Will The Late-Night MBTA Ride Forever 'Neath The Streets Of Boston?
By EDGAR B. HERWICK III
Six month ago, on the first night of late night MBTA service, there was an unmistakable air of celebration.
On a recent weekend, there wasn’t the same buzz in the air, but there were still plenty of folks riding the rails. Katie was heading from Brookline to Copley to meet up with friends and said it's been a game changer for her.
"I have friends who live in East Boston and I'll go out and meet with them and I can stay a while before I have to catch a T home, which is nice," she said.
Among those on the trains were the very people T officials were hoping to attract: Servers heading home after their shifts, like Alejandra Uyarer, who’s saved quite a bit of money riding the late-night T the past few months.
Bailey, an intern from Montana working in a high-tech science field, is new in town, and was surprised to learn that late-night T service was new.
"I expected it to stay late because so many people are out at night," she said. "Especially college — there’s so many colleges around, young students."
Young students and post-grads made up the bulk of the crowds riding on this Friday night, including Erin, Brook and Mandy, who say the late-night service has meant fewer costly cab rides and no more sketchy walks home.
"Now that the T is finally running late night hours, it's just, it's safer, it's more cost efficient, it's cheaper," Erin said. "So it's made a really huge difference."
The trains and stations in and around hotspots like Kendall Square and Park Street were bustling into the wee hours, but you didn’t have to stray too far to find thinner crowds.
At Harvard Square, term "ghost town" would have been a little too strong, but there was definitely a sense of calm and quiet.
That doesn’t worry MBTA General Manager Beverly Scott, who says riders have been respectful, and ridership thus far has met, if not exceeded, her expectations.
"Oh, we’re over 500,000 now since like March 28th," she said. "On just rail alone, we at over 16,000 on the Friday and the Saturday nights and it’s really tracking very nicely.
That’s 16,000 — on average — per weekend.
Of more concern is the cost. Sponsors dollars are covering just $1.5 million of the $16 million it’s costing to run the late night T for a year.
"Make no mistake about this: It’s gonna be very, very challenging for us and for our board, because it is an expensive service, and this is really this administration and our MassDot that has said, 'We’re going to get out there and give it everything we can,'" Scott said.
So halfway through the yearlong pilot, does it appear the service is on track to become a permanent feature?
"We certainly love the service, what’s happening thus far, but in the scheme of things we’re going to have to line all the dollars and the cents up," Scott said.
That kind of caution won’t please Arthur Veale of Boston who says that what the many people he knows who work late night security and grocery jobs really need is a weekday late-night service.
"Most people don't work on weekends, they work on weekdays," he said. "I think if you're going to try running a trial based service, you ought to try and run it on the weekdays, when people are working, when people are coming in for overnight shifts."
Scott points out that they are still evaluating the service week-to-week and month-to-month, and that the single most important thing people who’d like to see it stay can do, is use it.
