General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

[as02155]

In general it feels like the summer is not an season with major service changes, regardless of the latest international grift being in town.

 

[Delvin4519]

We've got the new spring GTFS schedules posted. Here are the actual changes:

Here's the super unexciting changes for the new summer 2026 service change update.

All changes:
Orange Line weekday midday frequency decreases
Mattapan Line has more early morning service
Reduced frequency on the 34E bus and the 714 bus.
SLW partially replaced by the SL1 and SL2, except on weekdays where there is 1 fewer replacement trip.
More service on the 17 and 39.

And the updated map:
* Changed SL1 (Every 10-12 -> 10 or better), SL2 (Every 15-20 -> Every 12-15), and the 34/34E (Every 30-60 -> 15-20) (EDIT 2026-06-07 21:05: NOT THE 34E) corridors to reflect increased or coordinated service.

Old maps: Pre-COVID; 2023: Winter, Spring (Slow Zones), Summer, Fall; 2024: Winter, Spring, Summer (News), Fall; 2025: Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall 2026: Winter, Spring

 

[The EGE]

	1975	2026	2026 change
B Branch: Boston College to Park Street	35 minutes	45 minutes	+10 minutes (+29%)
C Branch: Cleveland Circle to Park Street	23 minutes	35 minutes	+12 minutes (+52%)
D Branch: Riverside to Park Street	43 minutes	48 minutes	+5 minutes (+12%)
Red Line: Quincy Center to Harvard	25 minutes	33 minutes	+8 minutes (+32%)
Red Line: Ashmont to Harvard	25 minutes	29 minutes	+4 minutes (+16%)
Red Line: Mattapan to Park Street	25 minutes	35 minutes	+10 minutes (+40%)
Orange Line: Forest Hills to Wellington	25 minutes	28 minutes	+3 minutes (+12%)
Orange Line: Forest Hills to Downtown Crossing	16 minutes	16 minutes	no change
Blue Line: Wonderland to Bowdoin	18 minutes	19 minutes	+1 minute (+5%)

The July/August 2025 issue of Rollsign, which just arrived in my mailbox, has a copy of a 1975 MBTA brochure that includes scheduled travel times. Comparing it to current midday scheduled travel times is interesting. The Orange Line and Blue Line look pretty decent (and the Southwest Corridor is actually slightly longer than the old elevated). The Red Line and Green Line, not so much. Some of the Quincy Center-Harvard difference is due to the worthwhile addition of JFK/UMass as a stop for that service.

 

[alewife]

Any idea how much the Harvard curve impacts these travel times? It probably doesn't account for all 4 minutes of the additional running time on Ashmont-Harvard, but it's another factor.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Any idea how much the Harvard curve impacts these travel times? It probably doesn't account for all 4 minutes of the additional running time on Ashmont-Harvard, but it's another factor.

The averages are probably getting a little bit skewed by the abysmal signal timings on the Longfellow Bridge that cause lots of extended holds during rush hour when the adjacent Park St. signal block is occupied. That's only been a thing since the 1988 installation of ATO signaling on the mainline, as prior to that the signal blocks were shorter and didn't have so many trains dragged down by Park St. dwells. Thankfully the Red Line Transformation signal upgrades are fixing that flaw in the signal layout, but it's been almost 4 decades of that routinely slowing down commutes.

 

[bakgwailo]

On Mattapan to Ashmont - I wonder if that was due to the platform to platform transfer from the Highspeed Rail in the old Ashmont station along w/ Red Line engineers waiting for the trolleys and syncing a bit better. Which is one of the more mind-blowingly low hanging fruit in the system today that the MBTA just ignores: syncing the High Speed Trolley w/ the Red Line proper, at least directionally for inbound and outbound in the morning and switching to outbound past midday (at the bare minimum).

 

[subway1500]

Here's the super unexciting changes for the new summer 2026 service change update.

Unfortunately, you may need to undo the change to the 34/34E corridor... they've made things slightly less bad, but Sunday service is still best characterized as every 20-30min due to many gaps throughout the day (as I mentioned over in the bus thread).

Not sure how you view exceptions when creating the map, but technically there is still a >30min gap on Sunday mid-afternoons (these are inbound arrival times at Forest Hills):

• 4:41pm (50)
• 4:44 (40)
• 4:44 (34E)
• 4:45 (34)
• 33min gap
• 5:18pm (34)

 

[Delvin4519]

Unfortunately, you may need to undo the change to the 34/34E corridor... they've made things slightly less bad, but Sunday service is still best characterized as every 20-30min due to many gaps throughout the day (as I mentioned over in the bus thread).

Not sure how you view exceptions when creating the map, but technically there is still a >30min gap on Sunday mid-afternoons (these are inbound arrival times at Forest Hills):

• 4:41pm (50)
• 4:44 (40)
• 4:44 (34E)
• 4:45 (34)
• 33min gap
• 5:18pm (34)

Good catch. Usually I only wait for the GTFS to be posted and not the PDF schedules. The past few instances, the GTFS was released before the PDF schedules and not the other way around, so I cannot always check easily (in such instances I opened the live bus tracker on the MBTA website to pull the future upcoming GTFS timetables for the 34/34E).

I reverted the changes on my Sunday map, Sunday map (alt view), and my 11pm Sunday service map.

I am really not sure why the MBTA has 34/34E service ending at 12:05am rather than the 1:19am it used to be pre-December 2024. I'm more confused by the 1+hour earlier shutdown of service than the schedules being uncoordinated. Even if the route is like 5-8 minutes longer, it should not mean the route should end over 1 hour earlier in the evening to still meet a 1:58am end of service. At most maybe a 15-20 minute earlier end, but not a full hour. The last trip should still be at 1:05am or so and not 12:05am.

 

[subway1500]

Good catch. Usually I only wait for the GTFS to be posted and not the PDF schedules. The past few instances, the GTFS was released before the PDF schedules and not the other way around, so I cannot always check easily (in such instances I opened the live bus tracker on the MBTA website to pull the future upcoming GTFS timetables for the 34/34E).

I reverted the changes on my Sunday map, Sunday map (alt view), and my 11pm Sunday service map.

I am really not sure why the MBTA has 34/34E service ending at 12:05am rather than the 1:19am it used to be pre-December 2024. I'm more confused by the 1+hour earlier shutdown of service than the schedules being uncoordinated. Even if the route is like 5-8 minutes longer, it should not mean the route should end over 1 hour earlier in the evening to still meet a 1:58am end of service. At most maybe a 15-20 minute earlier end, but not a full hour. The last trip should still be at 1:05am or so and not 12:05am.

Agreed on your last point. FWIW, up until March 2025, the 1:19am (weekday)/1:15am (Sat & Sun) last trip was always the 34 and not the 34E. Back then, the weekday bus would go out of service at Dedham Line and deadhead back to the garage, while the weekend buses would run in-service back to Forest Hills, with a scheduled arrival of 1:46am.

The route itself hasn’t changed, so no reason why the same can’t be true today (if the goal truly is to wrap up service by 1:59am). But the T’s willingness to maintain adequate service on this corridor certainly has changed…

 

[themissinglink]

MBTA eyes another spending boost as ‘austerity’ approach fades

Transit agency leaders will seek approval Thursday on a $3.4 billion budget that would add another 550 positions, embracing an eager-to-spend approach that supporters say has improved service and safety.

commonwealthbeacon.org

For years, the Baker administration sought to tackle the MBTA’s perennial budget shortfalls by forcing the agency to rein in its spending. In the late 2010s, the T cut hundreds of millions of dollars in spending and hundreds of positions from its workforce. But that ultimately led federal investigators to warn in 2022 that the agency’s staffing shortages contributed to serious safety problems on the system. It’s been a very different spending story lately.
T officials will request final approval this week on a budget that would ramp up spending considerably once again, extending a years-long hiring and investment spree intended to put the darkest days of slow zones and runaway trains in the past. As has become the new normal, the MBTA would lean heavily on state dollars to make the growth — more than $1 billion over a five-year span — possible.
[...]
Now nearing the end of Gov. Maura Healey’s first term, the MBTA and Beacon Hill have settled into a cooperative rhythm, with policymakers more open to helping the T close its budget gap than they were even a few years ago. But the process these days is still ad hoc. The MBTA spends hundreds of millions of dollars more than it brings in, investing in a bulked-up staff and reliability improvements and service expansions, and closes the gap through a combination of one-time state aid and its own savings account. Meanwhile, lawmakers and the governor use a sizable pot of unallocated surtax revenue each year to replenish the T’s recently drained savings, giving it a short-term cushion that dwindles.
The pattern is set to play out again. Lawmakers last week sent Healey a $1.5 billion supplemental spending bill that would direct $595 million in money from the surtax, or so-called millionaire’s tax, toward the T. They’re also negotiating a final state budget for fiscal year 2027, which would boost the MBTA with hundreds of millions more dollars.

 

[KCasiglio]

Relying on the millionaire's tax each year to balance the book is courting disaster. The T needs a stable and predictable revenue stream.

 

[TheRatmeister]

Relying on the millionaire's tax each year to balance the book is courting disaster. The T needs a stable and predictable revenue stream.

I'd wonder about creating something like a "Massachusetts Development Agency" to act as a property developer and commercial landlord. Such an agency could theoretically issue bonds at lower interest rates to enable development opportunities that are viewed as less attractive by private developers for example. Then funnel the money to various state agencies as desired, most likely MassDOT and co.

Now how you'd manage the governance of such an organization to prevent the contracting and procurement borderline corruption and mishandling that plagues everything, I have no idea.

 

[Stlin]

I'd wonder about creating something like a "Massachusetts Development Agency" to act as a property developer and commercial landlord. Such an agency could theoretically issue bonds at lower interest rates to enable development opportunities that are viewed as less attractive by private developers for example. Then funnel the money to various state agencies as desired, most likely MassDOT and co.

Now how you'd manage the governance of such an organization to prevent the contracting and procurement borderline corruption and mishandling that plagues everything, I have no idea.

We more or less have that? MassDevelopment already exists after all as a Land Bank and quasi-public agency to issue bonds and is also empowered to acquire, improve and convey properties - it controls a ton of property in Devens, and the various former state hospitals, and I wouldn't be surprised if DCAMM eventually hands it the MCI Concord site. It's got a pretty good track record of making returns for the state when it's retained as an "outside" manager - It's just that it's income is reinvested internally as new bonds issuances etc and not "sent up" to the Commonwealth general fund. I believe that's largely why many recent divestments have been via DCAMM directly and not through the agency whose mission statement is explicitly redeveloping surplus state property.

We even have a public venture capital fund - MassVentures - which admittedly is both very small and reasonably successful since it's funding in 1981.

As a largely self-funded instrumentality of the Commonwealth, MassVentures, through its
investment gains, has leveraged $13.7 million of state funding plus $20 million via the SSBCI program in fiscal 2023 into $ 117 million of its own investment into 189 companies.

 

[BeansTheCat]

I'd wonder about creating something like a "Massachusetts Development Agency" to act as a property developer and commercial landlord. Such an agency could theoretically issue bonds at lower interest rates to enable development opportunities that are viewed as less attractive by private developers for example. Then funnel the money to various state agencies as desired, most likely MassDOT and co.

Now how you'd manage the governance of such an organization to prevent the contracting and procurement borderline corruption and mishandling that plagues everything, I have no idea.

If MassDOT/MBTA got some property taxes, and sales tax was reduced (or given to towns) in a revenue-neutral way, I think much of the same benefits could be realized. Transportation investments most directly increase land values, so the agencies would inherently get some value capture for new investments and improved service. The only governance concern is with local assessor's offices, but that's nothing new.

As for state-owned development, the T already has a real estate division. Allowing/encouraging them to buy land near stations, as well as giving them some amount of statewide zoning relief, could also be very profitable.

 

[Charlie_mta]

We more or less have that? MassDevelopment already exists after all as a Land Bank and quasi-public agency to issue bonds and is also empowered to acquire, improve and convey properties - it controls a ton of property in Devens, and the various former state hospitals, and I wouldn't be surprised if DCAMM eventually hands it the MCI Concord site. It's got a pretty good track record of making returns for the state when it's retained as an "outside" manager - It's just that it's income is reinvested internally as new bonds issuances etc and not "sent up" to the Commonwealth general fund. I believe that's largely why many recent divestments have been via DCAMM directly and not through the agency whose mission statement is explicitly redeveloping surplus state property.

We even have a public venture capital fund - MassVentures - which admittedly is both very small and reasonably successful since it's funding in 1981.

Relying on the millionaire's tax each year to balance the book is courting disaster. The T needs a stable and predictable revenue stream.

Toll I-93 from Woburn to Braintree, and dedicate the funding to the T. Seems like no-brainer to me.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Toll I-93 from Woburn to Braintree, and dedicate the funding to the T. Seems like no-brainer to me.

It's not a "no-brainer". You'd need to directly change federal law to be able to add an Interstate highway toll on a lane in which a toll didn't previously exist, because it's explicitly prohibited by U.S. Title 23. Tolled HOV/HOT lanes are only allowed in add-a-lane construction situations where there is no net loss in previously existing free lanes, and we obviously aren't doing any of that for good reason.

Good luck getting a completely dysfunctional Congress to even take up the measure in Committee, much less put it to a vote. It's going to be much easier for the state to do the hard work itself on finding some alternate additional funding mechanism for the T. God-shots like tolling all of the highest-use highways just aren't as easy in real life as they seem in the abstract.

 

[Charlie_mta]

It's not a "no-brainer". You'd need to directly change federal law to be able to add an Interstate highway toll on a lane in which a toll didn't previously exist, because it's explicitly prohibited by U.S. Title 23. Tolled HOV/HOT lanes are only allowed in add-a-lane construction situations where there is no net loss in previously existing free lanes, and we obviously aren't doing any of that for good reason.

Good luck getting a completely dysfunctional Congress to even take up the measure in Committee, much less put it to a vote. It's going to be much easier for the state to do the hard work itself on finding some alternate additional funding mechanism for the T. God-shots like tolling all of the highest-use highways just aren't as easy in real life as they seem in the abstract.

The only loophole I could find is a pilot program. Congress has authorized the Value Pricing Pilot Program (VPPP) which allows specific states to implement congestion pricing or toll existing, free lanes. This program, established in 1991, allows up to 15 state or local governments to toll existing Interstates to reduce congestion by incentivizing drivers to use alternative transportation modes or avoid rush hour travel. But you're right. I'm sure doing anything along these lines would require Congressional approval. See https://tollfreeinterstates.com/about

 

[cubbe8]

City councilors propose extending Orange Line beneath Blue Hill Avenue - The Boston Globe

At a press conference Tuesday morning outside the state transportation department, Councilors Brian Worrell and Miniard Culpepper pitched the Orange Line extension as a matter of equity.

www.bostonglobe.com

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

City councilors propose extending Orange Line beneath Blue Hill Avenue - The Boston Globe

At a press conference Tuesday morning outside the state transportation department, Councilors Brian Worrell and Miniard Culpepper pitched the Orange Line extension as a matter of equity.

www.bostonglobe.com

Just wait till Culpepper and Worrell hear about how many BHA parking spaces are going to get disrupted by a massive decade-long tunnel works project! Why, they'll be demanding that Trump immediately rescind that $4B grant that's surely right around the corner on grounds that it's totally racist.

 

[JohnAKeith]

City councilors propose extending Orange Line beneath Blue Hill Avenue - The Boston Globe

At a press conference Tuesday morning outside the state transportation department, Councilors Brian Worrell and Miniard Culpepper pitched the Orange Line extension as a matter of equity.

www.bostonglobe.com

City councilors propose extending Orange Line beneath Blue Hill Avenue
Councilors Brian Worrell and Miniard Culpepper presented an alternative to the controversial plan for a center-running bus lane
By Emma Platoff Globe Staff

As they fight the plan for a controversial center-running bus lane along Blue Hill Avenue, two Boston city councilors on Tuesday proposed an alternative: extending the Orange Line subway beneath the street for what they said would be superior rail service.

At a press conference Tuesday morning outside the state transportation department, Councilors Brian Worrell and Miniard Culpepper pitched the Orange Line extension as a matter of equity. Why, they questioned, should the diverse communities they represent be stuck with shoddy bus service, while white neighborhoods elsewhere in the city can rely on the train?

“We believe we’ve been excluded,” Culpepper said, noting “there’s no train that goes through the Black community from Mattapan, to Grove Hall, to Nubian, to Ruggles.”

Blue Hill Avenue is one of Boston’s main arteries, traveling from Milton into the city through predominantly Black neighborhoods. Situated between the existing Orange and Red Lines, the neighborhoods are predominantly served by bus service, not rail.

“What we are proposing is to remedy this train desert ... so that we can enjoy the same kind of transportation that everyone else in the state enjoys,” Culpepper said.