Mayor Wu needed a win. And while it might prove to be a costly one in the near-term, she got one last week in the form of a legacy public works project on Blue Hill Avenue.

Last Thursday, her administration green-lit an ambitious, $44 million modernization project that includes a center-running bus lane— a controversial plank in a larger plan that will reconfigure lanes, add safer transit for pedestrians and bicyclists, and put order to a chaotic parking scheme that varies up and down the avenue.

As with other big-picture initiatives that her administration is advancing in the face of sometimes fierce push-back, Wu seems determined to press ahead. Last Thursday, two hours after she officially announced that the project was “a go,” she sat with the Reporter for an exclusive interview. Her tone was upbeat, but the mayor leavened her optimism with frequent nods to the reality on the ground: She wants, and needs, more buy-in from her most impacted constituents.

“This is one of the most important quarters in the city,” Wu said of the Blue Hill Avenue corridor. “Every single weekday, we have the equivalent of two-times the home audience for the Celtics on the bus going down Blue Hill Ave. I think we have heard —and everybody’s known for a long time— that there are investments that are needed.”

She added: “We’ve agreed on the principles, we agree on what we need to do broadly, and now how do we translate that into a specific block-by-block design that people can really see and feel and start to envision. As we make the leap to now having a process to figure out the details to make it better and to direct the investment where it’s been needed for a long time, we see that as many, more conversations [to come]. Not the end point, but the starting point.”

It’s a tension familiar to most, if not all, elected officials, but definitely to big-city mayors: How does one advance a change agenda in a city that, at times, seems hard-wired to resist any deviation from a long-established status quo? In the case of Blue Hill Avenue, which traverses the city’s predominantly Black communities in Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan, there’s an added complication: A deep-seated mistrust of government stemming from generations of disinvestment.

As Wu herself puts it: “When something’s been the way that it’s been for such a long time, even if it’s problematic, there’s a little bit of getting used to that.”

The mayor’s approach, in the specific instance of Blue Hill Ave., seems to be an improvement over other City Hall-led initiatives that have been encountering more existential roadblocks in recent weeks.

A plan to rebuild and repurpose Franklin Park’s White Stadium has been slowed, if not mortally wounded, by legal challenges and critiques from key stakeholders— including park and preservationist lobbies that are foundational parts of the Wu coalition. A plan to relocate the John D. O’Bryant High School to a now-empty BPS facility in West Roxbury was scuttled in the last week—one year after Wu and BPS Superintendent Mary Skipper rolled out the proposal as the marquee move in a larger plan to modernize the school district.

By contrast, the Blue Hill Avenue roll-out last week was notable for its team approach. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley is a vocal supporter whose advocacy landed a $15 million federal grant that kick-started the idea of “transforming” Blue Hill Avenue in 2021. Pressley was a key voice in last week’s announcement, calling the current conditions along the thoroughfare “unacceptable,” adding “it must change.”  

The announcement was also peppered with supportive comments from US Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, and from a key ground-level ally, state Rep. Russell Holmes, who lives in the impacted corridor and who has a long record of standing up to constiutents wary of infrastructure changes in Mattapan and Dorchester.

On Thursday, Wu leaned into the team dynamics that drove the Blue Hill plan.

“We would not be able to move forward at this point, had Congresswoman Pressley and the entire federal delegation not secured this $15 million grant,” the mayor said. “That is a huge part of the financing for this. And it’s not just about the dollars. This coalition and this group of colleagues in public service— from the congresswoman and the senators to Representative Holmes, and the city councillors and state Senator Miranda… everyone who’s been involved in this, I think there’s been a shared understanding that transportation is at the foundation of every other challenge that we’re hearing about in our communities.”

While some critics say last week’s announcement was pre-baked, Wu counters that in fact her team went far beyond the normal community “process” to solicit input from constituents who don’t normally attend civic group meetings.

“There’s been years of engagement in all different venues: small chats, surveys, hopping on the bus and trying to survey as many riders as possible. Shadowing the bus drivers and interviewing them while they’re driving… recording anyone who would give feedback as they were waiting for the bus,” said Wu. “So, we’ve gotten a good sense of what needs to be fixed and now begins the hard work of what will be at least a year and a half, if not more, of really getting to the block-by-block design.”

Foes of the center-running bus lanes, Wu thinks, would do well to note that Blue Hill Avenue was once home to streetcars that ran along the center of the thoroughfare in the first half of the 20th century.

“I think it’s important also just to remind everyone of the history of this corridor – that, in fact, there used to be much more reliable public transportation that prioritized the residents of the city way before many areas had electrified rail running down their streets,” said Wu. “But then along with decades of disinvestment, as demographics shifted, that was replaced with prioritization of suburban commuters. And we now have to get back to a balance.

“We know Boston’s a key for the entire New England region — and that connection to cities outside Boston is really important. But we need our residents, and those who are on public transportation who already make up more than half the commuters on the corridor, to have just as smooth of an experience.”