Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

[Ruairi]

Or, hear me out: Hire 10 fare inspectors, 5 for the GLX and 5 for the western surface branches. Loudly ticket fare evaders. The threat of public confrontation would be enough to get 97% of people to pay. At $100k/yr each it would take a thousand years for them to cost as much as a $1B fare gate installation project.

or, leave it as it is because the amount you save on evaded fares prob wouldnt hit anywhere near $1m a year so you'd be running a loss as well as bothering thousands of passengers with digital scanners. How would it even work? You have to remember which card you used to pay then they scan it to see if it's been used on the system in the last hour or so? By the time you get through 3 passengers, every fare evader has tapped their card or jumped off at the next stop.
Shouldnt have bothered upgrading the payment system and just made the subway/light rail free.

 

[TheRatmeister]

or, leave it as it is because the amount you save on evaded fares prob wouldnt hit anywhere near $1m a year so you'd be running a loss as well as bothering thousands of passengers with digital scanners. How would it even work? You have to remember which card you used to pay then they scan it to see if it's been used on the system in the last hour or so? By the time you get through 3 passengers, every fare evader has tapped their card or jumped off at the next stop.
Shouldnt have bothered upgrading the payment system and just made the subway/light rail free.

$1,000,000 is only ~400k trips. Say there are 20k daily GLX riders, and about 1/3 of them evade their inbound fare, the rest have monthly passes and don't care. To break even on enforcement you only need to convince 1/6 of them that evading the fare isn't worth it. Convince half and you're up almost $8 million.

And that completely ignores the other parts of the GL where evasion is common.

 

[kdmc]

or, leave it as it is because the amount you save on evaded fares prob wouldnt hit anywhere near $1m a year so you'd be running a loss as well as bothering thousands of passengers with digital scanners. How would it even work? You have to remember which card you used to pay then they scan it to see if it's been used on the system in the last hour or so? By the time you get through 3 passengers, every fare evader has tapped their card or jumped off at the next stop.
Shouldnt have bothered upgrading the payment system and just made the subway/light rail free.

In addition to what @TheRatmeister already said, you don't need to validate every passenger. You just need to validate enough to send a message to the bulk of riders that paying the fare is worth it.

If there's only a 1% chance my fare is validated, but the penalty is a $240 ticket plus the embarassment of being ticketed in front of the entire train, then yeah I'm gonna pay every time.

I don't understand why so many US transit advocates are anti-fare. Places like the Netherlands with amazing transit DO charge fares. Fiscally, fares make sense. It it a philsophical thing for you guys?

 

[TheRatmeister]

I don't understand why so many US transit advocates are anti-fare.

If I had to posit and speculate, it's the leftist version of "Transit is for poor people." Following that logic and combined with some general leftist politics, you get the idea that we should invest in welfare in the form of reduced transit fares.

 

[Longfellow]

If I had to posit and speculate, it's the leftist version of "Transit is for poor people." Following that logic and combined with some general leftist politics, you get the idea that we should invest in welfare in the form of reduced transit fares.

The arg is as the other poster said above, if you believe that the cost of fare collection and the cost of fare enforcement is greater than the revenue it recoups, then it only makes sense to do so as a punishment for riders (who are generally poorer). It's like when you ride WMATA and you get charged more if you ride the subway for more time -- it's like they want you to use it less lol

 

[Ruairi]

If I had to posit and speculate, it's the leftist version of "Transit is for poor people." Following that logic and combined with some general leftist politics, you get the idea that we should invest in welfare in the form of reduced transit fares.

I'm only anti fare if the implementation and collection of the fare costs more than the revenue it generates.
The proposal above was to hire 10 people at 100k each P/A to police the green line above ground.
Thats a cost of $1m and I'd speculate the T would not cover their costs from the extra revinue they'd generate.

But yeah, I also like the idea of the T being a free service funded by a toll to drive in to the city. I guess it's a philosophical thing for me. I get It's not realistic.
I lived in Germany where there was great public transit and it wasnt free but it also didnt need to be incentivized.
It was well funded and private cars and gas was taxed at reasonable rates.

 

[TheRatmeister]

it also didnt need to be incentivized.

Having also spent quite a lot of time in Germany, it's incentivized in exactly the way @kdmc is proposing, there are a few, not a ton, of fare inspectors roving around and if you're caught without a ticket. It's a €60 fine plus being shamed in front of the whole train. (Or a €7 fine, twice the regular fare, if you can later prove that you had a valid ticket and just weren't carrying it on you.)

Thats a cost of $1m and I'd speculate the T would not cover their costs with from the extra revinue they'd generate.

I gave you some numbers based on the real projected GLX ridership figures and the real pass vs single fare numbers for how much money the T would earn per year if GLX riders went from evading the fare 1/3 of the time to 1/6 of the time. (About $7 million minus the $1m for the inspectors). It would absolutely, positively be worth the expense, and there really isn't much room for doubt there.

It was well funded and private cars and gas was taxed at reasonable rates.

This is true however. Gas tax has not kept up with inflation which is part of why the MBTA is in the mess that it is.

 

[Ruairi]

Having also spent quite a lot of time in Germany, it's incentivized in exactly the way @kdmc is proposing, there are a few, not a ton, of fare inspectors roving around and if you're caught without a ticket. It's a €60 fine plus being shamed in front of the whole train. (Or a €7 fine, twice the regular fare, if you can later prove that you had a valid ticket and just weren't carrying it on you.)

I gave you some numbers based on the real projected GLX ridership figures and the real pass vs single fare numbers for how much money the T would earn per year if GLX riders went from evading the fare 1/3 of the time to 1/6 of the time. (About $7 million minus the $1m for the inspectors). It would absolutely, positively be worth the expense, and there really isn't much room for doubt there.

This is true however. Gas tax has not kept up with inflation which is part of why the MBTA is in the mess that it is.

ah, alright, fair enough, if those numbers are accurate or even close, then yeah, it would be worth it.
I'd no idea fare evasion was that bad on the GLX. I guess I thought much more people had monthly passes or other types of passes.

 

[TheRatmeister]

I'd no idea fare evasion was that bad on the GLX

Even if it's not, let's say half of single-ride passengers pay their fare (Which I would consider highly optimistic), still only 1/3 of potential fare evaders would need to be convinced by the enforcement measures to break even, just from GLX passengers/fares.

 

[737900er]

The T sort of publishes their own estimates if you compare the Boardings and Gated Entries data.

 

[TheRatmeister]

The T sort of publishes their own estimates if you compare the Boardings and Gated Entries data.

View attachment 55056

I will say though that I've tried to work with the boardings data in the past but there are obvious problems with the numbers that make it really hard to trust. Even just here there's plenty of bizarre data. How do 38% of riders jump the fare gates at Prudential without anyone noticing? Why does basically everyone pay at Arlington, but almost a third don't at Boylston just 7 minutes down the street? Why did over 400k people enter Park St and then immediately leave without boarding a train?

That last one is the most serious, gated entries should basically never be higher than boardings unless something has gone seriously wrong, and at Park St with people changing trains you'd expect it to be the other way around.

 

[bigeman312]

… Why did over 400k people enter Park St and then immediately leave without boarding a train?

That last one is the most serious, gated entries should basically never be higher than boardings unless something has gone seriously wrong, and at Park St with people changing trains you'd expect it to be the other way around.

Couldn’t they have boarded the Red Line or heck even walked through the Winter Street Concourse and boarded the Orange Line?

 

[sean99090900]

Couldn’t they have boarded the Red Line or heck even walked through the Winter Street Concourse and boarded the Orange Line?

I think that sounds right to explain why there are so many gated entries relative to boardings. Every station where there are more entries than green line boardings is one that also serves as a stop on a different line.

At the stations immediately before a branch (Copley/Kenmore) we see particularly many boardings relative to entries, I think due to people shuffling off one train and onto a different line. That doesn't really explain Boylston though.

 

[737900er]

That last one is the most serious, gated entries should basically never be higher than boardings unless something has gone seriously wrong, and at Park St with people changing trains you'd expect it to be the other way around.

Couldn’t they have boarded the Red Line or heck even walked through the Winter Street Concourse and boarded the Orange Line?

I think that sounds right to explain why there are so many gated entries relative to boardings. Every station where there are more entries than green line boardings is one that also serves as a stop on a different line.

At the stations immediately before a branch (Copley/Kenmore) we see particularly many boardings relative to entries, I think due to people shuffling off one train and onto a different line. That doesn't really explain Boylston though.

They seem to fairly crudely split the GSE data by line. Make of the splits what you will. The numbers I showed above are just the data tagged as "Green Line."

 

[TheRatmeister]

They seem to fairly crudely split the GSE data by line. Make of the splits what you will. The numbers I showed above are just the data tagged as "Green Line."

View attachment 55059

Ah, that would explain that oddity then at least. The others are still big issues though.

 

[thepianoperson]

They seem to fairly crudely split the GSE data by line. Make of the splits what you will. The numbers I showed above are just the data tagged as "Green Line."

View attachment 55060

It’s shocking if true that the blue line represents only 10% of ridership at govt center and state, I know it’s the least used line but still that seems super low.

 

[as02143]

It’s shocking if true that the blue line represents only 10% of ridership at govt center and state, I know it’s the least used line but still that seems super low.

For entries, not transfers.

My impression is that most blue line riders transfer rather than surface at state or govy

 

[JeffDowntown]

For entries, not transfers.

My impression is that most blue line riders transfer rather than surface at state or govy

My observation as well -- almost everyone boarding the Blue Line at State or Government Center is transferring from the Orange or Green Line. There is massive transfer movement from every train.

 

[737900er]

My observation as well -- almost everyone boarding the Blue Line at State or Government Center is transferring from the Orange or Green Line. There is massive transfer movement from every train.

We're way off topic, but according to their data 3x more people get on enter the system at Bowdoin to ride the Blue Line than at Government Center.

Maybe it makes sense to have an MBTA Blue Book Data thread? I was looking at the Green Line per-trip data trying to figure out what portion of trips get short turned for this thread, and it's a total mess.

Edited for clarity.

 

[TheRatmeister]

We're way off topic, but according to their data 3x more people get on at Bowdoin to ride the Blue Line than at Government Center.

View attachment 55286

Maybe it makes sense to have an MBTA Blue Book Data thread? I was looking at the Green Line per-trip data trying to figure out what portion of trips get short turned for this thread, and it's a total mess.

Those are gated entries not boardings. Gated entries at transfer stations are sloppily divvied up and should not be trusted.

Maybe it makes sense to have an MBTA Blue Book Data thread? I was looking at the Green Line per-trip data trying to figure out what portion of trips get short turned for this thread, and it's a total mess.

Yeah probably. Here's a dormant one from a several years back.