Bruce Mohl Editor, CommonWealth Beacon

Bruce Mohl oversees the production of CommonWealth Beacon content and edits reports, along with carrying out his own reporting with a particular focus on transportation, energy, and climate issues.

He previously worked at the Boston Globe, where he spent nearly 30 years in a wide variety of positions covering business and politics. He covered the Massachusetts State House and served as the Globe’s State House bureau chief in the late 1980s. He also reported for the Globe’s Spotlight Team, winning a Loeb award in 1992 for coverage of conflicts of interest in the state’s pension system. He served as the Globe’s political editor in 1994 and went on to cover consumer issues for the newspaper.

Bruce is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

ARTICLES By Bruce Mohl

Schoenberg joining CommonWealth

Spent last 7 years at Republican/MassLive

VETERAN STATE HOUSE REPORTER Shira Schoenberg is joining the staff of CommonWealth magazine later this month. She will be replacing Andy Metzger, who moved to Philadelphia at the end of 2019. I hope she will be the first of several hires as the magazine looks to expand its reach and coverage and develop innovative ways

Advocates call for T control board extension

Aloisi: ‘It’s a mistake to change horses in midstream’

SOME OF THE STATE’S  leading transit advocates are calling for extending the life of the existing MBTA Fiscal and Management Control Board for six months to a year and making buses free across the state. On the TransitMatters Codcast hosted by CommonWealth magazine, Jim Aloisi, the former transportation secretary and TransitMatters board member; Josh Fairchild, the

T board approves commuter rail vision

Calls for subway-like service on ‘most dense corridors’

THE MBTA’S OVERSIGHT BOARD unanimously approved five resolutions on Monday designed to start transforming the state’s commuter rail network into more of a subway-like system with electrified trains arriving every 15 to 20 minutes on the “most dense corridors.” The initial phase of what could be a decades-long process, according to the resolutions, would be

Commuter rail group backs big expansion

Advisory panel urges broadest, most expensive option

A 25-MEMBER ADVISORY GROUP that has been studying the future of commuter rail for the last 18 months presented a fairly united front to state transportation officials on Monday, calling for an electrified regional rail system that offers riders more frequent service throughout the day. T officials had assembled six different options for policymakers to

Expanding our Coverage on Immigration

We can't do it without your support!

Dear CommonWealth Reader, Immigration has become one of the defining issues of our time, and CommonWealth is expanding its coverage to provide its readers with the news they desperately need on this important subject. Sarah Betancourt, who joined the magazine in January, has carved out immigration as one of her main beats. A native Spanish speaker with excellent sources,

T notes: Red Line ridership slow to recover

Mayors launch push for commuter rail pilots

RED LINE SERVICE is back to normal in the wake of the June 11 derailment at the JFK/UMass Station, but ridership still hasn’t fully recovered. Data released on Monday indicate Red Line ridership overall was off 5 percent during the summer compared to last year and was down 2.5 percent in September. Charts released by

State agency offers $500,000 in place-making funds

MassDevelopment matching crowd-sourced money

MASSDEVELOPMENT IS OFFERING a total of $500,000 in matching grant money over the next 3 ½ months to municipalities and nonprofits seeking to launch creative place-making projects across the state. The money is part of a nearly four-year effort by the authority to revitalize downtowns and commercial districts by combining state and crowd-sourced funds. MassDevelopment

Lawrence eliminates fares on 3 bus routes

Once fanciful idea of free service picks up steam

IN A BID TO BOOST public transit ridership, Lawrence on Monday started allowing residents to ride three downtown bus routes for free. The city is providing $225,000 to the Merrimack Valley Regional Transit Authority to offset the fare losses from the bus routes for the next two years. The routes – 34, 37, and 85

T urged to experiment with income-based commuter rail fares

MassINC also backs lower prices for reverse commuting, off-peak travel

THE MBTA SHOULD EXPERIMENT with income-based fares and cut charges for reverse-commuting and off-peak travel, the think tank MassINC argues in a new policy brief. The brief doesn’t advocate for specific commuter rail fares, but notes that the cost of travel between most Gateway Cities and Boston is way too high. The fare cost as

T has extra $1.2b: How would you spend it?

Agency is holding off, saying it lacks organizational capacity

IT HASN’T RECEIVED a lot of attention, but the MBTA has an extra $1.2 billion in untapped capital funds at its disposal. The agency’s five-year capital spending plan has $9.4 billion in funding sources but only $8.2 billion in planned spending. T General Manager Steve Poftak said in May that he would like to spend
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