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🥶Much colder, with partly cloudy skies and highs in the 20s. Sunset is at 4:20 p.m.
Today we have a roundup of how locals got from point A to point B in 2025 — the year in planes, trains, and automobiles, according to GBH transportation reporter Jeremy Siegel. If you like it, check out some of Jeremy’s global reporting for GBH’s The World. This year he went to Tokyo to explore a large city in which just 12 percent of people travel by car, compared with 72 percent of people in Massachusetts, and learn how Tokyo’s urban planners incorporate housing and transportation into their work. He also had a story about a company that started at MIT and now delivers ambulance tricycles to northern Ghana, where they can help women in labor. But first, the news.
-Fenway Park, MGM Music Hall workers reach contract deal with Aramark
-Massachusetts warns of tight budgets as federal law strains state coffers
-American Institute of Physics honors Falmouth scientist Dr. John Holdren for policy work
The year in transportation: Planes, trains, and automobiles
How did our transportation landscape change this year, and how might it shift in 2026? GBH News transportation reporter Jeremy Siegel gathered the biggest stories of 2025 for a breakdown of the year in planes, trains, and automobiles, inspired by the 1987 John Hughes movie.
Planes: In October and November, during the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history, air traffic controllers, TSA agents, and other federal aviation workers were on the job without getting paid. They managed to run Boston’s Logan airport smoothly for most of the shutdown until November, when the Trump administration began canceling flights at large airports nationwide to lessen the workload on understaffed air traffic operations. Even though the shutdown is now over, its effects remain: some longtime air traffic controllers retired, and younger air traffic controllers are making less money than their veteran colleagues and struggling to make ends meet.
Nov. 7: 'Am I going to be stuck?’ Long lines at Logan as travel reductions start
July 9: Logan Airport passengers celebrate end of ‘shoes off’ rule
Trains: 2025 was a year of incremental growth on the MBTA: there were fewer shuttle buses and more frequent service. And there was even a pilot program for testing late-night service on weekends. Still, there is still plenty of room for improvement, like on the buses that get snarled in Boston’s notoriously bad traffic.
Dec. 10: The Commuter Rail has made big gains. Advocates still think it could be better.
Oct. 16: MBTA’s Phil Eng tapped as interim state transportation secretary
Sept. 8: MBTA begins issuing fines for fare evasion. Riders have mixed feelings.
Aug. 12: Soon you can ride the T until 2 a.m. on weekends
Automobiles: When Massachusetts needs to fix a road, replace a bridge, or change up the streetscape to improve the flow of traffic, local officials have for decades been able to rely on federal tax money. But that money is no longer as reliable as it used to be, with the Trump administration cancelling previously-awarded grants to the Bay State. Some of the projects that might be affected include new Cape Cod bridges, a reconfigured Mass. Pike in Allston, and a redesign of streets in Roxbury.
Nov. 17: How will Boston deal with the arrival of autonomous vehicles?
Sept. 18: Trump administration cancels $20 million in funding for Roxbury street improvements
Sept. 4: Young driver deaths on pace to reach 10-year high in Mass.
May 1: Allston I-90 project could lose $335 million under federal proposal
Dig deeper:
-2025 in review: The biggest stories from Boston and around Massachusetts
GBH Daily
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