Boston’s latest climate plan gives Deja Vu

追加: 2026-04-29

[00:00:00]This is the headline from Mayor Wu's latest climate plan. And for folks who have been paying attention to Boston policy for the last decade, it is giving a real sense of déjà vu.

[00:00:12]That's because these exact same proposals, parking fees and congestion pricing, were proposed in a Boston Green Ribbon Commission proposal that was released seven years ago, back in 2019.

[00:00:26]What the Green Ribbon Commission proposed back in 2019 was pretty detailed. There was a detailed plan for congestion pricing. There was a detailed plan for parking fees. There was a detailed plan for vehicle miles traveled. And you can see the Green Ribbon Commission did quite a bit of work on all of these issues.

[00:00:44]Looking through Mayor Wu's 2030 plan, none of that work is visible.

[00:00:50]The word parking fees is used just once in Mayor Wu's new climate plan, and that appears to ignore all of the work that the Green Ribbon Commission did back in 2019. That um 2019 proposal had a lot of other detailed ideas in it. And so, that is going to be a really important kind of measuring stick to see if Mayor Wu is going to be as ambitious as climate activists wanted it to be seven years ago under Mayor Walsh.