Late night T service take 2

mass88 said:
Hopefully the service sees solid ridership and the MBTA keeps it around. Getting a cab in Boston can be a total crap-shoot after 12:30 am on the weekends. Between fighting other people, dealing with cabbies who will pre-screen you before they agree to take you and then having to deal with cranky drivers who insist you pay cash, having an option to take the T will be welcomed for me.

I am a big fan of Uber but their surge pricing can make getting home a bit too much.
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Mass -- you mean you don't know the "Trick" -- Walk [if able] to a nice hotel -- get the cab from there -- the nice man in the fancy jacket might even call it for you
 
Matthew said:
MBTA tweeted that it will begin at the end of March. The 22nd makes sense since it is the start of the Spring schedule.

This columnist makes the mistake I am worried about, actually. He focuses on ridership between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m.

He forgets that many people may be more willing to take the T, even if they ride before 1 a.m., knowing that they are not stranded in case they need it later.

Also I'm pretty sure there's other stuff rolled into the $20 million that isn't directly related to late night service.
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I've heard it will start Friday March 28, (as opposed to Sat the 22nd). That could be subject to change, since the 22nd otherwise is the start of the spring schedule.
 
I have heard the 28th, as it is the first Friday of the new schedule / rating. They want to start with 2 consecutive days of weekend service.
 
mass88 said:
Hopefully the service sees solid ridership and the MBTA keeps it around. Getting a cab in Boston can be a total crap-shoot after 12:30 am on the weekends. Between fighting other people, dealing with cabbies who will pre-screen you before they agree to take you and then having to deal with cranky drivers who insist you pay cash, having an option to take the T will be welcomed for me.

I am a big fan of Uber but their surge pricing can make getting home a bit too much.
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Uber drivers won't insist on cash, they'll take you wherever you're going, and a ride with them isn't a 75mph deathride down storrow drive.

Meanwhile- surge pricing provides an incentive for them to drive drunks home or otherwise be awake at 1 in the morning.
 
They need to run it later to serve late night / early morning workers.

Really need some kind of night bus system for that. So many other cities have figured it out.
 
Matthew said:
They need to run it later to serve late night / early morning workers.

Really need some kind of night bus system for that. So many other cities have figured it out.
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They do run some early morning service now for some workers.
Route 28 has trips starting at 3:30 AM, while route 171 provides early-morning access for jobs at Logan for people coming from Ashmont, Fields Corner, Dudley, and Andrew. The buses leave Dudley at 3:50 and 4:30 AM.

They also run direct buses to downtown Boston from routes 15, 32, 39, 57, 89, 93, and 117 that leave the end points around 4:30 AM and get to downtown around 5:00 AM (before the first rapid transit line trips).
 
I know. Doesn't really help late night bar workers though.

The T doesn't help itself by hiding the existence of those routes either. I've had to do digging just to learn about them.
 
I'm glad they are trialing it for an entire year, rather than just a few months. I predict this will be leaps and bounds more successful than Night Owl, since it's actual T lines that people know and live by.
 
Social Media didn't exist during Night Owl either. The amount of people that know about this continues to skyrocket exponentially with every Facebook post, tweet, and news article.
 
Better frequency, better route knowledge should result in better ridership.

I think that the existence of 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. transit will also boost ridership before 1 a.m., because of the safety-valve effect, and I am just a little worried that they may not count that ridership when making a determination next year.

Another worry I have is that since this is seen as a Governor Patrick initiative, it may be subject to ... political disruption ... after the next inauguration.
 
Re: losing steam post-Patrick

I think it's as much Walsh's baby as it is Patrick's. I'd add Rich Davey in as well, although I'd assume the general public just associates him with Patrick if they even know who he is at all. Walsh being behind it though, I would assume, would be enough to keep it moving post-Patrick since it's tied with Walsh's other "Innovation Economy" initiatives like 3:30am close liquor licenses. Walsh also has a lot of sway with the State House, which should help.
 
datadyne007 said:
Social Media didn't exist during Night Owl either. The amount of people that know about this continues to skyrocket exponentially with every Facebook post, tweet, and news article.
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Data, is the MBTA themselves doing much to advertise this, i.e. signs posting it in stations, annoucements, etc.? I hope they're doing everything they can to get the word out and not just relying on the press and word of mouth.

I haven't been back to Boston in a while so the only place I see it is here, twitter, Boston.com, etc. Which don't get me wrong is a good start, I just hope they're also plastering it all over every T station wall.
 
Deetroyt said:
Data, is the MBTA themselves doing much to advertise this, i.e. signs posting it in stations, annoucements, etc.? I hope they're doing everything they can to get the word out and not just relying on the press and word of mouth.

I haven't been back to Boston in a while so the only place I see it is here, twitter, Boston.com, etc. Which don't get me wrong is a good start, I just hope they're also plastering it all over every T station wall.
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Not much that I've seen, other than new outlets and blog posts.

Perhaps the bars that will be open later will get some of the news out.
 
I saw some kind of poster at a station, in a picture, but I don't know how widely deployed it is. I haven't a chance yet to go around and see.

I think it's as much Walsh's baby as it is Patrick's. I'd add Rich Davey in as well, although I'd assume the general public just associates him with Patrick if they even know who he is at all. Walsh being behind it though, I would assume, would be enough to keep it moving post-Patrick since it's tied with Walsh's other "Innovation Economy" initiatives like 3:30am close liquor licenses. Walsh also has a lot of sway with the State House, which should help.
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I hope you're right. What seemed weird to me was that Patrick kind of jumped on this before Walsh ever got a chance to get his bearing. So it's not clear to me how much Walsh had to do with it anyway.
 
bobthebuilder said:
Not much that I've seen, other than new outlets and blog posts.

Perhaps the bars that will be open later will get some of the news out.
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I guess they are promoting it:
Bin67_tCcAAkPZO.jpg


http://boston.curbed.com/archives/2014/03/curbedwire-mar-13.php

http://www.mass.gov/governor/pressoffice/pressreleases/2014/0313-governor-announces-late-night-mbta-service.html
 
curious about the selection of bus lines - they seem to have neglected the combined ridership of the numerous bus lines that run through roslindale. just the 34 and 34E together have ridership that would put that combined "route" in the top 10.
 
rinserepeat said:
curious about the selection of bus lines - they seem to have neglected the combined ridership of the numerous bus lines that run through roslindale. just the 34 and 34E together have ridership that would put that combined "route" in the top 10.
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The buses are the 15 Key Bus Routes only.
 
rinserepeat said:
curious about the selection of bus lines - they seem to have neglected the combined ridership of the numerous bus lines that run through roslindale. just the 34 and 34E together have ridership that would put that combined "route" in the top 10.
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As Data said, they only chose the 15 Key Bus Routes. This does effectively leave out neighborhoods that are served by several bus routes, none of which individually have the ridership to be among the top routes. Somerville, as well as Rozzie get the shaft here. Eh... at least my cab rides will be cheaper if I can get to Lechmere or somewhere in Cambridge on the Red Line first.
 
It's so asinine. The Washington Street corridor from Forest Hills to Dedham Mall should absolutely be part of the program. The fact that 2-5+ different routes cover the corridor doesn't make it less important than the so-called "key bus routes". It's such a flawed system. So many corridors with adequate ridership across multiple overlapping routes get screwed just because they don't share the same route number.
 
It's not perfect, but it's good for a start. They should be starting small and growing incrementally where demand dictates. Maybe Roslindale will be under-served relative to other neighborhoods when the program starts, but Roslindale is going from no late night bus service to having the 32 run late-night.

Somerville, too, may be under-served at the start of the program, but they go from no late night service to having the Red Line serve Davis (and surely the Orange Line at Assembly soon).

These areas go from no service to imperfect service. Rome was not built in a day. My optimistic guess is that the pilot will not be exactly the same as the ultimate service that goes into place. Heck, if I were running the T, it would be "let's start with minimal service for 2 months and see where demand dictates more service be added." This is a pretty robust pilot.
 
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