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Josh Boucher

@jgboucher.bsky.social
204 followers 199 following 596 posts

Former academic. Local policy guy. MA-ite. All opinions are my own. I think about MTG daily — 🏳️‍🌈

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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 14h
Me, 13 years too late: “I fucking love excel’s power query”
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 16h
I just saw the worst post opposing bike trails in an otherwise affluent community. most of the comments pushed back, but there were some like “but where would holiday shoppers PARK??”
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Emily @emilydawn.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
@hockeyviz.com I found some beautiful data viz for you
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
(Sorry for paywall) what’s striking about this story, to me, is that the New Bedford City Council had NO IDEA for TWO YEARS that its police department installed Flock cameras www.bostonglobe.com/2026/10/01/b...
bostonglobe.com
The public is increasingly livid about Flock. But many police chiefs don’t want to give it up. - The Boston Globe
License plate readers have become the line in the sand for many residents concerned about their privacy rights and government overreach.
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Worcester Regional Research Bureau @wrrbureau.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
This week, its the Transportation & Infrastructure Dashboard which includes data on Commuting, Motor Vehicles, the Airport, Parking, Rideshare, WRTA, Commuter Rail, Street/Water Infrastructure, Trash, Recycling, & more. For Almanac Dashboards: www.wrrb.org/reports/2026... #WorcPoli
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Tracy O’Connell Novick @tracynovick.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
From @wrrbureau.bsky.social's "Express for Whom?" report here: www.wrrb.org/reports/2025...
wrrb.org
Worcester/Framingham Line Update on Train Schedules - Worcester Regional Research Bureau
This report looks at the Worcester/Framingham Line's ridership data to provide a deep look at where the line stands today.
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Tracy O’Connell Novick @tracynovick.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
as it is now October, it is time for me to reshare my very favorite MBTA commuter rail chart (which is saying something), h/t @jgboucher.bsky.social and @wrrbureau.bsky.social To properly appreciate, you need to know that the city of Salem is on the Newburyport/Rockport line
a line graph showing three train lines, which represent weekend ridership, July 2021 through December 2024
The orange (!) Newburyport/Rockport line has peaks that are wildly larger than anything else on the graph during the months of October

Salem, Massachusetts (yes, the Salem Witch Trials) are a popular destination during the month of October
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Worcester Regional Research Bureau @wrrbureau.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
WRRB recently released "On Track for Zero Emissions?" - a close analysis of electric vehicle (EV) adoption within Worcester County's sixty municipalities! Here are some key takeaways, for our full analysis and recommendations, read the report: www.wrrb.org/reports/tran... #WorcPoli
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I don’t know if it’s coming down from a vacation high, the clouds and rain, or a lingering sense of unease about the house, but everything has an underlying sense of sadness
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The first day back at work after a vacation is always the hardest
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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 27/09/2026
Google finally updated some of its satellite images of Gaza and my god, it's horrific. The entirety of Rafah has been demolished. The majority of Khan Younis is in ruins. Entire towns completely leveled and erased of the map.
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I’m out here at oktoberfest (munich) and have made friends with a German / Australian couple it’s fuckingawesome
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Everyone is on bikes in Munich :’( I’m unbelievably jealous
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I love Worcester Massachusetts
Cathedral of St. Vitus, at Prague Castle, Prague
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
When in Prague, one must get various train and subway themed souvenirs
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I’ve been editing instagram videos and yall. It’s fun
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Nothing better than coming home to a leak in your kitchen ceiling …. Coming from the bathroom
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
I did the quiz and no surprise I got “you talk like someone from Massachusetts”
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Just saw a TikTok: “pov: you lived in Worcester MA in the 80s” and all the pics are so CLEARLY AI generated, but so many people in the comments acting like they’re real. ARGH PSYCHIC DAMAGE
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Dang the end of Xenoblade chronicles 3 is so bittersweet. But the message — about hope in an unknown future — is a pretty solid one we could all use today
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
According to Reddit, there’s someone living near Rice Square School who yells at parents bringing their kids to school. What the hell’s wrong with people?
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Biked part of the MC and Bruce Freeman RT today from Hudson to Concord. dang that was nice. The wealthy people east of Worcester really gave it made in their exclusive little towns
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
why are we just letting buildings rot? www.telegram.com/story/news/l...
telegram.com
Worcester's Cow Tavern in decay, future uncertain | Exclusive
The fate of the West Side landmark has received renewed attention in light of its owner's plan to build 17 single-family homes nearby.
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
saw two movies this week: “Tony” and “Coyote vs. Acme.” I know it’s not unique to say this, but can highly recommend both
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Kevin 🚀 @astro-kevin.com · 10/04/2026
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Silly B Man @lawnerd.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
One man — specifically U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. — shook hands with both John Quincy Adams (who was born in 1767) and JFK (who was elected president 193 years later).
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Martyn Wendell Jones @martynwendell.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
"Some of my favorite professors married scholarly expertise with considerable eccentricity . . . The passions are nonconformist. To be moved is to be a little bit weird." www.nytimes.com/2026/08/17/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | To Save Higher Ed, Professors Need to Get a Little Weird (Gift Article)
Teachers need to model the passion they want to see.
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Uhhhhh… uh oh
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Eric Casey @ericcasey.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Train derailment right near Union Station in #Worcester tonight. (video courtesy Railside Live on YouTube)
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Jonathan Berk 🏠 @berkie1.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
One year without multifamily parking minimums in Salem. Developers are still building parking where necessary, while infill, transit-oriented housing is being unlocked where mandates had made housing infeasible. bankerandtradesman.com/one-year-wit...
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
AI-powered NIMBYism! I don’t know how people sincerely post this on the internet
A state representative candidate in Gloucester MA posted an ai generated image of a single family home before and after a duplex conversion, showing cars parked all over the yard. The text says:

Maura, while you're in Gloucester today, take a drive around.
Look at our roads. Look at the parking. Look at our centuries-old neighborhoods.
You already signed ADUs by right. Now you're asking these same neighborhoods to go from single-family to two-family, with an ADU by right.
Maura, Dru ask yourselves: how much more density can this infrastructure actually handle?
And have you asked the residents of Cape Ann if they want this? - in City of Gloucester, MA.
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The Boston LOL 💜 🚲 ⚡ @thebostonlol.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Housing costs have gone way down from the earlier bubble prices in Austin because they built more housing Want to make a landlord cry? Build more homes. Supply and demand baby!
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Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 05/08/2026
I didn’t draw this well, but this is why I think North American insistence on 1/8-mi. bus stop spacing vs. Europe’s 1/4-mi. is misguided. Average distance *to the line* is already so long that you’ve already lost people with big mobility issues before they’ve even gotten to the street with the bus.
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Nathan Goldwag @goldwagnathan.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
The question isn't "did the Trojan horse violate xenia as understood or practiced by the Ancient Greeks?" it's "what happens when we decide that winning justifies breaking our most sacred taboos?"
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
DC really made absolute Jason Todd a caricature
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Have you ever finished a book and thought, “dang, I want to read that again?” That was me, just now, with Hyperion by Dan Simmons. What the heck!
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Kenny Uong @kennyuong.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Funny how the MBTA still has outdated maps at some of its stations!! Like this T map from 2003 and a Commuter Rail map from the mid-1990s!! It’s pretty cool seeing how the system has changed when comparing them to the most up-to-date maps at the stations! 🫨🗺️🚇🚆
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Gravel Influencer @gravelinfluencer.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
It's depressingly hilarious to me how so few people understand what transportation looked like in the early 20th century in the U.S.
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Seeing “Paranormal Activity” … the play!! tonight!!
A playbill in front of a stage for paranormal activity
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Look. I love trees. But, I think the trade offs are pretty clear: we need clean energy, as much as possible, now. we’re heading to disaster otherwise. And in a community that is 97% forested, cutting a few acres to install a big solar project is not going to destroy the forest
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Matthew Noe @noethematt.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
"This might be unpopular but I'd like to discriminate against an entire class of people" If this is you, I hope the next 500 books you try to read are a disappointment.
maybe this is unpopular but I'd love libraries that kids aren't allowed in. truly don't want to be interrupted by running, crying, & yelling while i'm working/reading.
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
“I’m not opposed to new housing! But not like THIS and not HERE. We’ll definitely sue if this building gets approvals,” local NIMBY residents say www.bostonglobe.com/2026/07/23/b...
bostonglobe.com
Cambridge passed one of the most ambitious housing reforms in the US. Now comes the construction, and the backlash. - The Boston Globe
Apartment buildings are now cropping up on streets that haven’t seen so much as a home alteration in decades.
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Just absolutely maddening
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SCP @10-5.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Cops measurably stopped enforcing traffic laws during COVID and never started again. We instantly lost over a decade of progress, and saw a huge increase in deadly/unsafe driving as a result.
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Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
As unpopular as the Iran war is, the coverage still doesn't do justice to the fact that they just could have not done any of this. There was literally no reason beyond general bloodthirstiness and incompetence.
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Etel Haxhiaj (ha-jee-eye) @etelhaxhiaj.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
The entire former DEI committe resigned too four years ago.
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Josh Boucher @jgboucher.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
The two resignations from the Worcester HRC reminds me of 1970, when members of the then human rights board resigned en masse, and the HRC replaced it. Was talking with some people yesterday how history seems to repeat sometimes
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Gravel Influencer @gravelinfluencer.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
The use of bike supremacists is really galling because what we're really asking for is to not die at the hands of the car supremacists
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Gravel Influencer @gravelinfluencer.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Cyclists have their lives threatened daily. We are told our lives are worth less. And we're supposed to ask nicely to not be killed? Would Jon Keller tell parents of school shooting victims to "ask nicely" for gun control?
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Gravel Influencer @gravelinfluencer.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Cyclists are being killed and Jon Keller thinks that advocates (who he calls "bike supremacists") aren't being nice enough. Seriously, fuck this guy. I'm not linking to this absolute piece of trash essay.
Which brings us back to Dale Carnegie, and his nine tips for how to change human behavior: “Begin with praise and honest appreciation; call attention to people's mistakes indirectly; talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person; ask questions instead of giving direct orders; let the other person save face; praise every improvement; give the other person a fine reputation to live up to; use encouragement, make the fault seem easy to correct; make the other person happy about doing what you suggest.”

These folks are batting oh-for-nine. It’s a whole new definition of hitting for the cycle.
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