Boston-area drivers don't like rules. Boston-area pedestrians don't like rules, and the city is trying to make hay of it by upping jaywalking fines. And now it is the cyclists' turn to feel the heat. For the record, Bostonist is thoroughly pro-cyclist and supported the Bicyclist Bill of Rights, which former lieutenant governor Kerry Healey trashed as she was leaving office. So, it is with much love that Bostonist asks, why do some bicyclists think......

View Larger Map In the aftermath of Isaac Meyers' death, bus drivers going through Central Square at least appear to be more aware of the dangers at the intersection of Mass Ave and Prospect St. Recently, a bus driver was trying to take a right on Mass Ave from where River and Western merge. She had the green, and so did the pedestrians. She said, "You go when they go." She shook her head. "This......

View Larger Map The man struck and killed by a Shaw's truck at the corner of Mass Ave and Prospect at Central Square has been identified as 28-year-old Isaac Meyers. Meyers was a teaching fellow in classics at Harvard, the Crimson reports. Friends remembered him last night at a memorial service. One friend told Matt Dunning of the Cambridge Chronicle that Meyers was getting a Master's in classic languages and translating Hebrew scriptures into Greek.......

View Larger Map Update: The Cambridge Chronicle is reporting that the pedestrian died. The Boston Herald added that he was "dragged to his death" and that a bystander ran after the driver trying to get him to stop. If you were wondering why all the bus drivers were taking unusual paths around Central Square today, word got out on b0st0n livejournal that a pedestrian was hit by a Shaw's tractor-trailer at Mass Ave and Prospect......

--Yesterday evening, a woman was caught driving in East Boston Memorial Park--on a pedestrian path. The BPD Blotter writer, obviously thrilled to be back on the job after the recent technical difficulties, adds, "As the name of the path suggests, it is designed and designated for pedestrian traffic only." Yes, she was allegedly drunk. And in a Big Lebowski move, she showed officers a Liquor ID card when asked for license and registration. She was......

-Some Blotter days are longer than others … --After two teenagers were shot this morning as kids were going to school in Dorchester, police officers swarmed on the neighborhood in search of a suspect who they thought was hiding out in a triple decker on Hendry Street. Globe reporters said the BPD was at the triple decker for two hours before deciding it was empty and that the shooter took off. The victims' wounds are......

We did our best to spread the word on Sunday that Boston Police would be cracking down on debauchery outside Fenway Park during Game 7 of the ALCS, but let's face it: we're naturally curious. We wanted to see with our own eyes what the scene was like down by the ballpark, given the likelihood of stories running wild about who was going to take it too far: the crowd or the police. Police had......

--On Saturday, some alleged whack-job trying to get a piece of Star Simpson glory told an AirTran employee at Logan Airport, "I'm with al-Qaeda. I'm with them and I'm here to blow up things." Hardy har. Those words earned 27-year-old Ermiyas Asfaw, from DC, a one-way trip to jail. Attention, world: You may be able to do whatever you want in other cities, but Boston is sensitive. We may not agree with their hypersensitivity, but......

- Two men are on the lam after an attempted carjacking in broad daylight on the Mass Pike. The suspects jumped into the back seat of a car waiting in line for the Allston-Brighton toll. When they arrived at the booth the driver alerted the attendant to the carjacking while being "pistol-whipped" with a handgun. The car hit another and then stopped, at which time the two men fled and have yet to be......

Protest over national vs. regional chains, the never-ending debate over the place of cars and bicycles in our metropolises, professional sports scandals, remembering a solemn day, and being issued a search warrant - it all happened across our sites this week! Another banner week at Chicagoist started off with daily reports from food writer Lisa Shames on her attempt to eat only locally grown and raised foodstuffs all week as part of a farmers market......

--17-year-old Jose Gurley was shot and killed at Roosevelt Heights, a Brockton housing complex. He was a wide receiver and defensive back on the football team and also played basketball and ran track. The Enterprise reports that he was good at all three. One witness suggested the gunfire broke out because one gang was trying to reclaim territory from another one. --Another young man was much luckier after a shooting. A 21-year-old man got shot......

What better way to celebrate Cambridge's 161st anniversary than moonwalking across Mass. Ave? Cambridge's Annual Dance Party will bring revelers to Central Square tonight for a pedestrian-friendly fiesta. As has become tradition since 1996, Massachusetts Avenue between Inman and Bigelow streets will close for a few hours tonight (7:00-11:00 pm) so that Cambridge residents and visitors can get their grooves on - DJ Joey Demers will be providing the tunes. Those interested in joining the......

Machetes, hatchets, hedge clippers. People from Massachusetts are nothing if not creative when it comes to assault charges. In Framingham on Friday, a woman went for her hedge clippers when she got pissed off at her sister. Apparently the sister said Melissa Pierce looked "messed up," and Pierce didn't take it too well. Neighbors managed to separate Pierce from the hedge clippers before anyone got hurt. --That's not the only sibling brawl in the area.......

--More details have emerged about the Mattapan man who was stabbed to death yesterday. Sylvester Mitchell was 38 years old and may have been stabbed as part of a domestic dispute because his wife was questioned by police. He was murdered on his birthday. --Overnight, another stabbing happened, this time in Dorchester, and the victim is in stable condition. Less lucky is a pedestrian who was hit in Brighton at Cambridge and Harvard Avenues. The......

Paul posted a detailed description of his experiences as one of the evacuees during last night's Longfellow Bridge Fire, which shut down the bridge, the MBTA Red Line, Charles-MGH station, and Storrow Drive. By the way, Red Line service is back up now. Here's what Paul had to say (paragraph breaks and boldface emphasis are ours): I was one of the evacuees on the outbound red line train entering Charles/MGH on May 1st. It's difficult......

--Finally, we have some light blotter news - old-school public drunkenness. The BPD has cheered us up with one of their funniest headlines in recent memory: "Overnight Accommodations Granted to Wild Reveler." At the Breezeway Bar in Roxbury, someone was crossing the line between happy drunk and angry drunk. The angry drunk was trying to attack one person and then "started tapping officers on the chest." Unfortunately, the BPD did not use its favorite phrase......

This afternoon, before the sloppy snow began to fall, a 22 year old man was struck by a Taxi on Huntington Ave near Forsyth St. The taxi clipped the rear wheel of the cyclist and sent him under the rear wheels of a nearby dump truck carrying a full load of scrap concrete. Northeastern News reports that police recovered a fixed-gear bike (with mangled front wheel), a cell phone, a right shoe, a messenger bag,......

--Boston revealed yet again that it is quick on the draw - maybe too quick - when it comes to terror threats. After disposing of a pedestrian counter downtown, the law investigated some funny-tasting white powder found in a water cooler in a South Boston high school Wednesday afternoon. The hazmat system around here is impressive. They had the people who drank the water tested, then they tested the water itself - only to find......

Did you see how there was another weird, but harmless, device spotted and destroyed on city streets this morning? And it didn't cause a fuss? Apparently it was a "traffic-counting device" or "pedestrian counter." Whatever it was, at least it didn't give Boston residents the finger. Police nabbed the teenagers who stabbed another teenager at the Back Bay T stop. It was inevitable that they were going to get caught. It appears to have been......

The MBTA opened up the new Charles/MGH stop last weekend. Among the changes to the station the most notable is pedestrian and handicapped access to the station. Escalators and elevators will take passengers to the platform from ground level, a welcome change for, uh, the stop named for a hospital. The reconfigured station will allow pedestrians to avoid a bit more of the traffic mess that is Charles Circle. Now, dear reader, put on your......

This was not a very happy week for the -ist network as one of our own, Phillyist co-editor Star C. Foster, passed away early in the week. Her wit, intelligence, and good nature shone through the site, making Phillyist an immensely fun read. She was loved by many and will be missed by all. Phillyist paid tribute to her this week with a heartfelt letter to her and an obituary. And now, the awkward......

Some might say that the downturn came when they dumped "The Nutcracker" in favor of "Radio City Christmas Spectacular", while others could counter it has more to do with the dumbing of America, but today may mark the darkest day yet in the history of Boston's performing arts culture. They're renaming the Wang Center for the Performing Arts. Although we don't like to admit it, inside every Bostoninan lurks a 12-year old boy who stifles......

Halloween is Tuesday, which means this weekend is really the time for all of the –ists to celebrate. And whether they’re designing super-spooky costumes or talking about the super-spooky upcoming elections, we’d say that they’re doing a fine job of it. Austinist knows that few things in life are scarier than zombies, people with way too much money, and politicians who try too hard to be funny. Slightly less scary, depending on whom you......

The Herald ran an article today reporting that according to a study by the insurance agency GMAC (which is totally going to be Bostonist's new rap name), Massachusetts drivers rank second worst among the contiguous 48 states and D.C. in knowledge of traffic laws, while Oregon's are at the top (Rhode Island is at the bottom). However, Mass. has the lowest rate of fatal traffic accidents. The Herald, citing an unnamed state highway official,......

DJ Logic at Ropeadope's "What is Jazz?" Festival at Berklee Bostonist basked in the glow of Berklee's Performance Center last Saturday as a roster of ropeadope stars - Bobby Previte, the Charlie Hunter Trio, DJ Logic, and the Christian McBride Band - asked the musical question "What is Jazz?" The name of label's "mini festival" was not so much a serious definitional challenge as an acknowledgment that much of ropeadope's genre-bending music -- while......

Big Dig officials keep telling Boston that the project is almost complete. Bostonist will believe it when we see it. With the mélange of Jersey Barriers (named for the cow, not the state), confusing signage, incomplete parks, and on and off ramps that may or may not get you on or off anything, the project doesn’t seem to be in those final stages. The Rose Kennedy Greenway, the 30 acre park system between the North......

When the Globe reported on city plans to spruce up Downtown Crossing, Bostonist was skeptical, not just about the plan, but about the tone of the paper's reporting, which depicted the area as some sort of lawless Kabul bazaar. Today, the Globe follows up with an actual editorial, in which it advocates more traffic for downtown Boston. Peering out the window to see taxis, messengers, pedestrians, and duck boats jostling for space on the rain-slicked......

There are those in the Boston blogosphere who will never abandon the (perhaps correct) notion that Bostonist is but a poseur, a johnnie-come-lately to the Hub, forever unqualified to comment upon or report about our fair city. We fear that this post may add fuel to their fire, for we must betray our ignorance by asking, is Downtown Crossing really that bad? The Globe reports this morning that Mayor Menino and others have a new......

It's spring, which means that the bikes are back on the street en masse. Bikes are great--exercise and transportation and saving the earth all in one. However, Bostonist would like to reiterate a couple of rules of the road. 1. Are you riding your bike on the streets? Please make sure that you are WEARING A HELMET! Bostonist was appalled to see last week that about one out of every three bikers coming down the......

For our favorite family that seems to constantly be in the eye of the storm another unexplained occurance has befallen a member. Joan Kennedy, the ex-wife of Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass), was found in the early morning hours on Tuesday lying on a street in Boston with a concussion and a broken shoulder. The media is being polite about the Joan Kennedy incident only citing her past troubles with alcoholism, rather than the standard tag......