Riders demand more commuter rail service

What is the reasoning behind having it cost much more to get downtown than between outer stations? It costs the same amount to get from Hyde Park to Ruggles as from Hyde Park to Providence. Similarly, it costs the same amount to get from Belmont Center to Porter Square as it does to get from Belmont Center to Fitchburg. Anyone know why?
 
Worcester Line, Framingham: Inbound service hours: 5:35am-12:48 am. Inbound frequency: 20-40 mins. peak, 1-2 hrs. off-peak, frequent variance in individual headways. Travel time: 40 mins.-1 hr. (depending on whether train makes Newton stops). Zone 5 $8 fare/$11 cash onboard; $4 daily parking.

The bus almost always beats the train. The train barely runs at all off-peak. You can't get into town super early on the train. You have to check your train schedule to make sure it's not an all-stops local doing the 3 Newton stops...because that's the difference between a 45-minute trip and an hour-long trip. You can legitimately beat an on-time 1-hour train to SS by taking the bus + a free SL1 transfer. The Worcester Line is borked multiple days a week; those days you can legitimately beat the 45-min. schedule to SS with the bus + SL1. The cash-onhand fare difference is only $1.

If you are well aware what the odds are of the Worcester Line being borked, you can hedge on LEX + SL1 + peace of mind every day if it fits enough of your needs and that's worth the slight fare difference. It legitimately steals away some % of real commuter rail riders because the Worcester Line is such a shitshow that it's whittled the difference between modes to almost nothing.

Forgot to add that one time I missed the train in Worcester, bummed around at the station a bit until the next bus left, maybe 15-20 minutes, and still beat the train to South Station.
 
What is the reasoning behind having it cost much more to get downtown than between outer stations? It costs the same amount to get from Hyde Park to Ruggles as from Hyde Park to Providence. Similarly, it costs the same amount to get from Belmont Center to Porter Square as it does to get from Belmont Center to Fitchburg. Anyone know why?

It's the jump in zones. Ruggles-->HP is Zone 1A-->Zone 1; Porter-Belmont is 1A to 1. The Fitchburg Line sequences all the way up to Zone 8, Providence all the way up to Zone 10 on a Wickford trip. Since the top of the scale is predicated by endpoint and the zones attempt to organize roughly the same systemwide there's a lot of equitability conflicts trip vs. trip, line vs. line. Not an easy one to solve because the needs of inside-128 commutes are very different from the needs of 495/intercity commutes, and the zones have to be human-readable everywhere.


Check out some of the variances inside 128 that would come into play on various 128-orientated short-turns:

Riverside (Worcester Line) -- Zone 1A at Back Bay and Yawkey, 1 at Newtonville, 2 at West Newton and Auburndale, 3 at Wellesley Farms. Allston/New Balance is clearly going to be a 1A, but that'll likely make Newton Corner a 1 and Riverside a 2.

Anderson-Woburn (Lowell Line) -- West Medford a 1A, Wedgemere and Winch. Ctr. 1's, Mishawum and Anderson 2's.

Reading (Haverhill Line) -- Malden Ctr.'s a 1A, Wyoming Hill thru Melrose Highlands a 1, Greenwood thru Reading a 2.

Waltham (Fitchburg Line)-- Porter a 1A, Belmont and Waverley a 1, Waltham and Brandeis a 2, Kendal Green a 3. A would-be 128 park-and-ride stop displacing KG would most logically get grouped with the 2's.

Needham -- 1A to Forest Hills, 1 Rozzie to W. Roxbury, 2 Hersey to Needham Heights.

Fairmount -- all 1A's to Fairmount, 1 at Readville. If extended to Westwood/128, Zone 2.

Salem/Beverly (Eastern Route) -- Chelsea's a 1A, Riverworks and Lynn jump to 2, Swampscott and Salem are 3's, and Beverly (your would-be short-turn) is a 4. If there's a future Peabody Branch that's probably Peabody Sq. a 3 and North Shore Mall/128 a 4 under this setup.



Quite a spread. But you don't have to look far to see problems galore:

Riverside -- Newton divided by multiple fare zones; unduly punishes locals. Biggest would-be bus terminal on the route (Newton Corner) an interzone jump for nearly everyone.

Reading -- Fairly distributed overall, but Malden Ctr.'s the big bus terminal so that's a high interzone fare jump to those using it purely locally.

Waltham -- Waltham's a big bus terminal. Porter and/or Alewife big on every-transfers. Both take a pound of flesh on interzone fares if you're getting off 1-2 stops before the terminal in either direction.

Needham -- Rozzie and W. Rox get totally boned over bad being in Zone 1 while Fairmount gets 1A'd. Can't reach any transfers whatsoever--not even Forest Hills--without an interzone jump. Borderline cruel.

Salem/Beverly -- Where do I begin? Lynn costs as much as an entire 128 trip on any other line. And it's the largest bus terminal on the T served only by commuter rail, so maximum interzone pain everywhere-to-everywhere. Swampscott and Salem are more expensive than past-128 destinations like Wilmington, Norwood Central, the 3 Weston and 3 Wellesley stops, and Holbrook/Randolph. Not just borderline cruel...plain-old cruel to the North Shore.


And then, of course, there's Westwood/128 and its Zone 2 beckoning the Fairmount Line out there. Providing a significant influx of 9-5 park-and-riders and an anchor for Westwood Landing at a station expandable to support the traffic. That could happen soon...like, the second the DMU's go into service soon. But it'll be an immediate test of their ability to deal with "Indigo" fare collection in some way that's seamless to riders and properly scalable for destinations.



Won't be easy. You've got lines out of whack (some very very far out-of-whack) with each other that need to be redistributed...and not with higher fares but lower. You've got major bus terminals where more frequent service could/would encourage more transfer usage...but only if those riders aren't getting unduly punished for getting off 2-3 stops before the terminal to catch their bus. That means dilineating what's a key transfer stop from what's not a key transfer stop from inside a sliding scale. And whatever they do has to remove, not add to, the abstraction the rider faces in trying to understand the zone system. It doesn't matter if the back-end system is programmed for everything from Zone 1A to Zone 2Q in what it sees...all that matters is that what the riders sees is that he or she can tap-on/tap-off with their card and be certain they got charged only their fair share and no more.
 
Zone 1A: City stops. Fare: $2.00 (subway fare)

Zone 1: Anything inside or at 128. Fare: $3.00

Zone 2: Create some form of equidistant imaginary line between 128 and 495. Fare: $5.00

Zone 3: Anything inside or at 495 (i.e. Middleborough/Lakeville, just beyond the highway). Fare $7.00

Zone 4: Commuter trips outside 495 and fewer than 50 miles. Fare: $9.00

"Zone 5": Trips of more than 50 miles (Cape Flyer, end-to-end for Boston-to-Wickford, etc.). This is not a zone, per se, just a designation that allows for flexible fares based on the service and distance.
 
Zone 1A: City stops. Fare: $2.00 (subway fare)

Zone 1: Anything inside or at 128. Fare: $3.00

Zone 2: Create some form of equidistant imaginary line between 128 and 495. Fare: $5.00

Zone 3: Anything inside or at 495 (i.e. Middleborough/Lakeville, just beyond the highway). Fare $7.00

Zone 4: Commuter trips outside 495 and fewer than 50 miles. Fare: $9.00

"Zone 5": Trips of more than 50 miles (Cape Flyer, end-to-end for Boston-to-Wickford, etc.). This is not a zone, per se, just a designation that allows for flexible fares based on the service and distance.

Holy crap! I was brainstorming a system that would work well and was about to post it here when you posted something nearly identical. Bravo.
 
For all the talk about parking costs, that's all extraneous and wouldn't be necessary if stations were the anchor for a walkable community, instead of the T's insistence on surrounding them with deserts of asphalt.
 
The T, I'm sure, makes a large margin on its asphalt palaces, but it needs to get out of the parking business. Leave it to the communities where the station is, and include that as part of the station location process. If the town doesn't want parking at the stop, so be it.
 
Holy crap! I was brainstorming a system that would work well and was about to post it here when you posted something nearly identical. Bravo.

Of course what counts as "city stops" versus "inside 128 stops"? West Roxbury is within the City of Boston, but almost at 128. Same with Readville. Which zone should West Medford or Waverly be in? They're at least as close to the city center as West Roxbury. The geography of the City of Boston to the southwest versus any other direction screws that system up.
 
Of course what counts as "city stops" versus "inside 128 stops"? West Roxbury is within the City of Boston, but almost at 128. Same with Readville. Which zone should West Medford or Waverly be in? They're at least as close to the city center as West Roxbury. The geography of the City of Boston to the southwest versus any other direction screws that system up.

I don't see a point in defining "city stops". The MBTA reaches 128 in several directions, and 128 is the popular border of the "inner" Boston Area. There should be 1 fare inside it ($2), and transit inside of it should be planned as "urban" instead of "suburban", with some exceptions (Needham and Braintree are urban, for example).
 
^ It should all just be distance-based. Make the cut-off for Zone 1 (eliminate Zone 1A) be 10 miles from North or South Station and you'd encompass virtually all of the inner urbanized Boston area.
 
What is the reasoning behind having it cost much more to get downtown than between outer stations? It costs the same amount to get from Hyde Park to Ruggles as from Hyde Park to Providence. Similarly, it costs the same amount to get from Belmont Center to Porter Square as it does to get from Belmont Center to Fitchburg. Anyone know why?

Thats good policy. It encoruages suburb-suburb transit use and prices peak demand.
 
The T, I'm sure, makes a large margin on its asphalt palaces, but it needs to get out of the parking business. Leave it to the communities where the station is, and include that as part of the station location process. If the town doesn't want parking at the stop, so be it.

Why should the T stop doing something it makes money at, if it can help subsidize more service?
 
Are we sure the T is making money on its asphalt places? Last time I saw any figures about parking utilization at CR stops it was all over the map which ones were well-patronized and which ones were filling far below capacity. I seem to recall the outer Worcester Line stops being significant underperformers. At bare minimum they've got a large contingent of painful loss leader stops eating into the profits they're getting at other overstuffed lots, and the clumsiness of the parking fare distribution and lack of fare collection integration is severely blunting their operating efficiency. Maybe they are turning an overall profit, but I have a hard time believing it's defraying anywhere close to the % of costs it should be for the disproportionate resources expended over the last 20 years expanding systemwide.


When looking at performers vs. underperformers, also have to check off the lots where somebody else is taking a share, majority, or all of the parking revenue. Anderson-Woburn is a Massport lot. Fitchburg and North Leominster are MRTA lots. Brockton is a BAT lot. Lowell and North Billerica are LRTA lots. Lawrence is an MVRTA lot. Mansfield and Forge Park are GATRA lots. Worcester Union Station is a City of Worcester lot. Several others have split jurisdiction with the towns or have the towns doing the lot maintenance/security themselves instead of the T's preferred subcontractor, by necessity giving them a larger stake of the proceeds. Many of these under Regional Transit Authority control you can see are the major urban, terminal, or local bus node stops in the 495 belt or otherwise amongst the busiest stops on their respective lines. So whether the T's share of the revenue is large or small per the contract terms of each individual lot, they are significantly diluted at a lot of the system's busiest park-and-rides. So you have to factor how much that impacts the performers vs. underperformers. Not having Lowell, N. Bill., and Anderson fully in-house sucks when so few other Lowell Line stops have parking at all. So does Lawrence when so few other Haverhill/Reading stops have more than a handful of spaces. So does diluting the Worcester Union Station intake if the swath of intermediate stops between Framingham and Grafton ain't filling up their lots for reasons unknown. Systemwide distribution takes its toll when the top performers are shared revenue but the underperformers are mostly in-house and a crapshoot.


It'd be a good data collection project to try to ballpark this distribution, because I think the devil is in these kinds of details about whether parking and the hyper-focus on parking is helping or hurting. Consider that if more local service inside 128 and making the Zone system more equitable is a high priority...those inner stops are not going to have large lots contributing revenue to offset the increased operating costs with exception of the couple badly needed infills at 128-proper like 128/20/117 in Waltham. If the 128-to-495 lots under T control need to contribute more to the coffers to support expanded inner service, debugging the underperformers and skewed revenue distribution is critical. There aren't too many new outer stations or extension stations they can add under their own fare control, because most of them will be in Regional Transit Authority shared or exclusive jurisdiction: Wachusett under MRTA, North Chelmsford and Tyngsboro/Route 3 under LRTA, Pawtucket to RIPTA, Nashua to NHDOT or NTS, Plaistow to NHDOT, Foxboro significantly lining Bob Kraft's pockets, Taunton and Wareham to GATRA, Fall River and New Bedford to SRTA, Buzzards Bay and all on-Cape stations to CCRTA...and so on.
 
Even if they are making coin on these lots, the effort made to maintain an entire parking operation just isn't worth it. Let the T do what it does best, and facilitate train service. Let someone else deal with the parking.
 
Even if they are making coin on these lots, the effort made to maintain an entire parking operation just isn't worth it. Let the T do what it does best, and facilitate train service. Let someone else deal with the parking.

This can also be something better-concentrated at the MassDOT mothership. Unite the T lots, Massport lots, RTA lots, and other lots under common administration and fine-tune the revenue distribution more equitably to the sub-agencies. That includes better deals for the RTA's, too, which badly need those outer commuter lots as revenue sources; it's the only way they can afford to run good connecting bus service. Centralized admin is good if for no other reason than EZ-Pass is the best available universal fare collection system for cars statewide, much like Charlie is the best universal fare collection system for transit vehicles statewide (including the far-flung RTA's converting over to it). Plus it's a way to seed more cross-pollenation between EZ-Pass and Charlie. Something is wrong if EZ-Pass is locktight universal on the entire eastern seaboard for road tolls and is starting to get deployed in all sorts of non-toll applications...but Westwood/128 is so far the only station equipped to handle it for paying for parking. For chrissakes most of them are still on the stuff-the-exact-change-in-the-box honor system, which is insanely leaky on compliance and flat-out archaic for the year 2013. Just like all manner of commuter rail-related fare collection is archaic in the Charlie-everywhere/EZ-Pass -everywhere era. How much more utilization would they get if commuters could just drive in and out, their in-car transponder auto-calculated the fare as they drove in and out, and the auto-refresh of the account you set up online leaves it totally hands-off and out-of-sight/out-of-mind for 75% of the populace. Plus far superior ability for employers to include park-and-rides in their transit subsidy pre-tax bennies, since some of them already offer that for EZ-Pass.

The fragmentation and general clumsiness of it all sure isn't helping the efficiency of their revenue intake, and probably is one of the root causes behind those otherwise hard-to-explain severe underperforming individual stations or swaths of stations.
 
I doubt the T is making enough money on the garages to keep up with depreciation and operating costs. Maybe on the asphalt flats, since they don't care about lost opportunity cost or property tax.

But the real loss is a much larger issue. Peak-focused American commuter rail is a money sucking nightmare because it requires such heavy infrastructure costs to serve a limited market. The traditional, peak-oriented rider is very expensive to serve because they only travel twice per day, each time in the direction with the least available capacity, and the trains basically have to deadhead back to pick up the next load.

Surrounding your stations with desolate parking lots just compounds this problem because it almost completely wipes out the possibility of reverse-peak travel.

So even if the T covers its costs on those wide expanses of asphalt, it ends up losing more money by cutting off the only means of making more efficient use of the fixed rail infrastructure it has already sunk billions into building: all-day, two-way travel.
 
Just like all manner of commuter rail-related fare collection is archaic in the Charlie-everywhere/EZ-Pass -everywhere era. How much more utilization would they get if commuters could just drive in and out, their in-car transponder auto-calculated the fare as they drove in and out, and the auto-refresh of the account you set up online leaves it totally hands-off and out-of-sight/out-of-mind for 75% of the populace.

That's not MassDOT's ideal endgame. The best option for them would be something like the Chicago's got with "Ventra" - a direct linkage between a single transportation account and your credit card. No accounts to refill. Just have an RFID card in your wallet and a transponder on your windshield which link to the same MassDOT system and would be interoperable with every tollbooth and transit system in the US. If technology permits, drop the transponder and read the credit card in your pocket (if multiple people in the car have them, map the signals relative to each other and take the one farthest to the front-left).

Ventra has issues, namely that the private bank partner they found has all sorts of hidden fees designed to screw low-income users, but the concept is solid. Why should I be paying for my parking, tolls and transit in $50 increments? Just tote up my MassDOT bill at the end of the month and charge it like a utility does.

^ It should all just be distance-based. Make the cut-off for Zone 1 (eliminate Zone 1A) be 10 miles from North or South Station and you'd encompass virtually all of the inner urbanized Boston area.

Why? As long as it's a relatively even ring on a map it'll be easy to follow, and 128 appears as a pretty nice ring on the current MBTA map. Really, it's about the sections of each line considered "inner"... from Riverside in, Brandeis/Roberts in, Anderson RTC in... who cares exactly how far out it is?
 
I doubt the T is making enough money on the garages to keep up with depreciation and operating costs. Maybe on the asphalt flats, since they don't care about lost opportunity cost or property tax.

But the real loss is a much larger issue. Peak-focused American commuter rail is a money sucking nightmare because it requires such heavy infrastructure costs to serve a limited market. The traditional, peak-oriented rider is very expensive to serve because they only travel twice per day, each time in the direction with the least available capacity, and the trains basically have to deadhead back to pick up the next load.

Great points^^.

The T should spend its money: 1. upgrading and expanding the subway, 2. upgrading CR inside 128 to ~20 minute intervals or less, using DMU. The state should dedicate a lane during rush hours on 93 and 90 for buses inside 495 and that would probably eliminate the need for CR outside 128 and save a ton of money. As it is CR is too expensive for travelers inside 128 where most of the potential customers are, and far too inexpensive outside 128, where fares are highly subsidized.
 
The T should explore with developers to build up on surface lots around stations with apartment buildings. It doesn't need to be a massive westwood, riverside complex, but you can build a 100 unit apartment and a garage. I think people would live there. A development sprung up next to Cohasset's station. Greenbush has a huge parking lot across the street. You could get more revenue and not even change traffic patterns but add riders, vitality and more money. The T could partner with developers on the lots and retain an equity position since the cost is largely sunk for land.

The state can help by giving something for as of right zoning in the lots.
 
Great points^^.

The T should spend its money: 1. upgrading and expanding the subway, 2. upgrading CR inside 128 to ~20 minute intervals or less, using DMU. The state should dedicate a lane during rush hours on 93 and 90 for buses inside 495 and that would probably eliminate the need for CR outside 128 and save a ton of money. As it is CR is too expensive for travelers inside 128 where most of the potential customers are, and far too inexpensive outside 128, where fares are highly subsidized.

If the point of commuter rail is to take long-distance commuters off the road, subsidizing the outer portions of the line is exactly what you want to do, particularly as they're likely already paying you twice (once for the train, once for parking). The issue with the inner portions has been that since commuter rail is faster, more direct and more comfortable, it has tended to be priced at a premium. The problem is that since most commuter rail lines aren't redundant with transit in Boston, that's priced a lot of neighborhoods out of commuting by rail at all.

Lowering the prices on the inner portion without changing anything else results in a per-rider loss for the T, but it might also result in a net gain in revenue if it attracts more riders. The 2008 DMU study did some work on that, and found the T sees a net benefit if it increases frequency to 15-min headways on the Fairmount and lowers fares to match transit.

Basically, you can penalize suburbanites for clogging up the roads or you can penalize them for clogging up the trains, but you can't do both.
 

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