☀️ Sun’s out with highs in the 40s. Sunset is at 7:19 p.m.

Yesterday, GBH’s Jeremy Siegel told you about what Boston can learn from the way Tokyo residents get around almost entirely car-free — check it out here if you missed it.

Today he brings you a story that starts closer to home and zooms way, way out: Jade Harrelson grew up in Watertown and always dreamed of owning a home in Greater Boston, preferably near public transportation — her husband cannot drive because of a medical condition.

But budgets met reality and now she and her husband are buying a place in Agawam, just outside of Springfield. It’s part of a larger cycle: urban areas with better transit options become increasingly expensive, forcing people to move to communities with limited public transportation access, where they have no choice but to drive, leading to more traffic and higher emissions.

That’s what can happen when housing and transportation don’t go hand in hand, Jeremy reports. He shares lessons from Tokyo, highlighting the role of the city’s private rail companies.

Four Things to Know

Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson has agreed to plead guilty to one count of wire fraud and another of theft concerning a program receiving federal funds. A federal judge will ultimately decide her sentence, but federal prosecutors will recommend one year and one day in prison and three years of supervised release. They will also recommend she pay $13,000 in restitution. Fernandes Anderson was arrested in December, accused of illegally hiring a family member and then taking part of that relative’s bonus pay — $7,000 in cash.

Three year degrees? The Massachusetts Board of Higher Education may soon consider proposals allowing colleges and universities in the state to offer bachelor’s degree programs students can complete in three years instead of the traditional four. That would involve reducing the number of credits students need to complete their degrees, with a goal of creating a more affordable pathway. Right now students must earn 120 credits for a bachelor’s degree and 60 for an associate’s. Merrimack College in North Andover already has a three-year pilot program for majors such as business, health science, liberal arts and physics.

Politics at Mass. and Cass: Josh Kraft, who is running for Boston’s mayoral office, proposed a plan for reducing public drug use at Mass. and Cass: stepping up police enforcement, prosecuting people in specialized courts focused on recovery or mental health and building a recovery campus with concentrated services. “Mass. and Cass is a human tragedy, and it’s a public safety threat that the mayor does not want to talk about because she does not know how to fix it,” Kraft said. Incumbent Mayor Michelle Wu said a lot of what he’s suggesting is already in practice. Activist and fellow mayoral candidate Domingos DaRosa said Kraft’s plan sounded similar to one DaRosa himself proposed, with the advocacy group South End-Roxbury Community Partnerships, during the last mayoral race — but without a key piece: similar services not just in Boston, but statewide.

Not-so-wimpy: Jeff Kinney, author of the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” book series, has a side project: he and his wife Julie Kinney run An Unlikely Story, a bookstore and café in Plainville, Massachusetts. And now they want to bring new businesses to their town. “When you look at the historical pictures of Plainville, it was a place where people were walking through the downtown and they were gathering. That’s sort of gone away,” Julie Kinney said. They imagine a five-year, $20 million project to build a restaurant, along with a food and beverage garden, on the four parcels of land around their bookstore.

Tariffs creating traffic at some car dealerships

Customers at Parkway Toyota of Boston in West Roxbury this week were all talking about one thing, manager Michael Colby said: “The tariffs, the tariffs, the tariffs.”

“There are so many unknowns. We are expecting the pricing of all of our vehicles to go up. We don’t know when,” Colby said. “There is a ton of uncertainty for the dealer and the customer.”

President Donald Trump’s 25% tax on foreign cars went into effect last week, and additional taxes on auto parts made internationally are getting phased in through May 3. U.S.-based car companies also use parts and materials made in other countries.

Colby said his business has doubled, and customers are quicker to buy. That mirrors national trends: carmakers sold almost 1.6 million cars and trucks in March, up 13.6%, according to the Associated Press.

However, that does not mean those buyers are motivated by good deals, said Esther Parks, who manages the automotive brokerage company StressLess Car.

“What this [tariff increase] is going to do is have dealers coming back up with the higher pricing because it’s still going to be cheaper than paying the costs of the tariffs,” Parks said. “So we’re not seeing discounts as great as they were a few weeks ago.”

And those price increases will likely affect used cars too, she said. If people aren’t buying as many new cars, fewer used cars are on the market — and since most Americans still need cars to get around, there probably won’t be a drop in total demand for cars. That could drive up prices too, Parks said.

Of course, part of the uncertainty consumers and car dealers are feeling is that the president (and leaders from other countries) can make tariffs appear and disappear with the stroke of a pen.

“If all countries said, ‘Hey, we want to strike a deal, no tariffs’ — that would be excellent for everybody,” Colby said.

Read the full story from GBH’s Robert Goulston here.