COVID-19 Impacts on Logan, MBTA, and Boston travel and tourism

[millerm277]

Traffic seemed pretty bad tonight (Friday) on Google Maps. Any idea of CR ridership has moved much?

On a monthly basis ridership was climbing slowly every month January through August, but still only at 28% of January 2020 ridership.

737k weekly riders vs 2.63m - however, that *is* still a whole lot better than the 222k it was doing in January 2021.

I don't see any September totals in that table yet, and it's possible there's more detailed data elsewhere: https://mbta-massdot.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/mbta-monthly-ridership-by-mode-1/explore

 

[bigeman312]

MassDot finally updated their data, so I'm reviving an old thread to revisit the state of ridership relative to the "before times."

I'll start with the big picture. One interesting thing of note is that fare-gated rapid transit* ridership continues to lag behind bus ridership. The sum of fare-gated rapid transit boardings was consistently higher than the sum of bus boardings until March 2020. Since March 2020, the reverse has been consistently, and unwaveringly true.

Pre-COVID, there were more rapid transit rides* than bus rides.

Over the past two years, there have been more bus rides than rapid transit rides.*

*This includes all boardings at fare-gated stations on the Red, Orange, Green, Blue, and even Silver Line.

Since my last post, systemwide bus ridership set COVID-era highs in the weeks of:

• 8/30 (the second consecutive week of COVID-era record ridership)
• 9/6 (the third consecutive week of COVID-era record ridership)
• 9/13 (the fourth consecutive week of COVID-era record ridership)
• 9/20 (the fifth consecutive week of COVID-era record ridership)
• 10/4
• 10/18

This period, in the fall of 2021, saw MBTA systemwide bus ridership approaching 70% of pre-COVID. We have yet to match those ridership highs over the last 5.5 months and counting. This winter lull is not historically unusual, even if exacerbated by unique circumstances including the Omicron variant.

In 2019, the highest ridership week was the week of October 28 before a winter slump. Systemwide bus ridership has yet to match that high.

In 2020, the highest ridership week (after the COVID stay-at-home order was given in March) was the week of October 5. Systemwide bus ridership did not match that high again until the following spring.

Last week (the week of March 28) already had the highest ridership since last fall. It would not be surprising for 2022's bus ridership to continue to follow that same pattern of increasing ridership from the beginning of the year until October. From last week's ridership, it would only take an increase of 4% to surpass last October's COVID-era high.

 

[Teban54]

MassDot finally updated their data, so I'm reviving an old thread to revisit the state of ridership relative to the "before times."

I'll start with the big picture. One interesting thing of note is that fare-gated rapid transit* ridership continues to lag behind bus ridership. The sum of fare-gated rapid transit boardings was consistently higher than the sum of bus boardings until March 2020. Since March 2020, the reverse has been consistently, and unwaveringly true.

Pre-COVID, there were more rapid transit rides* than bus rides.

Over the past two years, there have been more bus rides than rapid transit rides.*

*This includes all boardings at fare-gated stations on the Red, Orange, Green, Blue, and even Silver Line.

View attachment 23104

Since my last post, systemwide bus ridership set COVID-era highs in the weeks of:

• 8/30 (the second consecutive week of COVID-era record ridership)
• 9/6 (the third consecutive week of COVID-era record ridership)
• 9/13 (the fourth consecutive week of COVID-era record ridership)
• 9/20 (the fifth consecutive week of COVID-era record ridership)
• 10/4
• 10/18

This period, in the fall of 2021, saw MBTA systemwide bus ridership approaching 70% of pre-COVID. We have yet to match those ridership highs over the last 5.5 months and counting. This winter lull is not historically unusual, even if exacerbated by unique circumstances including the Omicron variant.

In 2019, the highest ridership week was the week of October 28 before a winter slump. Systemwide bus ridership has yet to match that high.

In 2020, the highest ridership week (after the COVID stay-at-home order was given in March) was the week of October 5. Systemwide bus ridership did not match that high again until the following spring.

Last week (the week of March 28) already had the highest ridership since last fall. It would not be surprising for 2022's bus ridership to continue to follow that same pattern of increasing ridership from the beginning of the year until October. From last week's ridership, it would only take an increase of 4% to surpass last October's COVID-era high.

Any possible reasons why rapid transit ridership has become lower than buses since Covid?

 

[Stlin]

Any possible reasons why rapid transit ridership has become lower than buses since Covid?

Older research, but this link provides an excellent deep dive into it. https://transitcenter.org/mapping-route-by-route-whos-riding-transit-during-the-pandemic/

Short answer, bus routes disproportionately serve lower income, minority population communities, with low rates of car ownership and jobs that can't be done remotely. A lot of rail riders who were commuting to white collar downtown office jobs remain WFH or on flex schedules, or have been driving to work, which also contributes to the dismal CR ridership, even compared to the heavy rail lines.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Older research, but this link provides an excellent deep dive into it. https://transitcenter.org/mapping-route-by-route-whos-riding-transit-during-the-pandemic/

Short answer, bus routes disproportionately serve lower income, minority population communities, with low rates of car ownership and jobs that can't be done remotely. A lot of rail riders who were commuting to white collar downtown office jobs remain WFH or on flex schedules, or have been driving to work, which also contributes to the dismal CR ridership, even compared to the heavy rail lines.

Or in income inequality terms:

We build rail lines for people who really don't need transit.

We provide bus routes to people who really need transit.

 

[jklo]

I guess the question is where that 30-35% is going.

Older research, but this link provides an excellent deep dive into it. https://transitcenter.org/mapping-route-by-route-whos-riding-transit-during-the-pandemic/

Short answer, bus routes disproportionately serve lower income, minority population communities, with low rates of car ownership and jobs that can't be done remotely. A lot of rail riders who were commuting to white collar downtown office jobs remain WFH or on flex schedules, or have been driving to work, which also contributes to the dismal CR ridership, even compared to the heavy rail lines.

And a good portion of those CR riders contribute to the subway ridership too. Especially northside.

 

[bigeman312]

Or in income inequality terms:

We build rail lines for people who really don't need transit.

We provide bus routes to people who really need transit.

While this is mostly true, there's another dimension (time):

Where rail lines exist, housing is too expensive for those who need transit.

Building rail transit for those who most need it causes housing costs in those neighborhoods to increase, ensuring that those who most need transit are not the ones with the best access to it.

Obviously, a solution is to couple housing and transportation planning. And ... not do this

 

[Jahvon09]

Here's some info reguarding the mask mandate. Seems that it has been lifted in some aspects.

Live updates: Mask mandate for airlines and travelers no longer in effect

Multiple major airlines and transit systems across the US announced masks are now optional after a federal judge struck down the Biden administration's mask mandate for public transportation. Follow here for the latest.

www.cnn.com