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Comments
Great Idea
This will be an excellent addition to our world class city by providing transportation hubs for late night service workers and students.
Again?
Step 1. MBTA introduces odd, limited hour service that's difficult to use.
Step 2. Relatively few people take advantage.
Step 3. MBTA prematurely cancels service claiming it was too expense and not needed.
The correct thing to do is run the subways and some bus routes later into the evening but otherwise keep everything else the same. People know how to use the T and just want to be able to take the train home at 2am.
Seriously
I saw this thread title pop up on the "Comments" column and had to check to see if it wasn't a years-old zombie thread.
Why in the world do people want to make Boston like NYC?
It's ridiculous. New York City's the largest city here in the United States, which is a good reason for their subway system(s) to be open 24 hours a day. Boston, on the other hand, is way too small a city for that, and doesn't have nearly the number of stores, clubs, etc., or an extensive enough subway system to make overnight MBTA service here in Boston worth it.
Name one other major city
Name one other major city that DOESN'T provide at least bus service past 1am on weekends.
Good luck.
(Hint, Philly, Chicago, Miami, LA, SF, Vegas, and Baltimore all do)
Washington DC?
Houston and Dallas, TX. The Twin Cities (no, the airport shuttle doesn't count)
If we want to go global, Dublin doesn't.
Also, in the vein of the NYC comparison, Philly and Chicago are the only other cities that offer rail overnight on a regular basis.
DC Metro runs until 3 am
DC Metro runs until 3 am (though temporarily suspended during current repair blitz), and some MetroBus routes run all night.
Houston METRORail runs until 2:45 am Friday and Saturday nights, and begins service at 3:30 am during the week, 4:30 on weekends. Many of the busier bus routes run similar hours.
Dallas DART doesn't run either rail or bus at night.
Minneapolis/Saint Paul's MetroTransit Green Line runs 24/7.
So of the US cities you listed, only 1 doesn't run some sort of late-night service. To find a major city with as bad of transit service hours as Boston you had to look as far as TEXAS. That right there should say enough on its own.
The first flights out from
The first flights out from Logan require you to be at the airport around 5am if you're following airline recommendations - a full half hour before the first trains of the day even pull out. And the patient, saintly people working the Dunks that early making those early morning flights even a little bearable are definitely getting there way before then. Same for South Station and early bus departures. On /r/boston there's pretty regularly threads from out of towners wondering what they should do between their 11pm arrival at SS and their 5am bus back out -- and the recommendation is usually sit in the diner or sit in the station, and beware the addicts.
Any restaurant or bar that's open until last call isn't going to have their staff or servers getting out until 2 or 3am - long after the last bus is snugly parked for the night. These people already make low wages, and many of these places are located in areas with no parking.
Maybe part of the reason Boston doesn't have very many 24 hour establishments is we don't have the infrastructure to support them. Running a few extended key bus routes during off hours - and thus not affecting the train maintenance window - would give people the opportunity to move their workers around and extend business hours. It would be more traveler friendly for both cars (fewer people required to drive) and people who need transportation that doesn't adhere to a 9-5 schedule.
Forget arriving around 5 am,
Forget arriving around 5 am, the first flights of the morning are leaving Logan by 5 am!
A few? There needs to be 24/7
A few? There needs to be 24/7 bus service on a lot more than "a few" lines. Even Baltimore can figure this out, so it's not like Boston can complain they're too fornicated to do something sensible.
Please
Could they try looking into overday service first?