiring that all street improvement projects to go directly through her for approval, a move transportation advocates complain is slowing the pace of such improvements.
After announcing a 30-day review of all street projects in February 2025, the Wu administration released a nine-page report last April that underscored a lack of trust between the administration and community groups.
“During the 30-day review meetings, we heard consistent feedback that project communications and community engagement were inadequate, that decisions seemed predetermined, and that processes too often did not achieve consensus, contributing to a loss of community trust,” the report reads.
At last week’s hearing, advocates signaled that the lack of trust in around the city’s management of major projects, such as proposed bus lanes on Blue Hill Avenue and Columbus Avenue, is still a problem.
“Here we are in April of 2026, and we still have not received meaningful updates or timelines for these critical projects,” said Thomas of ACE. “So I’m here to ask the simple and urgent question: Why the delay?”
Blue Hill Avenue came up repeatedly during the hearing. Preliminary plans for a modernization project contain a center-running bus lane, a feature that many local residents, business owners, and two key political leaders– Councillors Brian Worrell and Miniard Culpepper, strongly oppose.
In an interview on the DotLife podcast last month, Wu herself indicated that final plans for the estimated $150 million Blue Hill Avenue project remain incomplete and signaled flexibility on the center-running bus issue.
“Nothing is set in stone. Nothing is final in terms of the design,” she said during the interview. “We want to hold onto every dollar that can improve communities’ lives, but we also wouldn’t take federal money just because it’s there if it’s not a design that works for our community.”
Wu said she was talking with MBTA general manager and state Transportation chief Philip Eng to better understand how changes to the project’s design might impact federal funds already in place for the Blue Hill Avenue project.
Last week, Bikes not Bombs CEO Elijah Evans urged the city to move forward with the federally funded redesign of the street.
“The Blue Hill Avenue redesign, which serves a high concentration of Black and brown residents, is a perfect example of a project that must be un-paused immediately,” he said. “This isn’t just painting lines, it’s about providing safe and protected infrastructure alongside the planned center running bus lane, which I support.”
City officials have also paused a plan to extend center-running bus lanes on Columbus Avenue from Jackson Square to the Ruggles MBTA station. Streets Blog Mass obtained emails from the MBTA via a public records request that showed state officials have repeatedly asked city officials to sign-off on final plans for the Columbus Avenue project.
However, the records request also show that city officials canceled meetings with the MBTA. A key transit planner for the city informed them that Streets Policy and Planning “has been directed to not participate in external meetings, including meetings with partner agencies, without express approval from [Chief of Streets] Nick Gove.”
Tiffany Cogell, interim executive director of the Boston Cyclists Union, say this sort of delay is fueling frustration along their members.
“We’ve been promised safer streets, accessible transit, and a city that moves for everyone, not just those who can afford a car,” said Cogell.
“Our reality,” he noted, “is a pattern of stalled projects, withheld updates and communities that are left in the dark. Every day of inaction is a day that federal and state dollars slip through our fingers or get transferred to another project. It’s a day a cyclist is endangered, a day a disabled resident is stranded.”
Thomas asked that the city articulate a concrete plan and timeline for advancing federally funded projects and a set of metrics for evaluating the safety benefits and accessibility of bus service for the projects.
“We cannot wait for another 30-day review,” he said. “We need transparency and accountability now, so we can look forward to those dates and those commitments.”
