Mayor Michelle Wu yesterday recapped a historic year for the City of Boston's basic city services across neighborhoods to improve quality of life for residents. She shared that the City has completed 50 miles of street resurfacing during the 2025 construction season - setting a new record for annual roadway improvements. In addition to the record-setting street resurfacing, the City rebuilt nearly 37,000 feet of new sidewalk, reconstructed a record 1,723 ADA compliant ramps, filled more than 4,000 potholes, and upgraded over 2,278 lighting fixtures. Mayor Wu also highlighted the efforts of Boston 311, the City's Constituent Service Center and the Boston Rodent Action Plan (BRAP) to ensure Boston residents are connected to resources and neighborhoods are safe, clean and healthy for all.

"Investing in Boston's basic city services is critical to address the issues that most affect Boston residents' daily lives. This year, we made historic strides in improving the wide range of services needed to serve our residents, from street resurfacing to lighting upgrades to accessible ramps," said Mayor Michelle Wu. "I am incredibly grateful to our City departments for their coordinated efforts. We look forward to getting even more done in 2026."

"This year's resurfacing and reconstruction efforts are a testament to the hard work and dedication of our Streets team," said Interim Chief of Streets Nick Gove. "Thanks to their efforts, we're making our city safer and easier to navigate for everyone who lives, works, and travels here."

"Our dedicated workforce has done an outstanding job delivering essential city services to Boston residents," said Superintendent of Basic City Services Mike Brohel. "We continue to stay focused on the everyday work that keeps our city running - resurfacing streets, ensuring trash and recycling are collected on time, removing snow promptly, replacing streetlights, and keeping our roads, sidewalks, and parks clean and safe."

Before a street is scheduled for resurfacing, engineers conduct thorough assessments to evaluate the pavement condition of every block across Boston. The resurfacing budget is then prioritized for streets most in need of repair. Over the past three years, 73 percent of capital funding from the Public Works and Transportation Department budget has been dedicated to maintaining and repairing roads, sidewalks, and bridges. These investments reflect a strong commitment to ensuring Boston's streets and sidewalks remain reliable and accessible for all users.

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To address a longstanding backlog of sidewalk repair requests, the City launched six neighborhood-specific sidewalk repair contracts covering Allston-Brighton, Mattapan, Roslindale, and Mission Hill. In addition, two citywide contracts were executed to address both brick and concrete sidewalk repairs citywide. The Public Works Department (PWD) also maintains a dedicated in-house team of skilled craftsmen who provide timely brick sidewalk repairs reported through Boston 311.

All resurfacing, sidewalk, and ramp improvements are designed in full compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), ensuring that every resident and visitor - regardless of mobility needs - can travel confidently and comfortably throughout our neighborhoods.

The Public Works Street Lighting Division also reached several major milestones this year. In addition to their daily work maintaining more than 71,000 electric streetlights and 2,800 gas lights, the team completed targeted lighting upgrades along key corridors, including Blue Hill Avenue (432 fixtures), Downtown Crossing (370 fixtures), Nubian Square (291 fixtures), American Legion Highway (194 fixtures), and River St. (133 fixtures). These improvements enhance safety for drivers and pedestrians while reducing energy consumption and maintenance costs. These upgrades represent one of the most ambitious lighting initiatives the city has undertaken in recent years.

The Boston Transportation Department (BTD) Markings Team completed 42 miles of striping, installed 23 new crosswalks, and re-striped 1,694 crosswalks citywide this season. As part of the annual school zone refresh, BTD also made sign changes and upgrades to eight schools and refreshed pavement markings at 11 schools. The BTD Signal Shop updated 21 intersections this year and installed approximately 70 new, updated controllers this year to transition intersections from outdated copper wire to more reliable fiber optic cable. Signal updates consist of replacing signal bases, shafts, pedestrian crosswalk housings, and signal housings. Controllers are the equipment used within signal "cabinets" to control the signal timing.

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Residents and business owners can learn more about the resurfacing process, what to expect when crews are working in their neighborhood, and check if their streets are scheduled for resurfacing by visiting the City of Boston Resurfacing webpage. The site also features a GIS map to help pinpoint the specific streets and work locations.

Boston 311 picked up more than 260,000 calls with an average hold time of 14 seconds. 311's service level percentage stands at 95% which puts Boston 15% above the industry standard. Across City departments, 311 connected more than 6,000 calls to interpreters, assisting residents in 17 different languages.

"Boston 311 is the nervous system of basic city services. Our call takers work around the clock year-round to respond to constituents' needs," said Irgi Budo, Director of Boston 311. "Our team is excited about our new CRM system's latest advancements. This advanced technology will help our call takers gather information faster to support more residents when they call."

This year, the City continued to address and reduce the rodent population with the Boston Rodent Action Plan (BRAP), a coordinated, multi-agency initiative to mitigate the rodent population in Boston and maintain an excellent quality of life for Boston residents, families, and visitors. Since January 2025, the ISD Environmental division has completed 1,785 site cleanliness inspections, conducted 750 rodent treatments, issued 694 violations, and responded to 5,957 rodent-related 311 complaints. The City has also piloted and scaled new neighborhood-specific interventions, installing 40 sewer traps in the North End and the Back Bay that exterminate rodents and provide sub-surface data, deployed over 60 Smart Box traps in Chinatown, Allston, and South Boston, and replaced over 100 trash barrels with new rodent-resistant barrels across parks citywide. This work builds on the City's education campaign:"Out Rat Them…See Something, Squeak Something!," which urges residents to report signs of rodent activity to 311.

"I'm beyond proud of the accomplishments of our public servants over the past 12 months to address quality of life issues that our residents depend on," said Dion Irish, Chief of Operations. "This past year we achieved huge successes in removing illegal graffitti, maintaining our facilities and conducting safety inspections. 2025 was not a good year for rats, due to the amazing work of the multi-agency collaboration on the Boston Rodent Action Plan."

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