🚗 Livin’ young, and wild, and (car) free

🥦 Can you guess who’s in Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s dream blunt rotation? Hint: It’s not Ed Markey or Bernie Sanders. In fact, she picked this one unexpected celebrity FOUR times. 

👀 What’s on tap today:

Up first…

Is having a car around Boston worth it? With skyrocketing housing costs pushing us outside city limits and unreliable public transit, flirting with four wheels is certainly tempting. But when the reality of yearly maintenance, gas, and parking hits … How do you make the call?

We polled nearly 700 car-driving and car-free B-Siders to hear how they made their decision. Here’s what we learned:

🚗 No matter how hard it tries, Boston is a city of cars. In the words of Bostonians themselves, we don’t exactly live in a pedestrian paradise. In fact, Boston car ownership has grown exponentially in the past decade, even as our population has tapered and costs have risen. Today, more than a third of commuters in Mass. get to work by driving. According to our polled readers, 52% own cars and 35% claim they can’t live without one.

🚫 But that’s not necessarily by choice. A number of readers expressed that owning a car is a necessity that’s determined by their neighborhood’s navigability or their work commute. Some of Boston’s more affordable neighborhoods, like Roslindale and Hyde Park, are also among the least well-served by the actual subway, with only the commuter rail and buses connecting them to the rest of the city. “I really wish I could live without a car, but I live in [Roslindale]. I’m so far from everything,” said one reader. 

😮‍💨 Meanwhile, those who are car-free cited the $$$. Brookline resident Leah Dickman started driving again after feeling “trapped” during MBTA shutdowns, only to drop her car off at her parents’ house days later due to unexpected ticketing and high parking costs. “It’s like adding another $300 to your monthly rent just for a spot … I just can’t afford that.” she said. It’s true, owning a car ain’t cheap, particularly in Mass. And if you don’t want to roll the dice with street parking (and street sweeping tickets), you’d be hard-pressed to find a spot for under $200 a month.

🙋 So how do the carless get around? Carpooling, biking, Zipcar, and even taking long walks were all popular mentions, but they don’t come without issues. Although Boston has made headlines for being a bike-friendly city, it’s no secret that many Bostonians would beg to differ. And while Zipcar can be a life saver every now and again, their hourly rate can add up depending on how long you need one for. 

💆‍♂️ 🛌 Things to do in Boston in February and March: A) Leave — and spend a fortune on a warm-weather trip; B) hibernate at home; or C) plan a cozy (and more affordable) winter staycation. If you’re leaning toward C, head over to the Omni Boston Hotel at the Seaport for a weekend of self-care and rejuvenation. From unwinding at Breve Spa and exploring a 24-hour art gallery, to dining at lively restaurants like Kestra, The Sporting Club, and Coquette, there are plenty of ways to brighten up the winter gloom. Book a room for two nights or more now through March 31 and save 20% on your stay. Or, if you’re simply looking for a spa day without the overnight stay, pamper yourself with promo code “Serenity” to receive $30 off Breve Spa services (including mani-pedis, massages, facials, and body treatments) booked midweek, from Monday through Thursday.

🏈 Say goodbye to Captain Slater. In another gut-punch to New England sports fans, longtime Pats captain and key special teams player Matthew Slater announced his retirement on Tuesday. Slater has been with the Pats the entirety of his 16-year NFL career (13 of which were spent as a captain), earning recognition as one of the team’s most iconic players on and off the field. Lots of Pats bigwigs gave Slater a shoutout online, with Tom Brady congratulating him on a “perfect career,” but it was his own goodbye message that made us shed a tear. 

👛 Heading to TD Garden? Leave your tote bag at home. TD Garden recently rolled out a brand new bag policy mandating that you can no longer bring in a bag larger than a measly 6 x 4 x 1.5 inches, with exceptions for diaper or medicine bags. If you do need to bring in anything bigger, you can, but it’ll cost you $15 to store it in a locker. The new updates also include new AI sensor security that scans guests as they walk in. And you better believe some Massholes were upset about it.

💸 These activists put a price on Boston reparations. The Boston People’s Reparations Commission, a local grassroots organization, called on the city to pay $15 billion in reparations to Black Bostonians in the form of individual payouts, institutions that support Black businesses and homeownership, and more. The path forward for the commission’s goal is somewhat unclear, but there will apparently be community hearings come May. Meanwhile, Boston’s official reparations task force has been meeting since 2023, and recently announced two new research partnerships. 

🗳️ Ready … set … VOTE! Not to be that annoying friend, but here’s your gentle reminder it’s a presidential election year and on March 5, a.k.a. Super Tuesday, it’ll be our turn to cast a ballot in the primary. If you’re not registered to vote, you have until Feb. 24 to get it done. If you’re already registered, there are options to vote in-person at your local polling place on the day, or early, by mail, or you can request an absentee ballot by Feb. 27. Check out Boston.com’s full guide to the primary here.

Did you know your dog can be a witness at your wedding in Boston? 

Okay, technically, you don’t need any witnesses to get married in Mass. (state law says as long as you’ve got a marriage license, an officiant, and are married in state, you’re good to go). So Melrose residents Marcela Dwork and Stephen Randall did the most millennial thing ever and brought their two German Shepherds to watch them seal the deal at Boston City Hall last week. 

In a B-Side exclusive, we got to film the whole ordeal, and let us just say, as the only human witnesses, it was arguably the most wholesome ceremony we’ve ever seen.

Marcela and Stephen, we wish you a marriage filled with lots of love, happiness, and hopefully, some extra lints rollers. You can watch the whole video here.

— Written by Gia Orsino and Emily Schario

🥲 Thanks for reading! You can roast millennials all you want for being too obsessed with their pets, we still loved it!

💜 Special shoutout to today's sponsor, Omni Boston Hotel at the Seaport, for supporting local journalism and offering Bostonians and visitors an escape from the doldrums of winter.

❄️ The results are in: Most B-Siders (58%!) guessed correctly that it’s been 723 (now 724) days since our last significant snow. One reader said: “I haven’t shoveled in two years so…”

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