Commuters Ditched Public Transit for Work From Home. Now There’s a Crisis.

San Francisco's BART is only 29% of pre-COVID ridership. Boston's MBTA faces a crippling labor shortage forcing continued service cuts in 2023, and fiscal cliffs and budget shortfalls after 2024. Other major U.S. cities are seeing major safety incidents onboard their transit systems, such as Chicago and Philadelphia.

Is it possible that the MBTA could ever be in a positon where transit service in the Boston area would have to be cut to what San Francisco is facing?

Hourly train service until 9:00 p.m., Monday through Friday ONLY.

NO evening service or weekend service (Saturday, Sunday).

Some lines scrapped and stations closed.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1662936258895593472

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1662939555777871873
 
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Delvin4519 said:
San Francisco's BART is only 29% of pre-COVID ridership. Boston's MBTA faces a crippling labor shortage forcing continued service cuts in 2023, and fiscal cliffs and budget shortfalls after 2024. Other major U.S. cities are seeing major safety incidents onboard their transit systems, such as Chicago and Philadelphia.

Is it possible that the MBTA could ever be in a positon where transit service in the Boston area would have to be cut to what San Francisco is facing?
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Big difference is that there's been a mass exodus from SF. People didn't go too far though... mainly to Sacramento.
 
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Interesting that Google search trends for bus public transit returned to pre-COVID normal in the UK, Netherlands, and Sweden, but in the US and other English speaking countries outside the UK, search trends for bus public transit remains below pre-COVID levels.

Boston has not returned to pre-COVID trends in searches for bus public transit.

Boston, San Francisco:
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United States:
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Search results in New York City, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand returned similar disappointing and disturbing trends. Trends are slightly better improving outside of the United States.

United Kingdom, Netherlands:
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Search results in Sweden, France, Spain, and Portugal all returned similar trends, back to pre-COVID normal by April 2022. Other western European countries such as Germany, Austria and Italy; are very close to pre-COVID normal, compared to the U.S..
 
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Delvin4519 said:
San Francisco's BART is only 29% of pre-COVID ridership. Boston's MBTA faces a crippling labor shortage forcing continued service cuts in 2023, and fiscal cliffs and budget shortfalls after 2024. Other major U.S. cities are seeing major safety incidents onboard their transit systems, such as Chicago and Philadelphia.

Is it possible that the MBTA could ever be in a positon where transit service in the Boston area would have to be cut to what San Francisco is facing?
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The severity of BART's ridership problems appear to be heavily crime related.

Their recent survey indicates only 17% of riders feel safe riding it, 53% say they know someone who's been the victim of a crime on it, 46% have personally witnessed a crime on it.

85% of those who've reduced/eliminated their use of BART say they'd ride it more often if it was cleaner and safer to ride.

The problem facing the system and why it's seeing some of the worst ridership numbers in the country are pretty clear - and remote work isn't why it's lagging peers so much IMO.

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Anyway - sure, I think pretty much every system that can't get increased state government funding lined up is going to be facing fiscal problems. Maybe not that severe, but still significant.
 
millerm277 said:
The severity of BART's ridership problems appear to be heavily crime related.
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Its not just the vibes, but really a combo of the vibes and the fact that the bay area has a bunch of different options to get across the bay. When you don't have to go into the office 5 days a week, the extra 2 or 3 dollars for a ferry or trans-bay buses becomes more palatable.

Personally, I didn't run into any issues when I was out there for a couple of months and relied on BART basically every day. Never ran into any problems. That said, I'm definitely glad that the T doesn't have the same problems (at a similar scale at least)
 
Delvin4519 said:
San Francisco's BART is only 29% of pre-COVID ridership. Boston's MBTA faces a crippling labor shortage forcing continued service cuts in 2023, and fiscal cliffs and budget shortfalls after 2024. Other major U.S. cities are seeing major safety incidents onboard their transit systems, such as Chicago and Philadelphia.

Is it possible that the MBTA could ever be in a positon where transit service in the Boston area would have to be cut to what San Francisco is facing?
Click to expand...
I don’t see a scenario where the MBTA gets to this point primarily because the city would fall apart economically without it. Rather than being largely tech office dependent like SF, Boston is heavily bio lab and medical facility dependent. These are jobs where people do need to come in to work and a large portion of them take transit to get there. They are also jobs that work odd hours that differ from the 9-5 making it so the T cannot end service early regularly to function. That’s not even including service workers and other jobs like construction that have large transit commuting bases.
There’s also the 130k (I think I read that somewhere) college students and 33k grade 7-12 kids that use the system to move throughout the city and spend money at small businesses such as corner stores and pizza places or to get to and from school each day. That itself would need a massive investment in school buses.
I’m optimistic that how bad it is right now is around the worst it will get. New hiring practices, systems, and procedures have just been enacted and progress is underway to repair the 15 years of neglect.
 
Koopzilla24 said:
I don’t see a scenario where the MBTA gets to this point primarily because the city would fall apart economically without it. Rather than being largely tech office dependent like SF, Boston is heavily bio lab and medical facility dependent. These are jobs where people do need to come in to work and a large portion of them take transit to get there. They are also jobs that work odd hours that differ from the 9-5 making it so the T cannot end service early regularly to function. That’s not even including service workers and other jobs like construction that have large transit commuting bases.
There’s also the 130k (I think I read that somewhere) college students and 33k grade 7-12 kids that use the system to move throughout the city and spend money at small businesses such as corner stores and pizza places or to get to and from school each day. That itself would need a massive investment in school buses.
I’m optimistic that how bad it is right now is around the worst it will get. New hiring practices, systems, and procedures have just been enacted and progress is underway to repair the 15 years of neglect.
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So we're assuming the budget shortfalls for 2025 - 2028 will be somehow resolved?

IIRC, the presentations mentioned something of a 500 milllion operating shortfall by 2028. https://cdn.mbta.com/sites/default/files/2023-05/2023-05-25-item-8-fy24-operating-budget.pdf
 
Delvin4519 said:
So we're assuming the budget shortfalls for 2025 - 2028 will be somehow resolved?

IIRC, the presentations mentioned something of a 500 milllion operating shortfall by 2028. https://cdn.mbta.com/sites/default/files/2023-05/2023-05-25-item-8-fy24-operating-budget.pdf
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The Minnesota Legislature seems to think it has solved Metro Transit's funding issue and that it could be a model. Wonder if Beacon Hill might take a look?

www.governing.com

Big Transit Investments Included in Long-Sought Minnesota Budget Deal

Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party won full control of the state Legislature and governor’s office, and is using the opportunity to make big investments in transportation.
www.governing.com www.governing.com
 
Delvin4519 said:
So we're assuming the budget shortfalls for 2025 - 2028 will be somehow resolved?

IIRC, the presentations mentioned something of a 500 milllion operating shortfall by 2028. https://cdn.mbta.com/sites/default/files/2023-05/2023-05-25-item-8-fy24-operating-budget.pdf
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Yes. A budget gap exists every year during the budgeting process for the next year as equitably priced public transportation is a very difficult thing to make even remotely close to profitable. It was $366mil for 2024 after normal recurring funding is factored in. And year by year they get funding from one time sources based on the deficit in fare revenue and other factors. The past few pandemic years have been different with emergency funds and a drastic decrease in fare recovery but in the budget meeting, which I listened in to, they stated they were budgeting under the assumption of a scenario in which fare recovery drops further. The expectation however is that if the MBTA takes on the debt now to improve service to attract back ridership in the next couple years fare recovery ratios will be somewhat restored. That $543mil shortfall is based off the worst case fare revenue scenario before deficiency funding and other one time funds. The best case predicted scenario is only a $356mil shortfall. I would imagine that the importance of the T to the growing Massachusetts economy the state would figure out the bureaucratic barriers to increasing the T’s funding in the next 5 years.
 
WMATA in Washington DC proposes cutting subway service to every 30 minute headways, additional bus cuts in 2025. This is due to a fiscal cliff that looms starting 2025.

It's crazy to me that MBTA in Boston, as well as public transit San Francisco and Washington DC, are having massive service cuts looming overhead in the next year or two. These two cities are similar to Boston in being relatively left leaning, yet there are major transit deathspirals that have the potential to massively reduce transportation options throughout Boston, DC, and SF.


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Delvin4519 said:
WMATA in Washington DC proposes cutting subway service to every 30 minute headways, additional bus cuts in 2025. This is due to a fiscal cliff that looms starting 2025.

It's crazy to me that MBTA in Boston, as well as public transit San Francisco and Washington DC, are having massive service cuts looming overhead in the next year or two. These two cities are similar to Boston in being relatively left leaning, yet there are major transit deathspirals that have the potential to massively reduce transportation options throughout Boston, DC, and SF.


View attachment 39386
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Implement congestion pricing now.
 
Delvin4519 said:
WMATA in Washington DC proposes cutting subway service to every 30 minute headways, additional bus cuts in 2025. This is due to a fiscal cliff that looms starting 2025.

It's crazy to me that MBTA in Boston, as well as public transit San Francisco and Washington DC, are having massive service cuts looming overhead in the next year or two. These two cities are similar to Boston in being relatively left leaning, yet there are major transit deathspirals that have the potential to massively reduce transportation options throughout Boston, DC, and SF.

Click to expand...

The article certainly points to some dire possibilities, but, correct me if I'm wrong: isn't the whole point of these projections (and associated implications) actually to advocate for the funding needed to avoid this?

From the article:​
Metro launched a campaign Tuesday to raise support for a massive increase in annual funding the transit agency says is needed to pay for current service levels and avoid “catastrophic” cuts...
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The campaign comes two days before transit leaders are scheduled to present Metro’s board ...The presentation will offer a bleak prediction for transit in the Washington region if Metro doesn’t receive a dedicated infusion of annual funding by July 2024
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And importantly:​
Metro leaders say they aren’t yet planning for cuts, but rather are offering an assessment of reductions that would be needed if Metro had to balance its budget with existing money.
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Don't get me wrong, the implications explained in the article are quite dire, but I think it's important to note that they haven't given up yet.
 
It's crazy to me that MBTA in Boston, as well as public transit San Francisco and Washington DC, are having massive service cuts looming overhead in the next year or two
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It's the transit corollary to "the beatings will continue until morale improves". i.e. Service will be cut until revenue improves.

Semi-related, I'll be curious to see what, if any, effect on ridership the $2.40 fares for Newburyport/Rockport CR will have during the Sumner closures.
 
Delvin4519 said:
It's crazy to me that MBTA in Boston, as well as public transit San Francisco and Washington DC, are having massive service cuts looming overhead in the next year or two. These two cities are similar to Boston in being relatively left leaning, yet there are major transit deathspirals that have the potential to massively reduce transportation options throughout Boston, DC, and SF.
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Might be at the point the only solution is to encourage Congress to pass some sort of RTO bill.
 
jklo said:
Might be at the point the only solution is to encourage Congress to pass some sort of RTO bill.
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I think it would be much easier for congress to just fund transit operations more. I would think a RTO bill would have very valid legal challenges.

Most of the big agencies are in blue states so there will be some kind of rescue funding (though I'd feel better if the MA Legislature seemed to care) but it will likely not be as much as agencies want or need, and we will continue to kick the can without some kind of federal counter-cyclical help.
 
fatnoah said:
It's the transit corollary to "the beatings will continue until morale improves". i.e. Service will be cut until revenue improves.

Semi-related, I'll be curious to see what, if any, effect on ridership the $2.40 fares for Newburyport/Rockport CR will have during the Sumner closures.
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The $2.40 fares would have more impact if the largest community on the line had its station open (Lynn Central Square).
 
Mother Brook said:
I think it would be much easier for congress to just fund transit operations more. I would think a RTO bill would have very valid legal challenges.
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More funding for something people are using a lot less (because of WFH) doesn't sound like something that would be very popular.
 
jklo said:
More funding for something people are using a lot less (because of WFH) doesn't sound like something that would be very popular.
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Infrastructure spending is generally popular, and you don’t need to let the public peer too far into the weeds as to what kind of infrastructure the money is being spent on. Besides, the entirety of the money needed to keep America’s mass transit systems afloat would be equal to the annual chewing gum budget of our enormous do-nothing military.
 
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