General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

[jklo]

It's something but the CR needs much more than just cheaper monthly passes. There are too many zones, some stations (such as Lynn or the Brockton stops) should probably be moved to nearer fare zones for equity, individual fares obviously need to be cut too, and some zones should possibly have their fares cut by more than 1/2 (Such as Zones 1/2) while other zones (~7-10ish) probably don't need the full 1/2 cut. Using single fares for an example, I don't think a fare of $10 to get to Providence is necessarily unfair, for example.

Temporary Summer thing perhaps? When I looked into it, the cost was 16-16.5 roundtrips per month, if you don't use the subway at all. Dunno what the % stay home on Fridays, but it's probably high. Throw in a vacation or two and you could see why people drop the pass during the Summer. And if you say allowed free subway transfer, you'd have to include those people too.

When talking about cheaper fares overall, also have to consider the loss per rider (versus say bus or subway)

 

[Delvin4519]

Green Line to have more shutdowns in the Fall after the August shutdown

The most important sentence:

Through this service outage and other outages being planned later this year, work crews will:

REMINDER: Green Line Will Be Suspended Between Government Center and Babcock Street (B), Government Center and Cleveland Circle (C), North Station and Kenmore (D), North Station and Heath Street (E) for Nine Days, August 8 – 16 | News | MBTA

Official website of the MBTA -- schedules, maps, and fare information for Greater Boston's public transportation system, including subway, commuter rail, bus routes, and boat lines.

www.mbta.com

 

[themissinglink]

What’s wrong with the Blue Line? - The Boston Globe

The oft-reliable T line is coming off a troubling bout of service interruptions that agency officials say is difficult to diagnose.

www.bostonglobe.com

The interruptions are erratic, but not infrequent: An analysis of T data by the transit advocacy group TransitMatters found the Blue Line met only 75 percent of its scheduled service in July, the lowest amount since partial shutdowns hobbled the line in 2023.
Total travel time in both directions is ticking upward. North Shore commuters who park and ride from Wonderland have reported sporadic delays and slowdowns that extended a 20-minute ride to one hour or more. Trains are lingering at or between stations more frequently.
The problems stand out because the Blue Line always seemed the smoothest and performs well overall on most days: 92 percent of Blue Line riders reach their destination within five minutes of scheduled arrivals, according to T data.
T officials admit the current state of the Blue Line is neither acceptable nor easily diagnosed. Spokesperson Lisa Battiston said there is “no common root cause or proposed mitigation” for the recent incidents.
[...]
A 2023 MBTA capital needs report found that just 15 percent of the Blue Line power assets were in a state of good repair, meaning fully functioning without safety restrictions. That is a lower share than any other line. Agency officials estimated it would cost $421 million to fix.