MassDOT Announces High School Video Contest

08:30AM / Sunday, September 08, 2024Print Story | Email Story

BOSTON — The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT)announced entries are now being accepted for the eleventh annual statewide Safe Streets Smart Trips high school video contest.

This contest encourages students to showcase their understanding of roadway safety across all travel modes to try to decrease pedestrian and bicyclist injuries and fatalities. Per the contest guidelines, this year students are being asked to write and produce a 30-60 second video emphasizing "Empathy at the Intersection" and on the roadway.

"As part of our mission to deliver an equitable, inclusive transportation network, we intend to use every possible tool to stress the need for awareness of personal responsibility to safety on our roads," said Transportation Secretary and CEO Monica Tibbits-Nutt. "This annual contest gives us and the students who enter an opportunity to create further awareness about the shared responsibility of road safety."

The "Empathy at the Intersection" concept was created by MassDOT to draw attention to the various lived realities of road users, and it was on full display at the Empathy at the Intersection experiential exhibit at MassDOT’s 2024 Transportation Innovation Conference in Worcester, where attendees stepped back from their own commute and participated in different hands-on activities, to experience how vulnerable road users navigate streets.

As an initiative of the Massachusetts Strategic Highway Safety Plan to promote safe walking, bicycling and driving behaviors, the contest is open to all Massachusetts public high school students

and features a Freshman/Sophomore category and Junior/Senior category.

Grand prize, runner-up, and honorable mention videos in each category (Freshman/Sophomore and Junior/Senior) will be chosen by a MassDOT panel. Winning videos will be shown Wednesday, October 23, 2024, at MassDOT’s annual active transportation conference, Moving Together, where the creators will receive their prizes including $600 Amazon gift cards for the grand prize videos and $300 Amazon gift cards for the runner-up videos. Top videos may also be

used in future safety campaigns.

To learn more about the Safe Streets Smart Trips high school video contest visit Mass.gov/roadway-safety-video or call 857-383-3807.

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Pittsfield Housing Project Adds 37 Supportive Units and Collective Hope

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
05:01PM / Monday, December 29, 2025

PITTSFIELD, Mass.— A new chapter in local efforts to combat housing insecurity officially began as community leaders and residents gathered at The First on to celebrate a major expansion of supportive housing in the city.

The ribbon was cut on Thursday Dec. 19, on nearly 40 supportive permanent housing units; nine at The First, located within the Zion Lutheran Church, and 28 on West Housatonic Street. The Housing Resource Center, funded by Pittsfield's American Rescue Plan Act dollars, hosted a celebration for a project that is named for its rarity: The First.

"What got us here today is the power of community working in partnership and with a shared purpose," Hearthway CEO Eileen Peltier said.

In addition to the 28 studio units at 111 West Housatonic Street and nine units in the rear of the church building, the Housing Resource Center will be open seven days a week with two lounges, a classroom, a laundry room, a bathroom, and lockers.

Erin Forbush, ServiceNet's director of shelter and housing, challenged attendees to transform the space in the basement of Zion Lutheran Church into a community center. It is planned to operate from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. year-round.

"I get calls from folks that want to help out, and our shelters just aren't the right spaces to be able to do that. The First will be that space that we can all come together and work for the betterment of our community," Forbush said.

"…I am a true believer that things evolve, and things here will evolve with the people that are utilizing it."

Earlier that day, Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities Secretary Ed Augustus joined Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll and her team in Housatonic to announce $33.5 million in federal Community Development Block Grant funding, $5.45 million to Berkshire County.

He said it was ambitious to take on these two projects at once, but it will move the needle. The EOHLC contributed more than $7.8 million in subsidies and $3.4 million in low-income housing tax credit equity for the West Housatonic Street build, and $1.6 million in ARPA funds for the First Street apartments.

"We're trying to get people out of shelter and off the streets, but we know there are a lot of people who are couch surfing, who are living in their cars, who are one paycheck away from being homeless themselves," Augustus said.

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