🚗 The worst day on the road

🏒 Beanpot tickets are officially on sale. Early next year, Boston college hockey teams will duke it out against each other for citywide bragging rights, and the whole thing is sponsored by Dunkin’. Tickets to the games are available here. 

👀 What’s on tap today:

Up first...

We have entered into peak Thanksgiving travel time, and by all projections, this year is going to be a big one. So we talked to local travel experts about how holiday travel is stacking up. 

Here’s what they said:

🧳 Travel numbers have bounced back in a big way. AAA predicts that 55.4 million travelers will be heading more than 50 miles from home for Thanksgiving, which is an increase of 2.3% over last year. The increase follows a trend of increasing travel they’ve been seeing all year, said Mark Schieldrop, senior spokesperson for AAA Northeast. Plus, these numbers and trends indicate that holiday travel has fully rebounded from COVID faster than many experts expected, Schieldrop said.

🚗 As usual, the vast majority of traffic will be on the road. Aka, 49.1 million of that 55.4. According to MassDOT, the worst travel day on the road is expected to be Tuesday, especially from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. From Wednesday through the end of the week, the agency said the roads will be the most packed during the middle of the day, so stick to early morning or later evening travel if you want the smoothest ride possible. You can check out MassDOT’s in-depth analysis here.

📅 Remote work may impact our usual peak travel days. Historically, we have tended to see the vast majority of travel happening on Tuesday and Wednesday, but post-pandemic, people’s schedules are a lot more flexible, Schieldrop said. And that means travel might be a little more spread out. So this year, we may see higher travel days being a bit more spread out than in the past, but “the peak won’t necessarily be as bad,” Schieldrop said.

🌧️ Bad weather probably won’t slow things down. Speaking of switching up travel days, the forecasted not-so-great weather on Tuesday and Wednesday might exacerbate that effect, although probably not too much. “New Englanders here are pretty hardy,” Schieldrop said. So most of them won’t let a little rain (or even a little snow) get in the way of their travel. If anything, rain could slow things down on the road a smidge or push more people to leave a little earlier or later to avoid the worst of it.

🛩️ As for planes, trains, and everything else, things look to be business-as-usual. Air travel is up from last year, Schieldrop said, and the busiest day for it will be Wednesday, with returning crowds more spread out across the end of the week and weekend. Train travel is also expected to be robust this year, according to Jen Flanagan, lead public relations specialist at Amtrak. Amtrak expects Sunday to be its busiest day so it has  adjusted for full and extended schedules and added capacity.

— Written by Gia Orsino

💰 Tipped minimum wage could be on the way out. An effort to phase out tipped minimum wage and replace it with the state minimum wage of $15 by 2029 has received 108,000 signatures in its favor, announced Cambridge advocacy group One Fair Wage. That’s well over the minimum required for the effort to continue its journey to the ballot. If it passes, Mass. would join seven other states that already require tipped workers to receive the standard minimum wage, but opponents of the measure say that it would be untenable for and overburden the service industry. 

🏠 A temporary migrant shelter plan is in the works. Officials are converting conference rooms in Boston’s state transportation building into temporary housing for homeless migrant families as it continues to get chillier outside. The housing is expected to be open for about two weeks and will accommodate 25 families. This news comes after the state’s emergency shelter system recently hit its 7,500 family capacity limit earlier this month, forcing families seeking shelter onto a waitlist of about 60 families, and as proposals for the shelter system’s future funding have been stalled by legislators.

🌧️ We have bad (and good) Thanksgiving weather news. We’ll start with the bad, since we already mentioned it: The weather isn’t looking great for travel Tuesday and Wednesday. So as you’re planning your travel, expect rain and potentially strong winds from late Tuesday through Wednesday, plus the possibility of snow in northern New England. But there's also some good news: On Thanksgiving day, things will be nice and sunny, if a bit chilly, for your turkey trots and family football games. Now that’s something to be (half) grateful for.

🎄The Boston Common holiday tree is en route. Well, if you’re reading this before 11 a.m. on Nov. 21, it is. 11 a.m. is when the tree is scheduled to arrive, and as per tradition, it’s coming all the way from Nova Scotia, where the 40-year-old, 45-foot-tall white spruce was donated to Boston from by Bette Gourley of Stewiacke, N.S., and her family. The public is invited to cheer for its arrival. In other holiday news: The Snowport is celebrating small business Saturday by offering complimentary gift wrapping at the Holiday Market on Nov. 26.

— Written by Gia Orsino

Enter to win our BIGGEST giveaway yet (worth $600!+). We’ve curated a gift basket containing items from some of Boston's favorite brands (Think Handlebar Cycling, Big Night Entertainment, Down Under Yoga and more!). Refer a friend before 11/27 to be eligible–If you have already referred a friend to B-Side (and they’ve accepted), you're already enrolled! Full details below*

Tired: half priced apps at a Boston happy hour. Wired: playing with ten golden retrievers at this Vermont “happy” hour. 

A family farm is offering visitors the chance to take part in a version of heaven, aka their “Golden Retriever Experience.” Play, cuddle, and take photos with a group (or as they say, a “happy”) of more than 10 golden retrievers while you munch on fresh apple cider doughnuts. 

As you can imagine, the experience is highly reviewed, and is booked solid through December. Tickets through April are now available, so if you want to know what it’s like to hug six golden retrievers at once (and who doesn’t) now’s your chance.

— Written by Gia Orsino

🐶 Thanks for reading! Get in, loser, we’re going to play with 15 golden retrievers in Vermont. 

📝 A bit of housekeeping: We want to apologize and flag a correction from the Nov. 20 newsletter where we included the incorrect date and link (to last year’s event) for the Snowport’s Menorah Lighting. The correct event date is Sunday, Dec. 10th, and the info has been fixed in the archived newsletter. We regret the error, and appreciate those who pointed it out. 

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