Public Transit Misery Is Bad for the Environment - Frontier Group
The more people who travel by bus or train, the better off our environment and society are. Per passenger mile, a ride on the MBTA here in ...
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Here in Boston, a recent poll found that our public transit system causes four out of five riders to feel “stressed, angry or frustrated.” And ridership recently <anchor>dropped</anchor> by more than 10 percent – or around 20,0000 riders per day – after the derailment of a Red Line subway train caused damage that triggered months of service disruptions. Down the coast, the New York Times recently identified the “very worst commuter train in America” – New Jersey Transit’s Train 2606, which has plagued riders with nearly 20 cancellations so far in 2019. The Times interviewed some riders who have found ways to skip their commutes by just staying home. But it’s a good bet that some other frustrated riders ended up in a car.
Red Line ridership hasn’t recovered - CommonWealth Beacon
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# Red Line ridership hasn’t recovered

Customer satisfaction with T remains near all-time low

Headshot of Bruce Mohl, Editor at CommonWealth Beacon.byAndy Metzger and Bruce MohlAugust 19, 2019August 19, 2019

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RED LINE RIDERSHIPhas not fully recovered from the hit it took after a June 11 derailment, and the MBTA’s regular monthly survey of users suggests satisfaction with the agency remains near an all-time low.

The T late Monday released data indicating Red Line ridership, which had been averaging more than 200,000 on weekdays the previous year and in the months leading up to the derailment, has failed to rebound.

The T earlier released data indicating Red Line ridership was off 10.5 percent from 2018 levels in the first week after the derailment and then 5.9 percent off in the second week. The T on Monday released additional data for July and the first three weeks of August that show the number of people tapping in to ride the Red Line have bounced around a bit without ever returning to the 200,000 level.

Now even the busiest days don’t crack that pre-crash average of around 200,000 tap-ins. Since the crash through last Friday, the most Red Line tap-ins was 198,628, which occurred on Tuesday, July 16.

Excluding the Independence Day holiday and the Friday that followed it, from July 1 through last Friday weekday tap-ins on the Red Line have averaged 186,813. The busiest week since the fare hike was the third week of July when the daily average was 190,801. The week before the derailment, the average was 206,565.

Even with the diminished numbers, post-derailment, more people tap-in to ride the Red Line on an average weekday than the total populations of any New England city except Boston.

It’s unclear how much of the downturn in ridership is due to the derailment and the signal restrictions that have slowed service on the line, and how much is due to a fare increase that took effect July 1.

According to the T’s own monthly survey of riders, satisfaction with the transit agency remained at near-record lows in July.

The rating of 2.53 – on a scale of 1 to 5 – was only a hair above June’s record low of 2.5 for the survey data, which dates back to February 2016.

Customer satisfaction plummeted nearly 23 percent in June after a 50-year-old Red Line train derailed and crashed into signal systems that controlled miles of track in Dorchester and South Boston. There is little mystery why the T has taken such a reputational hit since then, as manual signaling and track-switching have delayed trips on the busiest subway line, fares went up or stayed flat July 1, and T officials project service won’t be fully restored until October.

Any rider can sign up to take the T’s survey, and 1,853 respondents registered their opinion with the agency last month. While the bottom-line number for July was relatively consistent with June, there were a couple minor fluctuations in the month-to-month data, which looked slightly rosier in July. The percentage of people “extremely dissatisfied” with the MBTA overall dropped from nearly one in five, or 19 percent, in June to 16 percent in July.

Reliability, a measure that uses various metrics to gauge on-time performance on different transit modes, was a mixed bag from June to July. Subway reliability actually dropped slightly in that period while bus and paratransit reliability improved somewhat and commuter rail reliability stayed relatively stable. On June 11, the day of the derailment, subway reliability was at a paltry 60 percent, according to the T. In the past 30 days it has averaged 86 percent, which is slightly worse than the average reliability for the months preceding the derailment.

One big upcoming test for the MBTA will be how the transit agency handles the influx of college students this fall. At the direction of Gov. Charlie Baker, the T plans to more aggressively shutdown subway service on weekends to more swiftly complete repair projects. That plan could lead to some short-term hassles but lasting improvements.

There has been good news and bad on the MBTA since the survey was taken last month. Last week customers were able to ride the first new Orange Line train in three decades, and the T also reopened a refurbished Wollaston Station, bringing the entire Red Line into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Meanwhile, a Green Line trolley derailed on Aug. 7 leading to more morning commute headaches.

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# Red Line ridership hasn’t recovered

by Andy Metzger and Bruce Mohl, CommonWealth Beacon

August 19, 2019

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