A Chicago friend is visiting Boston this weekend and marveled how efficiently the T was going from Logan to her hotel near Haymarket. Her minor complaint was State Street station could use a rehab.
The only thing she doesn't like is the Green Line cars with the stairs
The Achilles heel of the T is the commuter rail
50+ years later the culture of the old B&M, Boston & Albany division, and the New Haven still exists. The T commuter rail needs a 21st Century answer to the Budd Rail Diesel Car.
Completely agree.
Many of my European musician friends find themselves in Boston from time to time. And my wife is from Hong Kong.
While my wife is privy (through me) to many of the woes of American public transit, they all agree that in general, the purple line is by far the most lacking part of the MBTA. When the Orange, Red, and Blue lines work (which in pre-pandemic times, they did most of the time), they are excellent. They provide very fast, frequent and crucial services to Boston. The Green Line a little less so, but also very convenient and crucial when working well.
The purple line, IMO, needs to resemble the Red line a little more. It needs electrification, and preferably EMU's (though DMU's could suffice in the mean time). The station stops for many of the lines are not very far apart, and if service were every 15 minutes, it would be a game changer, and traffic would be significantly reduced in and around the Boston area. The lines with station stops further apart (Providence, Haverhill, Lowell, etc.) could retain their coaches, and have normal single power unit trains. Again, preferably electric.
One of my gripes with the Fitchburg Line (and I'm sure this applies to other lines) is that the ROW is horrendously under-utilized. There could easily be more frequent service for the stations inside R-128, utilizing DMU's now, and then have the normal hourly service covering the further flung suburbs beyond with normal current fleet trains.
