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Yeah. People don't need fancy looking trains. People want clean, fast, reliable, all-day and all-night access to quality transit. I'd much rather sit on an older train that's maintained properly that arrives on time, has short headways, and runs 24/7 if the alternative is one that never runs 24/7, is constantly delayed, and catches on fire but looks new and pretty. For all the gripe of NYC subways, the new trains are clean and modern, and the old trains are generally in good shape and have the better A/C (IMO), and our delays are only bad because the city is so reliant on the subways. If trains were a few minutes delayed in most other cities, the overcrowding would probably not be as noticeable. Also, many of the oldest systems just more recently started getting newer trains (Paris and Montreal come to mind).
However, I can see the T's ridership falling as Boston outprices itself, just like many other urban cities. Many of the neighborhoods best served by rail are often now prohibitively expensive. Wealthy families living in a city with small kids often have cars to travel around, while those without the money to afford a car in the city are living further and further away from transit stops. So those with access are not using the transit, and those who would use the transit don't have good access anymore. I think that's honestly a problem in a lot of cities. Combine that with lower gas prices, poor service on many US transit systems, and service cuts in some with the rise of Uber/Lyft and we're seeing dropping transit usage.
THe T Ridership will be reversed in the next 5-10 years... lots of changes happening.
2019-2020: Orange and Red Line Car Replacements will make the T More Pleasant.
2019+: 8 Billion Dollar Revenue to perform service enhancements.
2021: Green Line Extension to Somerville and Medford including Union Square, Magnoun Square and Tufts University.
2023: Commuter Rail Extension to New Bedford and Fall River.
2024: APM to Logan Airport connecting it to Blue Line, Airport Station.
*2024: If Future Green Line Extension gets approved, we could see further service to West Medford (2 More Stops)
*~2025/2026: Possible Red-Blue Line Connector
*~2026-2028: Possible Blue Line Extension to Lynn.
-Also there is about 1,000+ housing units being constructed at each, Quincy Center, Wollaston, North Quincy, South Station, Suffolk Downs, Kendall/MIT, North Station, Haymarket, Govt Center, Back Bay and Kendall...
-Wollaston Station is being rebuilt as well.
So I can see an uptick in passengers on the T throughout the 2020s... 2010s seemed to be the real low for the T.
Although if they REALLY want to see ridership increase, I suggest utilizing the railroad tracks throughout Kendall and connecting Kenmore to MIT to Chelsea and eventually the Airport area by making the double track actually happen (its planned). Then extending the Orange Line to Dudley through a light rail extension. Ontop of GLX, Blue/Red Connector and Lynn Blue Extension and all these improvements, we may see the T ridership flour!
Hmm... I don't know why there's such a large discrepancy between the two sources. The MBTA uses a 12-month rolling average to estimate the ridership trend (unlike the APTA, which just counted the total number of unlinked passenger trips per year and calculated percentage change from there), but even so, I'm still surprised by the huge difference between the two sources.
Nevertheless, I'll take the MBTA's word over the APTA's.
Quote:
Originally Posted by masssachoicetts
THe T Ridership will be reversed in the next 5-10 years... lots of changes happening.
2019-2020: Orange and Red Line Car Replacements will make the T More Pleasant.
2019+: 8 Billion Dollar Revenue to perform service enhancements.
2021: Green Line Extension to Somerville and Medford including Union Square, Magnoun Square and Tufts University.
2023: Commuter Rail Extension to New Bedford and Fall River.
2024: APM to Logan Airport connecting it to Blue Line, Airport Station.
*2024: If Future Green Line Extension gets approved, we could see further service to West Medford (2 More Stops)
*~2025/2026: Possible Red-Blue Line Connector
*~2026-2028: Possible Blue Line Extension to Lynn.
-Also there is about 1,000+ housing units being constructed at each, Quincy Center, Wollaston, North Quincy, South Station, Suffolk Downs, Kendall/MIT, North Station, Haymarket, Govt Center, Back Bay and Kendall...
-Wollaston Station is being rebuilt as well.
So I can see an uptick in passengers on the T throughout the 2020s... 2010s seemed to be the real low for the T.
Although if they REALLY want to see ridership increase, I suggest utilizing the railroad tracks throughout Kendall and connecting Kenmore to MIT to Chelsea and eventually the Airport area by making the double track actually happen (its planned). Then extending the Orange Line to Dudley through a light rail extension. Ontop of GLX, Blue/Red Connector and Lynn Blue Extension and all these improvements, we may see the T ridership flour!
Great to hear that Greater Boston is taking housing seriously and pursuing transit-oriented development! Back in the Bay Area where I went to college, ferocious NIMBY opposition and intentionally restrictive zoning rules make such large-scale housing construction virtually impossible (someone correct me if I'm wrong.) SB 50 in California is designed to override some local zoning regulations and force California municipalities to build more housing near transit lines, but it faces a tough slog in the California State Legislature. If SB 50 does becomes law, I'd be surprised if the NIMBYs didn't launch a veto referendum against it.
But anyway, returning to Boston and the T... it's nice to see that we have plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the near future of the T.
What are those tracks in Kendall Square currently used for? The MBTA should definitely put them to use if possible since they run through such dense areas. Chelsea definitely has the density to warrant heavy rail. If the Orange Line is to be extended to Dudley, I'd prefer to see a heavy rail branch rather than a light rail one (higher speed and capacity, and Roxbury's density justifies heavy rail), but if the light rail extension has its own private ROW like the Green Line Extension or the Tremont St/Boylston St Subways, then it could still work pretty well.
If the Orange Line is to be extended to Dudley, I'd prefer to see a heavy rail branch rather than a light rail one (higher speed and capacity, and Roxbury's density justifies heavy rail), but if the light rail extension has its own private ROW like the Green Line Extension or the Tremont St/Boylston St Subways, then it could still work pretty well.
YM "returned to Dudley."
Dudley Square was one of the original termini of the 1901 Main Line Elevated.
I believe the tracks in Kendall (Grand Junction Line) are used for moving trains from the South Side to the North Side for maintenance and are otherwise relatively unused. There are alternative routes for that and the North-South Rail Link will eventually make the separation between North and South side irrelevant whenever that gets built. As far as light vs. heavy rail on the Grand Junction Line the reason for using light rail is that there are many constraints that make it impossible to fully remove all grade crossings and therefore light rail is easier to use. The light rail in Boston is also run as a much higher capacity form of transit than in most of the United States and there will be an easy direct link between that line and the Green Line Extension branches.
It would essentially operate as a non-downtown bound Green Line branch.
This is one of the at grade crossings that cannot be removed. The building built above the line prevents it from being elevated and the Red Line runs in a tunnel that is close to the surface here that is about 100 years old and cannot be safely tunneled under.
The light rail line would have to end before the airport from what I have heard because it would be prohibitively expensive to tunnel under the Chelsea Creek which separates Chelsea from the airport. The Chelsea creek also has frequent ship movements that force any bridge to either be very tall or have a movable span because it is a part of the Port of Boston.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
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Just to update, DC's Metro system is moving forward with their newest 8000 series rail cars:
"Hitachi Rail Washington LLC has been selected by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) to build Metrorail’s 8000-series rail cars to replace WMATA’s aging 2000-series and 3000-series cars, which have been in service since the early 1980s.
The $2.2-billion contract includes a base order of 256 cars with options to build up to 800 in the fleet."
This will modernize the entire DC Metrorail system to probably have the most modernized subway fleet of cars in America, if it isn't already. The 7000 series have been around about 6 years now and are excellent, with more than half of them making up the entire fleet of rail cars in DC now, but the 8000's will be a step above that.
I know BART had some newer trains out there, and with the expansions in LA, and other cities are there any more major updates to their rail fleets to compare?
Just to update, DC's Metro system is moving forward with their newest 8000 series rail cars:
"Hitachi Rail Washington LLC has been selected by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) to build Metrorail’s 8000-series rail cars to replace WMATA’s aging 2000-series and 3000-series cars, which have been in service since the early 1980s.
The $2.2-billion contract includes a base order of 256 cars with options to build up to 800 in the fleet."
This will modernize the entire DC Metrorail system to probably have the most modernized subway fleet of cars in America, if it isn't already. The 7000 series have been around about 6 years now and are excellent, with more than half of them making up the entire fleet of rail cars in DC now, but the 8000's will be a step above that.
I know BART had some newer trains out there, and with the expansions in LA, and other cities are there any more major updates to their rail fleets to compare?
Don't you mean here that the Kawasaki-built 7000-series cars make up more than half of the entire fleet of Metrorail cars now in service?
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