Ending Mattapan trolleys may only be a trial balloon, but fans taking no chances

There must be some "off the shelf" replacement. I'd be stunned if a metro system in Europe isn't using an LRV of similar body type which we could purchase.

The Mattapan trolley was free for a long time until relatively recently, so those who use it are already paying an increased fare, up from zero.

Second, have you ever ridden one? Yeah they are rolling museum pieces, that doesn't mean it's a rickety old bag of bolts shaking down the tracks. They are actually comfortable and move along at a pretty nice pace. And for the T, they have been renovated pretty recently. A 1964 Lincoln Towncar is much more comfortable and solid than a 1985 Honda Civic, which brings me to another point: they don't make stuff like they used to. Those newer green line trolleys are garbage (evidenced by the fact they are not buying more of them and instead re-habbing the older ones), and likely need just as much repair as the Mattapan Trolleys if not more. In fact, if memory serves me they all got sent back for some kind of recall or major repair not that long ago. The construction materials used in building them is not even close to the same quality. I will take 1940s American steel over Chinese pot metal any day.

Third, unless the plan is to run fossil fuel burning buses on city streets then upgrading the current system will also be expensive. Updating bridges to handle the added weight, upgrading the electrical, paving over the tracks, remodelling the existing (relatively new) handicap ramps/platforms to accomodate new cars/busses. I really don't see how it is more expensive to keep what is already in place running. Even with the fact people keep throwing around about parts for them. I dabble in restoring old cars, right? These old trolleys are mechanically pretty basic. Making/having parts made is not as big a deal as people make it out to be. There are plenty of competent machine shops in the area (the T has its own actually) that can fabricate parts, and those are American jobs and American made parts. The alternative is buying more cars/buses from some foreign coach builder then buying parts made in China or some other third world country that come off an assembly line and will probably break again in short order due to materials and/or design. After running these trolleys since the 40s I'm gonna guess the kinks have been worked out or design issues are known and can either be corrected or anticipated. It is likely that after a 70 year old part fails and a new one is fabricated, the part will last another 70 years, or longer given improved technologies and materials.

Finally, the social justice/minority communities thing makes me belly laugh every time I read it. Mattapan Square and Ashmont are the only two stops on that line (at the ends) that service, lets call them "rougher" areas. The rest of the Mattapan line runs through Milton and the more gentrified parts of Dorchester (Lower Mills). Boston must be the only major city in America shrinking its rail system. If you remove trolly/train service from these areas how can we expect growth and improvements there? They are constantly trying and failing at adding stops, extending lines, etc etc, meanwhile ripping out and deleting whole parts of it. i think it has finally become politically "sexy" to spend money MAINTAINING existing infastructure.

...and no one is thinking of replacing them.

The streetcars running on the Canal Street line were actually built by New Orleans RTD. I'm sure they could build some more for the T, or teach the T to do it themselves.

The real problem here is morons in the legislature and a governor who feels that cutting the T's costs is more important than carrying out its mission.

Lower Mills is very diverse, and the trolley goes though Milton for a couple of stops, so sorry not a minority " line". The lack of articulated busses to between Mattapan and Forest Hills speaks more to the reality of underserved minority ridership, Those buses are packed, standing room only and suffer the impact of traffic and transit re routing of MBTA's low inventory of buses.