Jeremy C. Fox for Boston.com

The setting sun shone down as an outbound Orange Line train approached Roxbury Crossing.

By Jeremy C. Fox, Town Correspondent

Spring is in the muggy, fetid air on the MBTA

Storified by Jeremy C. Fox· Fri, May 03 2013 12:32:56

Jeremy C. Fox can be reached at jeremy.fox@globe.com.
Follow him on Twitter: @jeremycfox.
Follow Downtown on Twitter: @YTDowntown.

By Patrick D. Rosso, Town Correspondent

On Saturday residents of Roxbury and Jamaica Plain will celebrate 35-years of Wake Up the Earth gatherings with parades, vendors, activities, and community groups.

The yearly event, put on by Spontaneous Celebrations, brings together residents from across the community to celebrate the neighborhoods’ green spaces with a particular emphasis of the Southwest Corridor, which cuts through Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, Mission Hill, and the South End.

On Saturday separate parades from Centre Street in Jamaica Plain, Egelston Square, and Dudley Square will meet at Jackson Square to join together and proceed to the park across from the Stony Brook MBTA Station, where the day-long festival will be held.

Throughout the day there will be food, music, family activities, and information booths at the festival grounds.

More information, including times and vendor lists, can be found here.

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Email Patrick D. Rosso, patrick.d.rosso@gmail.com. Follow him @PDRosso, or friend him on Facebook.

Jeremy C. Fox for Boston.com

Downtown Boston.

By Jeremy C. Fox, Town Correspondent

A City of Boston initiative has been named one of the top government innovations in the country by an institute at Harvard University.

The Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics is among 25 semifinalists for the Innovations in American Government Award, presented by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

“These top 25 innovations in government offer real, tangible ways to protect our most disadvantaged citizens, educate the next-generation workforce, and utilize data analytics to enhance government performance,” Stephen Goldsmith, director of the center’s Innovations in Government program, said in a statement Wednesday.

“Despite diminishing resources, these government programs have developed model innovations that other struggling agencies should be inspired to replicate and adapt to their own communities,” Goldsmith said.

The Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics works to deliver an array of transformative city services to residents, ranging from enhancing public spaces, to increasing civic participation, to improving educational outcomes, according to Harvard.

The 25 initiatives were selected by a panel of researchers, practitioners, and policy specialists, Harvard said. The Innovations in American Government Award winner and four finalists will be announced in the fall.

In the list released Wednesday, the programs are presented in alphabetical order and are not ranked.

The Ford Foundation created the award in 1985 to draw attention to effective government programs, Harvard said. The awards program has since recognized more than 400 government initiatives at the local, state and federal level, as well as tribal governments, and provided more than $22 million in grants to support efforts to help disseminate those programs.

A full list of the Top 25 programs is available here.

Jeremy C. Fox can be reached at jeremy.fox@globe.com.
Follow him on Twitter: @jeremycfox.
Follow Downtown on Twitter: @YTDowntown.

(Matt Rocheleau for Boston.com)

By Matt Rocheleau, Town Correspondent

The temporary extra patrols of well-armed police officers and soldiers in MBTA stations are gone. But the quest to bolster the long-term safety of the public transit system is far from over.

The T still has $80 million in unspent federal homeland security grants, which have been doled to public transportation systems across the country since 2002.

The $60 million in federal grants spent by the T over the past decade has helped make the agency a national leader in the industry of public transit safety.

“The efforts toward security and policing that the MBTA has had in place for a number of years have really been looked at as a benchmark for the industry,” said Greg Hull, director of operations, safety and security for the American Public Transportation Association.

And, when the bombs went off at the Boston Marathon two weeks ago, officials at the MBTA said that, while shocked and devastated like the rest of the city, they were prepared, largely due to the new equipment and training acquired in recent years.

“It was controlled chaos,” said Randy Clarke, senior director of security and emergency management for the MBTA and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.

He described the atmosphere of the T’s central hub for dispatch and communications, or Operations Control Center, as officials scrambled to secure stations and stop some service after the explosions at Copley Square, and then again several day later when the system was shut down during a lengthy manhunt.

“I hate to say we’re used to crises and trained for them, but we are,” Clarke said.

On Monday, two weeks after the Marathon bombings, MBTA officials gave a tour of the control center, which includes some of the transit industry’s most sophisticated technology for daily operations and security.

By Patrick D. Rosso, Town Correspondent

City officials are moving forward with a redesign plan that will eventually change Dudley Square and its surrounding streets.

The Complete Streets project aims to ease traffic and improve connections for pedestrians, cyclists, public transit users, and cars in the bustling urban neighborhood.

A third public meeting to gather feedback from the community has been scheduled for Thursday, May 2, from 6 p.m. – 8 p.m. at the Dudley Branch Library.

At past meetings officials with the Boston Transportation Department, the lead agency, discussed potential redesigns of the area and what residents would like to see improved.

By Patrick D. Rosso, Town Correspondent

A community generated plan to help guide the future of the South Bay Shopping Center in Dorchester is expected to be revealed Saturday.

Over the past few months residents and stakeholders from Dorchester, South Boston, and the nearby businesses community under the banner Citizens Connect to South Bay, have been generating a plan for the shopping center and any possible expansion that could be in the works.

At the moment there are currently no plans to expand the center, but many from the community involved with the planning process expressed a desire to have the community’s wants on paper before any new potential development happens.

By Matt Rocheleau, Town Correspondent

Free Wi-Fi Internet access will soon be broadcast from 16 existing pay phones in Boston.

And officials from companies leading the effort hope to, pending city approval, rapidly expand the service so that a total of about 100 existing pay phones across Boston will offer free wireless Internet hotspots by the end of this summer. By the end of next summer, they hope they will have reached a total of about 400 payphones citywide.

The effort, called “FreeBostonWiFi,” is being carried out on a trial basis, company officials said.

So far, the city’s Department of Innovation and Technology has approved Wi-Fi installations at 16 pay phones, located around City Hall, Faneuil Hall, Downtown Crossing and Long Wharf, according to Tyler Kratz, president of DAS Communications, which is one of four private companies partnering on the effort.

RCN Business Services, LCC International Inc., Pacific Telemanagement Services and DAS Communications announced their plan at a conference in Boston last week.

Four temporary demo sites were set up at pay phones near the Hyatt Regency hotel where the conference was held, the companies said.

One site at Cambridge and Court streets near City Hall Plaza was heavily used even though nothing was done at the site to advertise that the Wi-Fi signal was there.

“People had no idea it was there unless they saw it on their phone,” or other mobile device, said Kratz. “People were using it quite a bit. It blew my mind.”

Over about a 24-hour span last week, about 18,000 mobile devices “noticed” the Wi-Fi. About 2,000 devices connected and more than 200 people spent and average of 17 minutes using the Internet connection, he said.

“There’s a demand for this,” said Kratz.

He said the Wi-Fi service at that payphone by City Hall was supposed to be permanent. But, last week it was struck by some bad luck. A vehicle rammed into and damaged the booth. But, Kratz said the companies plan to have it replaced and restore Wi-Fi service within a couple of weeks.

The other 15 pay phones in line to get Internet hotspots are also located in downtown Boston and in areas that draw a high number of pedestrians, including commuters, business professionals and tourists.

Kratz said another focus will be to add the service to pay phones in low-income areas of Boston where some people cannot afford their own Internet access.

“Boston is a great city. With all of the college students and the young people it’s perfect demographically,” he said. “And we really want to make sure this is not just clustered in one spot.”

The Wi-Fi hotspots will offer around-the-clock Internet access for an unlimited amount of time at no cost to users or taxpayers.

The signal is usually accessible within 100 to 200 feet of the kiosk, though range can vary depending on whether there are objects or structures around the kiosk that could interfere with the signal.

To connect to the Wi-Fi hotspots, users need to select FreeBostonWiFiSSID on their mobile device and then accept the connection’s terms and conditions. No password is needed and no personal information gathered.

The companies that own the kiosks and run the service pay for installing and maintaining the new infrastructure at the payphone stations.

Some of the kiosks themselves have advertisements on them to generate revenue for the companies, but Kratz said the Internet service will not display ads on users devices.

"The partnership is giving new life to telephone booths that have almost become extinct due to the evolution of the cell phone," said a statement from Jeff Carlson, vice president and general manager of RCN Boston. “Small cell and Wi-Fi technology deployed through this partnership is another step toward delivering high quality wireless by lighting up hotspots in Boston using RCN's unparalleled fiber network."

The payphone kiosks will broadcast Wi-Fi in part by using small cell technology, which allows mobile devices, such as cell phones, to work.

"It's interesting and a little ironic that capacity demands from the cellular market has allowed for the repurposing of existing phone infrastructure, like payphone kiosks,” said a statement from E.J. von Schaumburg , vice president of Advanced Mobility Solutions at LCC International. “Utilizing small cell technology, we can take advantage of the excellent kiosk locations throughout an urban area and deliver high quality cellular capacity at the street level."

Last summer, a pilot program launched in New York City in which free public Wi-Fi Internet hotspots were emitted from routers installed at about 10 payphones.

Kratz said his company has been involved with the efforts in New York City and that his company now runs Wi-Fi from about 20 payphones there and plans to soon add the service to about 40 more payphones.

City officials in New York have said they plan to have Internet service added to all 12,000 payphones there.

Several weeks later after the program debuted in New York, two at-large City Councilors in Boston – Felix G. Arroyo and Ayanna Pressley – proposed doing something similar here.

Kratz said he has since met with Arroyo to discuss replicating the service in Boston and that he and other city officials have been instrumental in helping it launch.

Use of payphones has become rare because of cell phones. Some payphones no longer function to make calls. Others have been removed entirely.

Wi-Fi hotspots will help restore some use to the old payphone kiosks, officials have said.

The first-ever payphone was installed at a bank in Hartford in the late 1800s.

Since 1997, the number of payphones nationwide has dropped from an estimated peak of about 2.2 million to about 400,000, according to a petition that the American Public Communications Council, which advocates for payphone use, sent to the Federal Communications Commission last spring.

Kratz said the roughly 400 payphones in Boston his company hopes to bring Wi-Fi to are all owned by Pacific Telemanagement Services. He said there are few others in the city.

Kratz said his company is also in talks with city officials about the possibility of having free wireless Internet access broadcast from key municipal buildings, like police and fire stations, as well as from old-fashioned fire alarm boxes around Boston. But, Kratz said, no agreement has been reached and other companies are pitching similar ideas to the city.

E-mail Matt Rocheleau at mjrochele@gmail.com.
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(Google Maps)

By Matt Rocheleau, Town Correspondent

The state transportation department is looking for buyers for four small, vacant parcels of land along the MBTA’s Orange Line in Jamaica Plain.

The sites are surplus property leftover from the MBTA’s Southwest Corridor Project, which began in 1968 and was completed in 1987, officials said.

The largest site is 1,621 square feet. It is located on Lawndale Terrace.

Another parcel, on Gordon Street near Woosley Square, is 686 square feet. There is also a 552 square-foot parcel on Everett Street and a 375 square-foot parcel on Call Street near Carolina Avenue.

The transportation department announced on Friday that it is seeking bids for the properties. Each site will be sold “as is” to the highest bidder.

But, to be selected, the top bid must meet or exceed “fair market value,” which has not yet been determined for these four sites. The state can also reject any bids and can try to seek additional information or negotiate with bidders.

“Prospective bidders are responsible for determining the availability and adequacy of any utilities for the parcel,” the transportation department said in a statement. “Parcels will be sold in an ‘as is,’ ‘where is,’ and ‘with all defects basis,’ and are subject to all existing and recorded easements, encumbrances, restrictions, and utilities.”

Bids are due by 2 p.m. on Thursday, June 27.

For other terms, conditions and details about the bidding process, see a copy of the invitation for bids here.

E-mail Matt Rocheleau at mjrochele@gmail.com.
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AP Photo/Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority

In this 2010 photo provided by the MBTA, Richard Donohue Jr., left, and Sean Collier pose together at their graduation from the Municipal Police Officers' Academy.

By Jeremy C. Fox, Town Correspondent

A Twitter tribute to MBTA Officer Richard Donohue

Storified by Jeremy C. Fox· Fri, Apr 26 2013 13:26:34

Jeremy C. Fox can be reached at jeremy.fox@globe.com.
Follow him on Twitter: @jeremycfox.
Follow Downtown on Twitter: @YTDowntown.

(Sociedad Latina)

Volunteer Noelani Guerrero of Nutter McClennen & Fish LLP works with youth leader Geremy Rodriguez to edit his resume.

The following is an announcement from Sociedad Latina, a nonprofit youth development organization based in Mission Hill:

On Saturday April 13, Sociedad Latina hosted a day-long Work Readiness Conference attended by more than 50 volunteers representing more than 30 different employers, in fields ranging from finance and technology to education and architecture.

More than 100 Boston youth were in attendance to participate in mock interviews, resume reviews, and panels on issues such as diversity in the workplace, finding a mentor, and networking.

“At Sociedad Latina, we work every day to ensure youth in our community have multiple, flexible pathways to success that are built on their assets such as strong cultural identities and family supports,” says Alexandra Oliver-Davila, Executive Director of Sociedad Latina. “It is important to allow young people to define their own success and support them on their pathways by providing training, opportunities to connect with their cultures and communities, and access to networks such as this one. These young people are the future leaders of our city and I can’t wait to see all that they accomplish.”

“As a Latina who entered the consulting field without a strong network, I learned firsthand how difficult it is for Latino/a youth to break into the corporate workforce,” says Frances Schwiep of Analysis Group, Inc., who collaborated with Sociedad Latina staff to organize the conference. “My goal is that my involvement at Sociedad serves as evidence to Latino/a youth that their career aspirations can be wide, and that there are mentors with whom they can cultivate relationships as they learn about different professions.”

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(Sociedad Latina)

Youth Leaders Kamal Mohammed and Isahiah Erilus at the networking event.

(Sociedad Latina)

Brian Doherty of Building Pathways Apprenticeship Program and Sociedad Latina youth leaders Luis Pineiro and Kamal Mohammed during a networking session.

(Sociedad Latina)

Volunteer Tony He of Massachusetts Nonprofit Network and Sociedad Latina youth leader Royanna Ellis-Shepard doing a mock interview.

(Sociedad Latina)

Emmanuel Ortega of ALPFA Cares & Wellington Management conducts a mock interview with youth leader Ana Calderon.