Another thought on what is specifically wrong with the herald printing this:
Maybe in some ways that is not a bad thing. A system built for the weekday commute means excess equipment and facilities only used for a couple of hours each weekday. If the system was made more attractive for travel for shopping, entertainment, or tourism that would spread out the passenger load more. Making the system more attractive than driving or ubering is the key here.
I see no issues with this Herald story. They printed facts. Anyone with eyes can see that ridership is way down. Walk around downtown Boston during lunchtime and anyone can tell it's shell of its former self. And I don't know if it is every going to change. I have been wondering for sometime how the low ridership would affect the MBTA and so far this is the only news organization that reported on it.
I agree with this assessment. The T does not move the bulk of the people in this state to where they are traveling. The state office buildings in the city of Boston are essentially empty.
My main gripe with this article is the fact that it doesn't mention what I believe to be a major cause of declining ridership... service.
couple of points:
citation needed.
I have to agree with this. I was in Boston last summer for a few days for the purpose of tourism. Downtown Boston was hopping. The Silver Line bus we took from South Station to get our rental car (we were going to Maine) was packed full. When I returned the rental car, I took the Blue Line back to the hotel. It, too, was pretty crowded with locals going downtown for day trips (this was a Sunday). By the way, we ate dinner in the North End, Hanover St. was impassable from all the car traffic. There people want to go downtown for some nice Italian Food, why should they have to deal with driving? So people want to go to downtown Boston, and what passes for a street network makes driving very unpleasant. Why shouldn't the state spend $$$ to induce people to leave their cars at home?
Downtown Boston during the weekday is not what used to be. Not even close. Closed storefronts on every corner. The tourist areas might have rebounded some but I see and know where all the closed down restaurants used to be. Walk through the Park Square Building during your lunch break. The T numbers back it up. Every transit mode run by the MBTA is down 50% compared to pre-pandemic government shutdowns. My friends who work in finance go into the office 2 days a week at the most. Some weeks not at all. The state government workers don't go in at all. The state transportation building ironically, is mostly empty.
Outlined Here by Steve Poftak.
That is a reflection of the times
It probably made sense given that there were no realistic alternatives at the time for a self propelled DMU to replace the Budd RDC's (remember the SPV2000 fiasco). Pretty much every transit agency at the time was going with push pull trainsets even those that had electrified their lines.
I also think that the MBTA lost a lot of talent and expertise to retirement between 2010 and 2015 and did not find adequate replacements. The MBTA has been a disaster zone since the 2015 blizzard and shows no signs of recovering. Hopefully someone is taking notes at the MBTA and they are relearning how to run a transit agency.
As I understand the SPVs were a fiasco due to unions!
Except SEPTA, METRA, LIRR and MNRR on their electrified sections of course. NJT was the outlier and is now busy trying to reverse its course on their electrified segments after wasting over a billion dollars on various hairbrained schemes. If you want to see poor equipment planning for the type of service they ought to be providing NJT is the poster child. Each time they got new equipment their service on all lines slowed down by 5-10%
I agree whole-heartedly with this.
The Back Bay has bounced back BUT not the old downtown. In any event, the T has to reimage the service to the Seaport - The Silver Line was designed thinking the Patriots and Red Sox would move there. Perhaps it is time to look at the Indigo Line once again
SEPTA in the 1980's went with push pull (Bombardier coaches + AEM-7 locos) to replace the elderly MP-54 and RDG Blueliner MUs. Only much later on did they go back to MUs and go for the Hyundai Rotem Silverliner V to replace the Silverliner 2/3 fleet.
They had all of 7 push pull sets. The entire rest of the system remained EMU. The push-pulls were generally used, appropriately for services with more infrequent stops while EMUs were used consistently for frequent stop service.
https://commonwealthmagazine.org/economy/could-boston-face-an-urban-doom-loop/
