This is a pretty silly analysis I did, but I decided to do another analysis, analyzing all transit routes that operate until at least 11:00 p.m. daily, in the MBTA in Boston, versus the 4 largest cities' transit agencies in the Netherlands with combination of local bus and local rail routes. (The analysis is a quite a bit messy, and I had to chop outliers)
On average, the MBTA is starting transit service over an hour earlier compared to its counterparts in the Netherlands. While the MBTA's trains and buses are already chugging along the tracks and the roads at 5:22 a.m., those in the Netherlands don't start until 6:06 a.m. or later. On weekends, it is much worse, with the T ending overnight maintance very early in the morning, to start service at 6 a.m. or earlier. Meanwhile, those in the Netherlands don't start until 8:00 a.m. or even a bit later than that!
Transit agencies in the Netherlands average about 1 hour to 1.8 hours of longer overnight windows for track maintanace compared to that of the MBTA. There's also the fact
the MBTA holds trains downtown for over half an hour around 1:00 a.m. every night, to guarantee last connections here; due to a lack of clockface scheduling (transit agencies in the Netherlands use it to guarantee transfers there). This means that the MBTA has an even shorter overnight window for daily track maintenance, then what is shown in the table below.
WMATA in Washington DC doesn't even start their MetroRail system until 7:00 a.m., weekends, identical to the Netherlands. This allows longer overnight track maintainace windows. Boston doesn't have quad/express trackage found in NYC or the like, nor are there regularly scheduled bus routes to replace downtown rail service, in order to extend transit service for longer operational hours in Boston.
Average daily transit service span (Hours of operation) | Weekday service start | Saturday service start | Sunday service start | Weekday service end | Saturday service end | Sunday service end |
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MBTA (Boston, MA, U.S.)**** | 5:22 a.m. | 5:35 a.m. | 6:32 a.m. | 12:55 a.m. | 12:54 a.m. | 12:52 a.m. |
GVB (Amsterdam, NL) | 6:09 a.m. | 6:45 a.m. | 7:39 a.m. | 12:20 a.m.** | 12:20 a.m.* | 12:19 a.m.* |
HTM (Den Haag, NL) | 6:09 a.m. | 7:06 a.m. | 8:08 a.m. | 12:23 a.m. | 12:24 a.m.* | 12:22 a.m.* |
RET (Rotterdam, NL)*** | 6:06 a.m. | 7:08 a.m. | 8:37 a.m. | 12:21 a.m. | 12:31 a.m. | 12:19 a.m. |
UOV (Utrecht, NL) | 6:13 a.m. | 7:06 a.m. | 8:07 a.m. | 12:38 a.m. | 12:39 a.m. | 12:39 a.m. |
* = These locations run overnight bus service citywide the night 20 hours prior (i.e. before that day's daytime service began)
** = This location runs a few overnight buses on a few select routes all week long.
*** = Overnight bus service suspended due to COVID-19 (has yet to resume as of April 2023).
**** = The Netherlands still runs more public transit service than the MBTA in Boston and other RTAs in Massachusetts, overall, refer to the map.
(I won't be adding Washington DC's WMATA to the table, just use the hours listed for their MetroRail on their website. Same for other cities, I won't add it here).
I wonder if it's possible for the MBTA to do a "late opening" of service on weekends for extended overnight track maintainance. So if the MBTA closes service at 1:00 a.m. Saturday morning and 1:00 a.m. Sunday morning, supposedly, they could delay opening of a subway line until 7:45 a.m. Saturday or 9:00 a.m. Sunday, without a full scale weekend shutdown of the tracks. I suppose they could still do full weekend closures of a subway line, or shut down one of the rail lines at 7:00 p.m. Sunday evening. It's literally any way to add more time for track maintainance at the T.
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Seeing public transit run from 7:30 a.m. - 12:30 a.m. in the Netherlands seems more aligned to staying up later at night and sleeping in longer in the morning on the weekends.
Is there anything unique about Boston that requires the subway system to open at 5:30 - 6:00 a.m., even on weekends and Sundays? This is compared to the Dutch not starting their weekend transit service until 7:15 a.m. - 8:30 a.m.
What about Boston makes it unique that MBTA transit service here essentially runs on an "early to rise, early bird" schedule, compared to other cities?
(For comparsion solar noon in the Netherlands doesn't occur until 1:40 p.m., while in Boston it's around 11:35 a.m.).
My area in Boston has MBTA bus routes with span of service running from 5:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., first T bus around 5:00 a.m., last MBTA bus at 9:00 p.m. or so, even on Saturday, so it's basically just an "early bird MBTA schedule" in my area in Boston.