This is maybe the single stupidest thing I have ever seen attributed to someone who is ostensibly a transit "expert"...and affiliated with MIT nonetheless.
A more radical notion involves paving over commuter rail tracks to open them up to more frequent service by smaller, electric, autonomous vehicles. Moavenzadeh makes the case that that could pull more single-driver vehicles from the road than today’s commuter rail service.
“We still call it commuter rail,” he says. “It was designed for the typical male breadwinner to take the train to the office and then come back – that 1950s lifestyle.”
Putting smaller vehicles onto those rights-of-way, he says, would allow service to better adjust to demand, whether a big festival in Boston, a Taylor Swift concert at Gillette, or a game at the Boston Garden. “It blows my mind that I can take the train to North Station to see a game,” Moavenzadeh says, “but the train to return leaves exactly eight minutes before the game ends.”
Going from "gee whiz these train schedules don't fit with this particular narrow use case" to "rip out the tracks, pave it with asphalt and let autonomous golf carts reclaim these ancient ROWs" should win the annual clownishness award from aB. That it's flavored by a subtle wink at the DEI community, suggesting only fedora-wearing 40-something WW2 vets use the commuter rail to go to their big office job makes me think this is actually some kind of PsyOp. Is this Rage Bait? Am I a sucker for some engagement tool by the Globe? This can't be serious. Increase headways and have adaptive schedules! Lord.