Boston Launches Curb Lab: Bringing New Solutions to Old Streets

BOSTON – February 11th, 2026 – Every day, curbs in Boston take on new needs: accommodating bicyclists and pedestrians, supplying parking, keeping delivery trucks moving, providing accessible drop-off zones, supporting outdoor dining, and keeping traffic flowing. In response to these growing demands, the City of Boston's Office of Emerging Technology has launched the Boston Curb Lab to create and maintain a real-time digital understanding of parking regulations and build tools that help residents navigate parking.

After a year of project work, the Curb Lab was named Apolitical's '50 States, 50 Breakthroughs' honoree for the State of Massachusetts, recognizing the most forward-thinking government projects that improve how citizens are served. Powered by modern data tools and artificial intelligence, the Curb Lab will enable city planners, transportation experts, and policymakers to balance competing demands for curb space for years to come. Project work is already being used to develop reliable tow zone alerts, track food delivery congestion and safety, and build public maps that improve parking accessibility.

"Every delivery truck circling for a loading zone adds congestion and emissions. Every unclear sign and process creates unnecessary confusion and safety risks," said Michael Lawrence Evans, Director, Office of Emerging Technology. "These problems affect how people get around, how businesses operate, and the quality of life in our neighborhoods. The Curb Lab is our answer to that challenge."

Managing curb space effectively requires more than new signage or policy changes. Modern advances in artificial intelligence and data tools make a dynamic approach possible, capable of converting 400 years of parking rules and historical information into a citywide map of parking regulations. With this new publicly accessible database, residents will be able to quickly and reliably answer "can I park here?". This forward-looking effort to modernize city operations represents a critical step toward a broader vision of how people experience and perceive the city, aligning with long-term initiatives such as Go Boston 2030 and Vision Zero.

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"The curb is one of the most complex and overlooked pieces of city infrastructure," said Sam Brenner, Transportation Technology Strategist, Office of Emerging Technology. "We're approaching curb problems with a product mindset: prioritizing impact, listening to residents and City stakeholders, and adapting based on what works."

This initiative continues Boston's ongoing curb modernization work funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation SMART Grant, awarded in 2024. The Curb Lab includes partners across the City of Boston, including the Streets Cabinet, Innovation and Technology Cabinet, Office of the Parking Clerk, Office of New Mobility, and Citywide Analytics team. These teams are putting this digital inventory to work, building systems and harnessing data that will reduce costs over time, help coordinate curb decisions, and improve efficiency.

"For over 40 years, our curb data has lived in disconnected systems that didn't talk to each other," said Amelia Capone, Director of Parking and Curbside Management, Office of the Parking Clerk. "Through the Curb Lab's leadership, we're finally able to link these systems together. That means less duplication of work, faster response times to constituent requests, and better internal coordination that will directly improve traffic flow and safety on our streets."

The Curb Lab uses the Curb Data Specification (CDS), an open standard developed by the Open Mobility Foundation. CDS makes information about parking rules, loading zones, time restrictions, and other curb regulations available to the systems residents and businesses already use – mapping apps, delivery platforms, and City permitting tools. It also means other cities can adopt Boston's approach without building everything from scratch.

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This approach is revolutionizing parking and curb management nationwide by introducing cutting-edge, cost-effective, impactful, and replicable solutions. Boston will soon become the first major city in the country to use entirely open-source tools to create and share curb data with the public, which has earned recognition from industry leaders like Code for America. All of the code the Curb Lab produces will be open-sourced upon completion, enabling cities worldwide to follow Boston's example and replace expensive, outdated methods of tracking their curbs.

"Boston is setting the standard for how cities manage curb space in the 21st century," said Andrew Glass Hastings, Executive Director of the Open Mobility Foundation (OMF). "As a member of the OMF's SMART Curb Collaborative, they have fully embraced the challenge, and they're the first to build and deploy these tools at scale using CDS—and they're making it widely accessible so other cities can follow. What Boston is doing today, cities across the country will be able to do tomorrow."

In addition to the Open Mobility Foundation, the Curb Lab works closely with a range of talented external partners across the public, private, and non-profit sectors. These partnerships enable the Curb Lab to bring the latest technological innovations, research, and curb-management best practices to City Hall. The growing list of Curb Lab partners includes:

• Cambridge Systematics (https://camsys.com/)
• Stamen Design (https://stamen.com/)
• CurbIQ / Arcadis (https://www.curbiq.io/)
• UrbanismNext Center (https://www.urbanismnext.org/)
• OMF's SMART Curb Collaborative (https://www.openmobilityfoundation.org/smart-curb-collaborative/)

More details on upcoming projects will be shared at boston.gov/curb-lab (https://www.boston.gov/curb-lab) as work progresses. Open-source code will be made available in the coming months.

WHAT IS NEXT FOR THE OFFICE OF EMERGING TECHNOLOGY?

The City of Boston continues to pursue a variety of innovative projects, including:

• Blue Hill Ave. Environmental Sensor Network (https://www.boston.gov/departments/emerging-technology/environmental-sensor-network-blue-hill-avenue): This community-led action-research project operates Boston's largest and densest environmental sensor network to improve environmental quality across neighborhoods from Dudley Town Common to Franklin Park.
• Critical Mass: (https://www.boston.gov/news/climate-tech-startups-come-partner-boston) a partnership opportunity for climate tech startups to help advance Boston's climate goals
• Project Green Light: (https://www.boston.gov/news/city-boston-partners-google-traffic-signal-optimization) Reducing traffic congestion with artificial intelligence.

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