Boston, MA
Can AI help reduce traffic congestion in Boston? The city is partnering with Google to find out. – The Boston Globe
“Traffic might be the biggest headache that you have to deal with every single day,” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu told reporters last Thursday, touting Google’s technological promise to target small traffic hotspots. “We know that even small tweaks can go a long way.”
Project Green Light uses AI and Google Maps’ driving trends to model traffic patterns and also make signal timing recommendations for city traffic engineers to implement, according to the company’s website. For the past five months, the Google team has been analyzing traffic at hundreds of intersections around Boston and providing suggestions for optimizing traffic signals and patterns to minimize time stopped unnecessarily at red lights.
While transportation planners warn that Google’s technology is not a panacea, the technology offers the promise to quickly, albeit often modestly, reduce preventable traffic snarls.
Since the partnership began, Boston has already implemented Google’s suggestions by changing signal timing at intersections in Fenway-Kenmore, Mission Hill, and Jamaica Plain. Once the changes are made, such as keeping a light green in one direction for longer, the Green Light team then analyzes the resulting impact on traffic and provides the city with that data.
Intersections where changes have been made have quickly seen improvements.
At Huntington Ave. & Opera Place and at Amory Street & Green Street, “stop-and-go traffic has been reduced by over 50 percent,” according to the city. Wu touted the statistics as well, saying that the use of the technology to combat congestion “is one piece of something that we know to be a bigger part of the solution.”
In some cases, she added, that solution can be quite simple. “Sometimes it’s just a matter of how long a particular light stays green going one direction in the intersection versus the cross street,” Wu said.
Worldwide, 13 other cities on four continents are using it, including Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, Manchester in England, and Hamburg in Germany. Google is not currently charging its partner cities to use Green Light, and the program does not require cities to purchase hardware.
Early numbers from Google’s analysis of traffic patterns before and after recommended changes were made to traffic signals during tests conducted in 2022 and 2023 indicate a “potential for up to 30 percent reduction in stops,” according to the company. Google says cities using the technology have also seen, on average, a 10 percent reduction in tailpipe emissions at intersections.
While the city’s transportation department continuously monitors traffic with cameras at intersections, enabling it to respond when traffic snags arise, Wu said manual adjustments can’t fully address the big-picture problem.
“In order for us to really think about traffic and fixing it across the entire city, we can’t just go like by light by light and do it,” she said. With the data from Google, “we can then go in and really have a tailored approach … in a much more effective way.”
The technology can be “incredibly effective,” said Stacy Thompson, the executive director of LivableStreets Alliance, a transit advocacy group based in Cambridge.
At intersections where traffic patterns are changing throughout the day, the traffic lights can be taught “how to respond in more real-time,” she said. Or, she added, the technology can help often backed-up intersections cycle traffic through faster.
But it is not a “one-size-fits-all solution” for tackling congestion, Thompson stressed. Problems arise when the technology only focuses on cars, and intersections in the city need to “work for everyone,” including bikers and pedestrians, she said.
“I would actually love to see an expansion of this program that includes things like queue jumps [when a bus gets priority at an intersection] … things that really are also monitoring pedestrian flow,” Thompson said. “And, of course, optimization for the increasing number of bike lanes and bike signals.”
“All need to fit under this smart signals technology,” said Thompson, who added that the city should be transparent about where and how it is using the technology.
Ultimately, these are the goals, said Michael Lawrence Evans, Boston’s director of emerging technology. But some of that technology does not yet exist, and true adaptive signaling is expensive and requires a lot of hardware and maintenance.
“A platform like Green Light was a pretty low barrier way for us to try more frequent signal timing changes based on fresh data,” he said.
Having that new data “to validate the impact of the interventions is really helpful,” said Santi Garces, Boston’s chief innovation officer, but such tools are “not substitutes for this comprehensive policy approach to building better roads.”
Wu also acknowledged that the AI-powered experiment will not solve Boston’s traffic issues.
Her administration has prioritized making buses more reliable, reducing congestion by ramping up enforcement of double parking, and improving street safety and access, such as by expanding the city’s bike lane network. Artificial intelligence is one more part of the arsenal. The big-picture focus is “on trying to make sure that this is as convenient as possible to get around,” Wu said.
Shannon Larson can be reached at shannon.larson@globe.com. Follow her @shannonlarson98.
(KBTX) – Texas A&M shortstop Boston Kellner suffered a fractured orbital bone after he was hit in the face with a fastball in Friday night’s series opener at Ole Miss, according to a team spokesperson.
He did not sustain a concussion, and there was no damage to his eye, a team spokesperson said.
The extent of the injury was first reported on the SEC Network+ broadcast.
The true freshman has been a starter for the Aggies since the beginning of the season, slashing .248/.432/.418. He has five home runs and 27 RBIs, typically batting at the bottom of the order. Defensively, he has a .928 fielding percentage.
Ben Royo entered in his place and was a key contributor early Saturday. The senior blasted a pair of home runs against Ole Miss on his first two hits of the season. He entered Saturday’s first game with four at-bats this season.
A&M has struggled with injuries as of late. Chris Hacopian, who also could have been an option to fill in at shortstop, has been relegated to the designated-hitter role as he recovers from a leg injury suffered during the Florida series. Third baseman Nico Partida remains out with a pulled hamstring he sustained against Auburn.
Copyright 2026 KBTX. All rights reserved.
Boston, MA
What we know about wrong-way driver killed in head-on collision with state trooper in Lynnfield – The Boston Globe
Court records show that Marrero was the father of three children, the oldest of whom is 17. The youngest two children, twins, are 13 years old; Marrero’s death came days before their 14th birthday.
Records in Middlesex Probate and Family Court also suggest that Marrero faced financial difficulties and personal troubles, stemming in part from a work injury that family members said caused a bout of depression and deteriorating behavior in his personal life.
For nearly a decade, Marrero worked at Dewberry, a Boston engineering consulting firm, court records show, obtaining a job as an architectural design apprentice in 2005. He left the company in 2014, according to a company spokesperson.
Throughout that time, he doubled as a bartender on the side, working at Mexican restaurants in Boston and Waltham, court records show.
A knee injury ended Marrero’s career at Dewberry, court records show, and he left the company shortly thereafter.
That injury, according to court documents, was the catalyst for what his wife described as a “major depressive episode,” which she said contributed to the strain in their marriage. The couple, who had been married for more than 20 years, separated in 2022.
Records also show that Marrero struggled with debts to family members and credit card companies. During his divorce proceedings, it was unclear how much money he was taking home in income.
Marrero briefly owned and operated a contracting business, 109 Construction, but the corporation was administratively dissolved in 2024, according to state filings.
Marrero had lived in US since at least 2001, holding legal status. He became a naturalized citizen in March 2021, court records show.
Social media posts suggest he was active in the tight-knit Venezuelan community in Massachusetts. Photos show him cheering on Venezuela at a World Baseball Classic watch party in Brighton earlier this year.
Court records appear to show Marrero’s interest in art and music, owning a Venezuelan guitar, conga drums, and several Venezuelan paintings, as well as homemade winemaking setup.
Marrero’s family could not be reached for comment. A close friend reached by the Globe declined to comment.
Trainor had just completed his shift at about 2 a.m. on Wednesday and was driving home when he responded to a report for a Jeep traveling south in the northbound lanes of Route 1, near the Lynnfield overpass.
Raised in Salem, Trainor began his public safety career as an Essex County correction officer before graduating from the State Police academy in 2023, State Police Colonel Geoffrey Noble said.
Trainor’s fiancée, Jessica D. Ostrowski, of Georgetown, posted an emotional message to social media Thursday, describing the late trooper as “my absolute best friend.”
“I am beyond proud for the amount of love you have been given by those who loved and cared about you,” she wrote.
Travis Andersen and Jeremiah Manion of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Material from previous Globe coverage was used.
Camilo Fonseca can be reached at camilo.fonseca@globe.com. Follow him on X @fonseca_esq and on Instagram @camilo_fonseca.reports.
Administrators at the Croft School, struggling after allegations of financial fraud, haven’t been able to find a buyer for its Boston locations, which will now close at the end of the school year, parents were told Friday.
Millions of dollars were raised by families and community members to keep the private school open for a few more months while Croft School administrators scrambled to find a buyer. But in Friday’s email, the chief restructuring officer and independent sale advisor said that two parties expressed interest but they ultimately had to pivot toward winding operations down.
“To be clear, the 2025-2026 school year will be completed based on the availability of parent funding. However, without a viable timetable for a transaction, we are faced with this difficult decision,” the email said.
About 350 students had attended the Croft School’s three campuses, two in Boston and one in Providence. Regular tuition starts at $31,000, according to the website.
Millions were raised to keep the private school open for a few more months but the Croft School is looking for a buyer as a long-term fix to its financial problems.
More than 60 families unenrolled from the South End campus over the weekend, the email said.
News of the debt crisis surprised parents in March, when the school’s board revealed in a letter that founding Executive Director Scott Given admitted to fabricating a letter of credit regarding a possible expansion and keeping two sets of books, overstating the school’s revenue while understating its expenses.
The discovery that the school was more than $13 million in debt came after police were alerted to possible fraud. The school has said it’s cooperating with multiple investigations involving Given, who has been suspended.
The private school, with two locations in Boston and one in Providence, requires $5 million to stay open for the rest of the schoolyear.
Given has been sued by at least one Boston parent, accusing him of running a Ponzi scheme. His legal team has said he has no comment.
Parents rallied to save the school, raising enough funds to keep classes going.
The officials in charge of the sale noted “how hard many of you worked to maintain The Croft School as you know it,” but added that the “difficult circumstances, uncertain financials and condensed timeframe made this a trying environment for purchasers to timely make a binding offer for the schools.”
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