The Patch is reporting that delays this morning are impacting nearly the entire network. We need to put pressure on the Governor and our state electeds to make mass transit work and increase public confidence in it so they/we/me will actually get out of our cars and use it. How can we build thousands of units of housing supposedly designed to take public transit when public transit is not reliable and government doesn’t fund it and upgrade it?
Read the story about this mornings delays here.
AMEN. It’s enraging. People think that if they build all these units with insufficient parking people are going to ditch their cars and take the commuter rail. Have these people ever even had to rely on the commuter rail? The schedule is erratic and unusable if you don’t have a 9-5 job in Boston, the trains are packed by the Newton stops, there are delays in the winter, there are delays if the weather is too hot.
The commuter rail could be great if it just was given some TLC. But right now it needs a lot of help.
Does anyone honestly think MBTA is going to spend 10s of millions improving commuter rail frequency to affluent towns vs. making MBTA accessible to an underserved lower income community??
Even as a Newton resident who craves for better CR schedule, i agree that those lower income towns should get the funds first.. simply the right thing to do
Politically, Newton will be towards the bottom of any priority list. Increased density will not make a difference in this regard, its simply political reality in a liberal state.
I honestly do.
But it won’t be easy.
The MBTA, the governor, senate president and speaker of the house and the business community, have all acknowledged in 2019 that Massachusetts needs to address our transportation crisis, climate crisis and housing crisis. That doesn’t happen by just fixing undeserved communities. Single occupancy vehicles are our region’s largest contributor of green house gas.
We must do this. We have no choice.
This is a pretty far reaching conclusion from a single morning’s delay.
I took the commuter rail yesterday and there were delays then too. Delays are more of a very frequent occurrence.
Actually I should be a daily commuter on the CR or the T since I live a very easy, less than 5 or 10 minute walk from each station and an equally short walk from the stations to my work on the other side.
However the long rides, delays and overall being unreliable makes me drive the 10 miles into the city everyday and park at the garage that my company provides at a subsidized rate. That along with sometimes needing to pick up or drop off my kids at various places at a very specific time makes the public transport thing not worth it. I am not alone. There are probably 3 or 4 of us on the same street that are all in the same predicament. It’s ridiculous. And the rate of public transport use is overall very low in and around Newton. (5-10%?)
I am concerned about the planned construction on the Mass Pike that was announced recently and agree with Amy that any pressure that we can put on our elected officials to make public transportation in our area work better would be great. I am also very concerned about all the proposed development and how that is going to impact traffic and overload the existing roads and public transportation.
My understanding is that there is a state wide plan for electric vehicles because they know that people are not going to give up their cars. Does that also somehow fit into all of this? Will EV’s get more priority than improving commuter rail?
@Lisa: Electrifying our transportation system is an important objective. But simply switching from single occupancy gas powered cars to single occupancy electric cars won’t end gridlock. We need to get people out of their cars.
There’s no one solution that will fix this. We need better mass transit, public private shuttles, bike lanes, bus lanes and more walk able streets. We need people to live closer to jobs. And we need to get autonomous cars right too.
I’m not saying this is easy. But I am saying we don’t have a choice.
Electrify the lines and purchase Electric Multi Units (EMUs), which are exponentially more reliable than our diesel trains (and cheaper to maintain).
Combined with building high platform stations, these high performance trains would also reduce trip time by ~1/3rd.
This is not just a Newton problem or an “affluent neighborhood” problem, it’s a regional problem. Our highways have exceptionally bad traffic that keeps getting worse, sourced from as far away as central Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. This is obviously bad for everyone in a car but also anyone who breathes air, and we can’t reasonably build capacity.
The commuter rail could easily add huge amounts of capacity. But it suffers from a chicken and egg problem of not providing frequent service; once every 2 hours (or more) off peak is not dependable enough for most people, so they drive.
EMUs could run every 15 or 30 minutes.
http://transitmatters.org/regional-rail-1
I’m all for electric buses and designated bus lanes but we still need to put funding into our existing rail system and think more broadly so we can better serve the region.
Yes we do!
And we need to stop suburban sprawl to better serve the region too.
We absolutely need investment in our transportation infrastructure to enable the kind of growth and density needed to sustain our housing needs. The MBTA is in the middle of a visioning process for the commuter rail* looking at seven options, three of which would create an urban rail from Riverside and along the existing commuter rail stops in Auburndale/West Newton/Newtonville. Between Riverside, Washington St and the overall zoning redesign we should be pushing aggressively with the MBTA and our state reps for one of the urban rail options. It would be a huge benefit for existing residents and also a enabler for the level of density being proposed along the I90 corridor. The city should be pushing for a commitment to tie into all of the development proposals rather than build and first and then hope they pick one of the urban rail options.
*https://www.mbta.com/projects/rail-vision
For the record, today’s signal system implosion did not affect the Worcester line, which is what serves the Newton stations. But that was just good luck; I’m sure it will be our turn soon.
My observation is that there has been a marked improvement in reliability over the last 5 years or so. But there has also been a marked increase in ridership, which is not reflected in schedules or size of trains, so it has become an increasingly crowded ride.
On those occasions that I do drive, though, I am reminded that for me, the train is the lesser of two evils. I get to read or zone out — even if standing — and overall the travel time is more predictable than driving, even if it’s a little longer when factoring in time to get to/from the station.
But the biggest stress point for me is schedule. I am fortunate to have a largely predictable work day. But if some emergency comes up or I want to go out on the town after work, I am tied to the train schedule. For this reason, I am hopeful that Rail Vision / Regional Rail concepts come to pass. I think a lot of people dismiss the train out of hand for schedule reasons like these, and I think better service would allow the train to be a better option for many. I think this outcome is more likely if the city’s Washington Street Vision becomes adopted in some form.
I am also hopeful that the state comes to its senses and beefs up service on the Worcester line in advance of the coming Pike-opalypse as highlighted in the Globe last week: https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2019/05/30/the-mass-pike-for-some-massive-disruption-are-ready/ZCvDo2pSERUVUREJEizIUN/story.html
But I am not holding my breath for any positive change here.
And we need to stop these teardowns and building of monster homes that continue to make Newton affordable. Oh right, I tried that but housing advocates were against it….
Putting the cart (density) before the horse (transit) is a recipe for disaster. It’s as simple as that.
Actually, the reliability of the Framingham/Worcester Line has improved in recent years, especially after the horrible, no-good winter of 2015. The increased ridership is due in part to the opening of Boston Landing and the fact that all trains now stop at Lansdowne. Also, the number and types of rail cars can have an impact on the crowds. But it also seems true that more people are riding the commuter rail, in spite of the relative cheapness of gasoline and the occasional systemwide hiccups.
Sadly, it took the chaos of the worst winter of my lifetime to spur these changes. Even now, I think most folks are content to kick the van down the road (when it comes to looking for solutions) until the next major crisis strikes.