Converting the needed portion of drivers from gas to electric within less than eight years is unlikely to happen unless more people are willing to think outside the box – the metal boxes called cars – and to another “e-” option with great potential to reduce emissions, congestion and traffic deaths: the e-bike.

How should we allocate space on our streets in a way that allows the most people to get around safely and conveniently, while meeting our critical climate goals? That’s the question at the heart of the city’s ongoing conversation about how best to redesign Massachusetts Avenue through the Porter Square area.

Local business owners are increasingly concerned that a growing “dark store” presence in Cambridge and the wider Boston area may push out local retailers – the newest wave of the gentrification of small businesses.

The concerns are real: Our businesses are struggling to survive. But the case for advocating for both small businesses and protected bicycle lanes is strong. 

Gannett – the 900-pound gorilla of multinationals in the local news space – announced last week that it was eliminating many of its Massachusetts news properties and merging others including the Somerville Journal with the Medford Transcript. It’s doubtlessly a last, brief flash in the proverbial pan before elimination by a profit-focused corporate parent.

We and other civic organizations and individuals warned Harvard and other venues that giving Putin a platform through the arts made the venues complicit in supporting war crimes, but our pleas did not succeed in eliciting a change.

Drama over The New York Times buying the game Wordle turns out to be a textbook case of confirmation bias, bringing to mind the “bike wars” in Cambridge.

The next few months will be critical in raising public awareness and engagement with the planning process for Memorial Drive, which presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rebalance the use of this treasured parkland, enhance the safety and enjoyment of all park users and increase the riverfront’s resilience to the projected effects of climate change.

An assumption that anything built would be cost-neutral or revenue positive within 10 years is undermined by starting with social justice; there are no current plans for public engagement for a market survey; and the City Council’s work has been slowed to nothing by the manager’s obstruction. Cambridge is far from ready for a decision.

Despite the brilliance and breadth of Martin Luther King Jr.’s voice booming with a sad, uncanny relevance related to today’s discussion on voter rights and civic responsibility to the collective, his charge has yet to embolden us to move beyond retrospection and ruminations on equity and onto the battleground to reshape the systems of oppression.