From free rides to late-night service, it turns out the MBTA can dress to impress
I saw what the T could be at its best. It wasn’t in a dream, but it was like one. And it was glorious.
There’s more potential than some folks may reckon. Certainly more than I tend to acknowledge.
That’s coming from a severe critic. I’m the cynic behind a series of satirical trading cards skewing MBTA inadequacy, and a longtime sour news hack who has helped expose tens of millions of dollars in unfortunate public transit expenditures.
And yet I saw the light at the end of the century-old tunnel exiting Park Street. The crystal ball came via New Year’s Eve in Boston aka First Night, when all hands at the Mass Bay Transportation Authority were on deck, making for a rare reminder that these ancient systems can work after all.
It didn’t start off smoothly for me. Rather, the six-minute wait for my Red Line that was promised on the platform LED display was just a lie, as usual. It read “6 MINUTES” for nine minutes, then updated to “STOPPED,” then changed to “2 STOPS AWAY,” then back to “6 MINUTES” before finally counting down, and my train arriving. I’m used to the T conjuring excuses like an addict roommate trying to explain what they did with your flat screen, but thankfully that was the end of my night’s transit inconveniences. Because after 8pm, they increased service for the following six hours.
Soon enough I was rolling along. In one of the glistening new Red Line cars! Pushing through what used to be so-called slow zones until a few weeks ago, and picking up dozens of New Year’s revelers at every stop. A horde of yuppie couples dressed in sleek black evening wear rapped with each other about how some of them stopped riding the T into work years ago due to its unreliability, so I figure it’s a positive that they were using it on this occasion rather than drunkenly driving their Teslas and Audis into other cars.
And why exactly were they using the train along with innumerable others who typically drive into and around Greater Boston? It’s not because they were expecting it to work well, though that was an added bonus. It’s probably because in many cases, people wanted to get drunk and stoned and stay out late, and unlike 364 days of the year when the apparatus goes dark after midnight, on Dec. 31, the transit authority provided service beyond 2am, actually steering wasted drivers off the road and onto trains for a refreshing change.
This wasn’t the first time they offered such accommodations. There have been late-night New Year’s programs in the past, while since the pandemic, trains have run on an increased schedule and until 2:30am on Jan. 1. It’s a literal lifesaver for some and a rare glimpse into everything this region can be on its brightest day, and while it is impractical to suggest maintaining that service on a daily basis at this juncture, it would be extraordinary to start running trains into the early hours at least once a month as things get on track. Similar to how exceptional performance on a holiday might reingratiate the T with lapsed straphangers, a new late-night pilot in this post-slow zone age could lure people back.
On top of later closing times and workers in bright vests helping to guide people along all night, every ride after 8pm was free. I’ll save my deeper explanation about why that should always be the case for another column—it’s something that nearsighted money people aren’t smart enough or willing to concede—but for now I’ll just say that it’s nice when freebies aren’t only given to commuter rail riders, who are rarely asked to pay during the rush hour. I threw the fare money I saved into the violin case of a busker, who was happily stacking on the perfect evening.
Twelve hours prior to my New Year’s ride in Boston, I was on my native New York City’s MTA. Visiting family there for the past few days, I thought a lot about the obvious (24-hour service) as well as the less noticeable (bus stop LED displays with updates) edges that sprawling system has over transit in my adopted home. And while the list is long, I see more similarities than differences, and that gives me hope, in part because MBTA CEO and General Manager Phillip Eng came here from that matrix.
I’m not on the same Eng fan club train that many others in the Massachusetts media are blindly pulling. I acknowledge his successes so far and applaud his team, but turning the T’s horror narrative into a hero story is extremely dangerous and frankly quite stupid. Eng might be Gordon Ramsay capable of rescuing the T from eternal hell and nightmarish damnation, but I’m more focused on larger concerns that remain and which in some cases are actually worsening—from severe budget shortfalls, to significant administrative and development decision-making issues like the situation that I recently reported about up at Alewife, where the agency is running roughshod over community members and activists in its construction planning.
While I’m staying off his bandwagon however I do ride Eng’s iron horses, and in my experience they were stallions on the last night of the year. I should temper my enthusiasm by acknowledging that things may have been bumpier with real winter weather, which would have driven countless more heads onto buses and trains around Greater Boston. But the assistance from climate change doesn’t change the fact that on New Year’s Eve, the T was everything that it could be. And while that isn’t perfect, it’s something we can hopefully look forward to seeing much more of in the new year.
