Today’s Train Time conversation with Massachusetts State Representative Christina Minicucci ranges widely. We talked about issues that affect the travel choices of people in Rep Minicucci’s district, and in fact pretty much everywhere: frequency, reliability, and cost. We talked about trains, of course, but also about bike and hiking trails and safe streets. These other ways of getting around, as well as the car driving that continues to be part of most Americans’ lives, need to be considered when thinking about getting people onto trains.

Christina Minicucci serves as the State Representative for the 14th Essex District of Massachusetts, which straddles the Merrimack River and includes parts of Lawrence, Methuen, Haverhill and North Andover. Christina is a passionate advocate for progressive policy with a focus on food security, education, clean water, and public transportation. Christina can almost always be found participating in community events or enjoying her love of the outdoors.

Transcript

Note: This transcript was created using AI and is imperfect. For purposes of quotation, please check the actual recording! It is time-stamped , which is useful as a guide to finding a point in the recording, but please be aware that the time-stamps may not be a perfect match to the published podcast.

SPEAKERS
Karen Christensen, Christina Minicucci
(times reflect place in final, edited interview/podcast)

Karen Christensen 01:44
Good morning. I’m so pleased to have you with us, Representative Minicucci. Or Christina, if you don’t mind.

Christina Minicucci 01:51
That’s great. Thank you, Karen. Thank you for having me today.

Karen Christensen 01:55
Yeah, it’s Thanksgiving week. It’s a little bit quiet. But it’s of course, it’s the I think this is in the United States, the busiest travel, typically the busiest travel time of the year. So we’re going to talk about travel and transit. And, you know, I thought it would be I would like to hear just a little bit about your district and about the things you’ve seen over the past year and a half or so in terms of people getting around or people not, you know, having a real change in not needing to get around so much.

Christina Minicucci 02:34
Sure. Well, I am from the opposite side of the status view. So in the upper northeast corner, right up on the New Hampshire border. I represent three gateway cities, Lawrence, Mizzou, and in April as well as North Andover, which is a suburb of Boston. We’re about 24 miles from Boston. So a little too far to run unless you’re a marathoner. But close enough that we have a fair number of commuters. Yeah, the three the two of the three cities also sit on route 93. So we do have a fair number of car commuters from there. But North Andover and Hazel also sit on route 495, which is our primary artery into Boston, which if you’re familiar with our and the state, very, very busy, very congested road and isn’t really a direct route to Boston. So for us a commute from hay roll or North Andover by car in the height, you know, when we’re not in COVID times is at least an hour and a half. There have been days with that. It’s taken me two hours. If there were an accident to go 24 miles. Yeah. And one day I came in, I showed up at the statehouse and one of the very few days actually drove my car there 12 times since I’ve been in office. And I said, if I were an elite marathoner, I would have just beat myself for two hours, and I said, an elite marathoner would have beat me today. And so yeah, but usually we’re good hour and a half to Boston. So I personally, since I’ve been in office, I’ve relied very heavily on the commuter rail, even though it’s not the quic