Hey, there! Log in / Register
Mayor, lawmakers try yet again to get reduced fares at commuter-rail stops in Boston
By adamg on Thu, 01/25/2024 - 11:24am
CommonWealth Beacon reports on yet another effort by Boston lawmakers to convince the T to change the Hyde Park, Readville and West Roxbury commuter-rail stations to the same zone as the Fairmount one - which could save riders hundreds of dollars a year. But T officials say they're more interested in an overall reduced-fare system it's looking to set-up for low-income riders across the entire commuter-rail network.
Neighborhoods:
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Stop being cheap, MBTA
So instead of just making all the rail stations in Boston the same fare to keep it simple, the T would rather come up with some complicated scheme that requires low income people to apply wait for a separate card?
Because- distance!
Why should riders in Readville be paying less to ride the state supported transit system than riders in Lynn or West Medford?
If it were a city service, the city could work these things out, but saying that one set of riders 10 miles from the terminal should be paying a lot less than other riders 10 miles away just because of which city they live in would be more unfair.
Distance?
Given that Braintree (Red Line) is further from South Station than Readville, why should Readville cost more for a train that runs far less frequently?
And it's quicker to go from Braintree to South Station than Readville. So why charge more?
Let's take a look at the zone map, shall we?
Braintree is in zone 2, same as Readville, and while I'm looking at it, all the Needham stops, the Waltham stops, Woburn, Wakefield, and Lynn.
The Newton commuter rail stop closest to, and closer to South Station than, Riverside is also in zone 2. Should that also be changed to 1A?
Map's here if you want to see it.
The MBTA is a state agency. Municipal boundaries mean nothing.
You prove my point
Why does a train station which is closer to downtown Boston cost more then a subway station which is further away?
Yes, they should reduce the fees at all rail stations that are within ~15 miles of downtown Boston to match that of the subway.
Agreed
If I remember correctly, the MetroNorth (East of Hudson) and Long Island Rail Road in New York City do have city fares before the trains reach the county lines (Westchester for MN, Nassau for the LIRR).
A City Zone fare would certainly bring more in revenue from riders who want a quicker one seat ride to downtown. City Zone would be the subway fare ($2.40) as far south as Readville, and as far west as West Roxbury and Boston Landing, and then the T could begin charging Zone 1 fares across the Suffolk county line.
MBTA are inept
The only reason the commuter rail is reliable is that unlike the rest of the MBTA it's run by an outside contractor, Keolis, a subsidiary of the French national railway company SNCF.
I see lots of turnstile jumpers at subway stations these days. One of them told me she does it as a way to protest the piss-poor service. Standing on the platform at Central the other day, I heard an almost incessant "bzzt bzzt!" of turnstiles being jumped.
Keolis “reliable” ?!!!!! Are you joking?
Those money wasting turnstiles slow travel travel time and thus waste time as well.
Somebody made big money off them, but not the MBTA or the public.
Will the future late nite shuttle van fleet
Provide a flat fee trip to these stations?
This is good. I lived in
This is good. I lived in Wolcott Square. The pass for the commuter rail zone 2 was too expensive for me so I took the 32 bus to Forest Hills and had lots of time wasting instead of taking the commuter rail.
Like I always say
Borders are a cancer. The fair and implementable way to do this in 2024 is to give every station its own rate if you're going to do it based on expected miles traveled. You've basically turned Boston into 1980's Berlin otherwise, in that everything is radically different on the other side of the wall just because someone erected a wall.
And what is proposed would
And what is proposed would not help people like me. I make too much money yet the over $100 difference between Zone 1A and Zone 2 passes, were not in my budget.
Now on the commuter rail, they are trying to get people to activate tickets before they get on the train but on about 40% of my rides, no one comes to look at tickets, I am not activating my ticket, until I see the conductor checking tickets.
Perfect T solution
Creating an impenetrable, means-testing bureaucracy is definitely the way to go if we want to preserve the status quo.
It’s not one or the other, MBTA.
You can do both and should do both.
MBTA
Can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.
Make the T free
... and get some cars off the damned roads.
Sure
We just need to raise your taxes by 10k a year. Always increasing year over year, obviously.
Not really
I think someone (Ari?) did some math and figured out to make transit free state wide, we would have to increase the gas tax by a few cents.
Last time I filled up a car, it was a 15gal tank. At 3.29/gal which I paid at the time, would cost $49.35.
If we added a NICKEL to the gas tax, that would add 75 cents to that total bring it to $50.10
So even if you filled up your car every week, it would cost you $39 more dollars a year. Or if we break it down by the day 11 cents a day.
You lose more in change between the seat cushions of your car than that.
Far cry from '10k' tax increase..
Not even close
MA gas tax is .24/gallon right now. It brought in 729M in 2022. $474M of the MBTA 2023 budget is from fares. You’d need to increase the gas tax to .40/gallon to cover lost fare revenue and keep the $1.3 billion sales tax funding in place. This is of course ignoring the fact that the MBTA projects a $25 billion need to get into a state of good repair and that ICE vehicles will be banned in the US in 2035.
so, not $10K
.
Yes, 10k
Just because doubling the gas tax, which is a terrible and short sighted idea. Covers the lost fare revenue. You still have the massive $25 billion elephant in the room. There are approximately 700,000 people in Boston. That’s an extra 35k per person a year in addition to the 1.3 billion sales tax grab and now doubled gas tax.
Free the T sounds so sexy until you actually have to think about how to fund it. The rich need to pay their fair share! Nope, that only generated $250M last year for the T. Not even close.
free fairmont line ?
https://www.universalhub.com/2017/more-people-rode-fairmount-line-when-i...