Late night T service take 2

I think there's a good case for running Silver Line to Logan 24/7/365, even when nothing else is running.
 
I see that there are about 20 flights coming in after midnight and before 6am (a lot more than I thought). Several international. Still, if I were coming in that late (either on a red-eye or international flight) I wonder if I would want to get on a bus for 30 minutes before having to get in a taxi at South Station. I'd spend the $10 difference just hopping in a cab and then go direct to where I need to go (and again, this is just for a couple nights a week). Similarly, some airport workers might use this, but for a couple nights a week? I think the whole logic of the extended hours program is geared towards late-night hijinks :cool: and it's really not about conducting business (and so is inefficiently repurposed for that). Of course, it depends on the cost of running the service. If it's done cheaply then, fine. Otherwise it may be something to be tweaked. In theory, I agree with Ron--24/7 service to Logan is a good idea in principle. But is it cost effective? I don't think the MBTA has the luxury of putting resources where they don't pay off. We've seen (are seeing) that movie.
 
Ron Newman said:
I think there's a good case for running Silver Line to Logan 24/7/365, even when nothing else is running.
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Great idea! And, overnight, given the very light surface traffic, you could pop it out of its tunnel and run it on the street.

From "subway closing" to "subway open", Run SL8 (SL-Late!) on the surface all the way to Dudley. A worthy 24-hour line.
 
I'm surprised MassPort hasn't already suggested it and kicked in some funds.

BTW, there is a route that runs from Dudley to the Airport at about 4 a.m. every morning.
 
The same way they benefit from the existing 4 a.m. route.

But I was thinking more of MassPort funding the Airport <--> mainland part.
 
A somewhat clunky design, but this is what I posted over on reddit the other day to make it easy/easier to glean from the schedules a general gist of how service is changing for the next year.

I started from the template I originally designed for the T, which was adopted and evolved beyond my involvement (and without my employment) into what's in use today. I've been working on evolving the template over the years into something modular that makes it harder to let someone over at the signage department just dump a press release into a service advisory verbatim. This is an initial attempt at differentiating informational service posters from critical, hey-this-needs-to-be-in-your-face service advisories.

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The numbers are in. About 19,000 people used the T during late-night hours this past weekend*:

First Weekend Totals

Core transfer stations
Friday Night: 3,367
Saturday Night: 2,634

Red Line
Friday Night: 2,419
Saturday Night: 2,219

Orange Line
Friday Night: 1,390
Saturday Night: 1,222

Blue Line
Friday Night: 464
Saturday Night: 491

Green Line
Friday Night: 2,329
Saturday Night: 2,104

Grand total
Friday Night: 10,017
Saturday Night: 8,715

Synopsis and article:
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2014/04/01/late-night-mbta-service-ridership-numbers/
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*"Trolley and bus trips" were not included in these numbers. I'm assuming they mean the at-grade stops on the Green Line by "trolley?"

It probably would have been even higher if Saturday night didn't have such awful weather.
 
Nit-picking Boston Magazine: "for the first time ever" ... since 1960.

Yes, I bet that the numbers they released for "First Weekend Totals" are probably raw numbers from the AFC counts at the gated stations.
 
Fixed up the "late night poster" so that its printable somewhat nicely. You can type in a location and print the result for a convenient reference.
 
Curiously, the MBTA says there are no ridership forecasts/goals for the pilot? :confused:
 
The entire metric for success is a little nebulous, especially considering it's labeled as a "Pilot Program" which would need some sort of success metric by definition. Ultimately, I'd guess the issue is that this experiment is more a child of politics than anything else, so the real metric will be "can Marty Walsh, MassDOT, and the T keep the political pressure up to keep the program running?" which is numbers independent.
 
If it were just for Marty, they wouldn't be including bus lines like the #77 that don't enter Boston at all.
 
Ron Newman said:
If it were just for Marty, they wouldn't be including bus lines like the #77 that don't enter Boston at all.
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I think underground was referring to Walsh as the main local politico with the clout to strongly advocate. Cambridge doesn't have a unified voice on anything, so it's hard to mount bully pulpit campaigns from Central Square. If late night does get upgraded to a standard service pattern, I'd also expect Mayor Curtatone to start pushing for some sort of late busses in Somerville. He's not shy at all about advocating for transit in the 'Ville.
 
Ron Newman said:
If it were just for Marty, they wouldn't be including bus lines like the #77 that don't enter Boston at all.
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Which is why I included MassDOT and the T. I'd have included the Governor (who I have a sinking suspicion was the real driver on this), but he'll be out of office soon.
 
http://www.onein3boston.com/2014/05/20/boston-moves-towards-a-24-hour-lifestyle/

Last week, Mayor Walsh was able to get an amendment filed to the Senate budget that provides a local option for licensed establishments to sell alcohol beyond the current 2 a.m. cap in communities impacted by MBTA’s late night service. The budget and its amendments will be debated this week. If Mayor Walsh’s amendment is adopted by the Senate, the City of Boston will continue to advocate for its inclusion in the final FY15 budget that will be released before July 1st.
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Woah. Did not know such things could be adopted as budget amendments! And nicely done connecting it to municipalities with late night T service. Go gettum Walshy!
 
Ron Newman said:
If it were just for Marty, they wouldn't be including bus lines like the #77 that don't enter Boston at all.
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Well I think the T just said "we'll use the 15 key routes (highest ridership)", of which the 77 is one of them. It wasn't like the routes were hand-picked based on any other criteria.
 
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