The Case Against MBTA Fare Increases—And How to Move Forward

The MBTA fare increase proposals (presentation, summary) are unnecessary and not even helpful in closing the budget gap. We summarized all the feedback we've received and proposed alternatives to increase ridership and revenue and reduce operating costs.

THE FACTS ON FARES & SERVICE

1. MBTA fares have more than doubled since 2000, far outpacing inflation and exceeding even the increase in housing prices. Meanwhile the state gas tax has increased only 3 cents and no longer supports the cost of road maintenance, but MBTA riders are being asked to pay their own way.

2. Commuter Rail fares and parking fees are some of the highest in the nation despite very infrequent service. Record rents and declining wages are forcing large numbers of people out of the city, to places where Commuter Rail is the only transit but is unaffordable. Low ridership has been cited as a motivation for further service cuts, yet when a day trip costs $84 for a family of four, the Commuter Rail is not living up to its potential as an effective regional transportation network.

3. Ridership is up over 20 percent on all major lines as the city’s population has increased 10 percent in ten years. Trains and buses are slower, more crowded and less reliable than ever. All major rail and bus lines operate over capacity every day and the system does not effectively serve many trips. Failing to increase service by 20 percent is essentially a service reduction. Riders cannot be expected to pay even more without major upgrades such as increased capacity, faster service and new lines — give us a system worth paying for.

4. Higher fares turn T riders into car drivers and make traffic congestion even worse, unless accompanied by major service improvements or a gas tax increase to make drivingless appealing. With gas prices approaching 11-year lows, commuters see transit fares rising and service quality declining and make the obvious choice. Rather than continue the death spiral of service cuts (yes, eliminating late night service = service cuts) and fare increases until transit is no longer effective and streets are completely gridlocked, now is the time to reverse course and invest heavily in public transportation, including maintaining or lowering fares.

5. No major investments have been made to the system’s core since the 1980s and we are now paying the price as the MBTA slowly falls apart. The MBTA has made significant progress on reforms but the promised revenue in “reform before revenue” remains elusive. No efficiencies will ever fill the $7 Billion budget gap -- and that's just to reliably run what we have now, without desperately needed upgrades. If we don’t start investing now, the system will only get worse, and it will only cost more when we eventually have no choice. Riders are not responsible for chronic underinvestment and cannot be asked to shoulder the burden of ever increasing debt service payments.

6. Soaring housing costs and declining wages are forcing many people to move to places with poor transit access. We have repeatedly cut service and raised fares on these "low ridership" services, while ignoring others with great potential.

7. Governor Baker said there should be no new taxes or fees — apparently not including T riders. The agency’s 4% cost growth is in line with the Governor’s call for a 5% increase in state spending elsewhere. So why is the MBTA Control Board subjecting T riders to a higher standard?

8. Good transit provides many benefits to all of society — even those who never use it. Public transportation supports dense, vibrant communities where everyone has access to basic needs and the freedom to move around the region. Last winter showed us just how important the MBTA is to the entire state’s economy: without the T, all of our favorite stores, restaurants, institutions and entertainment venues would be unable to attract sufficient customers and employees. Imagine a transit system with the resources to run excellent service every day and make people actually want to use it.

9. Traffic congestion on our streets and highways is worse than ever because of our failure to upgrade and expand the transit network. Boston EMS ambulance response times have increased 16 percent since 2009, the Boston Fire Department takes one minute longer to respond to calls, and buses spend much of their trip stuck in traffic. Only by expanding transit so it is useful for more people will we create space for essential services and emergency vehicles. Fare increases only put more cars on the road.

10. Over 100 years after the first subway construction in Boston, the region’s poorest, most underrepresented neighborhoods still lack rapid transit access. Communities such as Chelsea, Roxbury and Mattapan have the longest trip times (often slower than walking) and least reliable bus service. These riders are also most heavily impacted by rising fares, often cutting back on groceries or skipping social events due to the cost of transportation. Special attention should be focused on bringing fast, frequent and more affordable transit to our most vulnerable riders.

11. Riders are doing their part to support vibrant communities, reduce traffic and address climate change. We should reward - not punish - those who use the MBTA by maintaining or lowering fares across the system and investing in faster and more effective service. Our transit network is a valuable public service, not a profitable business, and it's time we started treating it like one.

 

ALTERNATIVES

Many simple changes could improve the user experience and help alleviate capacity constraints until service can be expanded. The T should experiment with several options in an effort to upgrade service and reallocate inefficiently used resources, and as alternatives to (or mitigation for) a fare increase. In other words, what improvements are we getting for the higher fees?

1. Instead of a single transfer, allow unlimited transfers within 2 hours on bus, subway and Commuter Rail, to permit trips through downtown and between non-downtown points. Currently it is impossible to go from Roxbury to Chelsea, Everett to Brighton Center, or Roslindale to Brookline (just a few examples) without two fares or a very long trip with a transfer downtown. Removing the barrier would allow riders to make more efficient trips and access more jobs while increasing ridership (and revenue) and reducing congestion in the downtown transfer stations. An unlimited transfer — think of it as a 2-hour unlimited pass — is in effect on transit systems across the country such as Portland, Minneapolis and San Francisco.

2. Implement all-door boarding on buses and trolleys. Pass users could board at any door and special fare inspectors would conduct occasional inspections, issuing a fine to riders who haven’t paid. Up to 30 percent of Green Line and bus travel time is spent sitting at stops while riders line up in the cold waiting to tap their card. Keeping buses and trolleys moving means faster service, more frequent service, more evenly spaced trains/buses, reduced fare evasion and lower operating costs. All-door boarding is now standard practice on nearly all North American light rail lines and San Francisco has expanded it to all buses.

3. Reduce Commuter Rail fares on off-peak and weekend trains. As record numbers of urban dwellers leave the region’s core to escape soaring rents, the Commuter Rail has the potential to dramatically improve their quality of life. Yet commuter Rail fares are too expensive, even off-peak trains operate with hundreds of empty seats that could offer a fast new service to riders of all income levels. Thousands of riders endure long trips on crowded buses or limit their economic and social opportunities because of transportation costs. Many more drive choose driving over the high train fare, adding thousands more cars to our streets every day.

   • Extend Zone 1A (subway fare) to include all stations within 12 miles of downtown Boston, roughly the distance to Braintree, Waltham or Lynn, or anywhere within Route 128. It is expensive to provide very frequent service on slow, crowded buses to places like Hyde Park, Roslindale, Waltham and Lynn while train cars run empty.

   • Heavily discount Commuter Rail fares during off-peak periods and on weekends. Chicago and Philadelphia have seen large ridership increases with their $8 unlimited weekend (Chicago) and $12 unlimited (Philadelphia) off-peak passes.

   • Integrate fares between subway, bus and Commuter Rail so that riders can pay with a CharlieCard. Issue transfers valid between the Commuter Rail and a subway or bus line. Add a credit card payment option.

4. Coordinate bus connections at terminals, stations and transfer locations. Improve scheduling of connecting services and hold buses and trains for close connections during times of less frequent service.

5. Upgrade bus stops, stations and terminals to improve service quality and comfort, allow more efficient bus and passenger circulation and increase ridership at very low cost.

6. Implement transit priority measures on city streets for faster, more reliable and less costly bus and trolley service. Faster service and increased on-time performance were among the top requests from participants in the GoBoston 2030 transportation planning process. Many simple signal modifications and street design changes would help meet these goals.

7. If fares do increase, offer free and discounted passes for low-income riders through social service programs such as SNAP, WIC and MassHealth. Expand student pass programs through cities and university groups. However, the availability of low-income discounts must not serve as a justification for fare increases.

WHAT CAN I DO?

Speak up at a public meeting, submit comments and contact your representatives. Your city and state elected officials need to hear from you; remind them that the MBTA benefits everyone in the state and we must make up for our past mistakes. Otherwise the death spiral of high fares and poor service will continue -- more breakdown, delays and late trains/buses -- until our once-proud transit network falls apart for good.

Green Line Update Teases Improvements Enabled by Tracking Technology

As a corollary to our guest contributor post on the disappointing improvements and issues with Commonwealth Avenue, we have a few (much delayed) updates about the T's more progressive plans to improve transit along the corridor.

Back in June, I had the pleasure of attending a forum on Green Line issues hosted by the MBTA and facilitated greatly by Senator Brownsberger. The presentation included updates on the primary issues afflicting the Green Line and its dependent riders as outlined by Brian Kane, MBTA Director of Policy, Performance Management & Process Re-Engineering and former budget analyst with the MBTA Advisory Board.

Others present at the meeting included leading MBTA staff that Dr. Scott heralded as subject matter experts to ensure questions could be answered directly by the most appropriate person from the agency. Top MBTA management included:

• Dominick Tribone for questions on information systems

• Bill McClellan, Director of Green Line Operations

• Laura Brelsford, Deputy Director of System-Wide Accessibility

• Melissa Dullea, Director of Planning & Schedules

Mr. Kane broke down the issues into 5 key areas and highlighted the improvements the T is aiming to tackle over the long run.

Speed

The biggest hindrances to speed right now are the incredible closeness of stops on some lines, the lack of signal preemption, and restrictions from fare collection and public outcry about boarding policies.

At the moment, the C line is the slowest, averaging 11.1km/h (6.9mi/h) with an average stop spacing of about 305m (1000 ft), while the D is the fastest, averaging 30.6km/h (19.5mi/h) with an average stop spacing of about 1.2km (4,000 ft).

Stop Consolidation

The number of stops increases time the train spends either stopped or slower than cruising speed. Even if the volume of passengers stays the same, the math still works out to be that the train spends more time slowing down to stop at each stop. Further, each stop that a train has to make before a stop light increases the chances that the train will miss a number of green cycles and get stuck at a red light. Of course, the real culprit of slow loading times is a capacity issue, which we'll discuss below. Ultimately, the promise is faster train speeds at the compromise of increasing the walking distance for some.

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The MBTA is considering consolidation of several stops along Commonwealth Ave to improve speeds on the B Line based on low average boardings and absurdly close stop spacing.

Brian Kane commented that the MBTA has championed stop consolidation before, but the issue is as polarising as the issue of fare collection. A survey in 2005 showed widespread support for stop consolidation while seemingly as many people come out to defend the need for a stop as the people who clamor to remove it. At the moment, there are no plans to make further consolidations, but monies have been issued for a Commonwealth Ave improvement scheme. Dr. Scott underscored the fact that part of the money earmarked for the project is in danger of expiring, so it needs to happen soon. The MBTA is in talks with BU about potential streamlining along the corridor.

Fare Collection

This has been one of the hottest button issues that has plagued the T, transit advocates, and the public at large. We could fill a whole post about fare collection issues alone. The long and short of it is that everyone wants two things:

• collection of fares from everyone

• all doors boarding

The solution is something everyone else seems to have solved outside of Boston: proof of payment (POP). The cool kid on the block right now is San Francisco's MUNI, who implemented the first system-wide POP deployment in the US...in 2012 - yes, all trolley lines and buses permit all-doors boarding.

POP was brought up multiple times in the meeting with respect to addressing the public's outcry to close the budget hole of fare evasion before turning to the public for more funding. The MBTA's response was to force front door boarding on all Green Line trains outside of rush hour and the issue was polarising.

As Mr. Kane underscored, the MBTA did exactly what people complained about in budget hearings. The front door policy makes it harder for the people to evade fares. However, those people are costing the T at most less than 1% the total $400 million in fares collected annually, much less the total $2 billion annual budget. We've talked about fare evasion here before.

Dr. Scott added that at some point the cost of countermeasures to minimise the loss from fare evasion starts to cost more than the nearly immeasurable actual losses from fare evasion. To punctuate that, I added that some transit agencies elsewhere account for losses from fare evasion as the cost of business.

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Fare validators like this one at the rear of a San Francisco MUNI bus would need to be installed to truly facilitate proper fare collection at all doors on the Green Line.

At the moment, the T neither has the funding to increase the number of fare inspectors nor the funding to add fare collection equipment at all doors on the Green Line, as was done in San Francisco. In the long run, the vision is to replace the fare collection system completely, ideally in favour of a contactless payment system already embedded into many debit and credit cards today. The T will eventually join the increasing number of systems, including TfL in London and CTA in Chicago, that are making the move away from standalone fare collection systems that require them to effectively act as banks to manage rider transactions. This has been one of Dr. Scott's biggest long-term goals from day one and has come up in MBTA ROC meetings a number of times.

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The ticket vending machines at Resevoir on the D Line next to the validation machines.

Currently, some Green Line stations do have fare validation machines, but to most passengers, it's not clear what they do. 

Dr. Scott also offered to continue the conversation about fare collection and boarding policies through a broader charette to envision an end goal and actionable steps to achieve that vision (ideally of system-wide POP for the T).

Signal Preemption/Traffic Signal Priority

One of the major projects for the T is the upcoming tracking system, which will be launching in December of this year and cost a mere $13.5 million. This is a fraction of the cost of a full-blown train protection and control system that was last estimated to cost over $770 million at full build-out.

However, the current upgrade promises location awareness of Green Line vehicles sooner rather than later. Once we have a live, automated system that tells us where Green Line trains are, the MBTA can then start better spacing and management of trains, passengers will finally know roughly when their trains are coming, and most importantly we'll be able to tell the lights to change when a train is approaching. This is the miracle of traffic signal priority or traffic signal preemption.

The MBTA is working very closely with BTD and the city of Brookline's transport department to examine the impact of and ensure the success of traffic signal preemption once the automated vehicle location (AVL) system is switched on. The AVL will be able to communicate with Boston's centralised traffic management computers the location of trains. As trains approach an intersection with a green light, it can request that the light be held green for a little longer to let the train through. As trains approach an intersection with a red light, it can request that the red be shortened to let the train go through sooner.

Frequency

Frequency is a function of speed and volume of vehicles available. If vehicles can travel faster and there are more of them, naturally trains will pass any given point on the line more frequently.

At the moment, frequency is largely bound by the number of trains in the fleet. There are currently 215 individual Green Line cars at the moment. 86 of the oldest trains, are going out for overhauls to improve reliability and ensure they can continue running through the first quarter of the 21st Century. The first of the overhauled trains will arrive this autumn and they will continue to arrive through the autumn of 2016. The biggest passenger-facing changes in the overhaul will include:

• conversion of all lighting to LED

• new seats and interiors

• ADA-compliant door warnings and signals

• improved heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems

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Green Line Type 9 concept rendering by Spanish manufacturer CAF.

As recently announced, the MBTA will also be getting new trains, designated Type 9, for additional capacity. They will also help maintain the current level of frequency in spite of the additional distance trains will have to cover for the Green Line extension through Somerville as it comes online between 2017 and 2019. Ultimately, all Green Line cars except for the Type 9 cars are provisioned to be replaced as part of the Governor's Way Forward plan.

Capacity

If frequency is dependent on speed and fleet size, capacity is dependent on frequency and fleet size. It is a measurement of the overall volume of people who can be moved at peak travel times.

As mentioned, the Type 9s will be adding capacity to the system. Additionally, 8 cars that have been out of service in the long term are part of the 86 older cars that are being refurbished; this will add just a bit more capacity to the overall number of trains available for service.

However, the fleet capacity itself is limited until we have someplace to put the new trains. A new yard needs to be constructed to store and maintain the trains the T is buying. This is why the Type 9 trains won't be arriving until the Green Line extension's first phase is completed in 2017 since that part of the extension will include a new yard for Green Line trains in Somerville.

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3-Car Trains

The Green Line's capacity is also limited by the power system. The current power systems that pump electricity through the Green Line's trolley wires aren't powerful enough to run 3-car trains close together. Since 3-car trains can't be run close together, you end up with the same effective capacity of three normal-sized 2-car trains at their regular frequency.

The MBTA is currently planning a study on the power systems of the Green Line in conjunction with the Red and Orange lines to figure out exactly what equipment needs to be replaced or added.

Transparency

As a bonus from the installation of the $13.5 million tracking system, riders will be able to see when their trains are actually coming, satisfying the long-time feature request of Bostonians since the late 20th Century.

Again, the Green Line tracking system will go live in December of 2014. In 2015, the T will go live with train time predictions 

Accessibility

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Station upgrades are being completed as the original round of ADA projects comes to completion. These have included a number of projects and are culminating in the 2-year renovation of Government Center station.

The T is already ramping up plans for a second round of projects to further improve accessibility of stations, including a number of Green Line stations. Financing has yet to be dedicated to this second set of accessibility projects, but will likely follow the release of cost estimates as the T closes in on the scope of the projects they want and need to include.

This second set of projects is also a perfect opportunity to adjust station placement for better service. In particular, stations that are currently placed on the near-side of intersections can be moved to the opposite side of the intersection. This would complement signal preemption since trains would be able to cross the intersection to a stop on the far-side instead of having to stop before the light to pick up passengers regardless of whether the light is green or not.

Podcast 01 - Green Line updates; Bridj luxury bus service

Transit Matters co-editor Marc Ebuna joins me for this special inaugural episode focusing on the Green Line. Following a recent public meeting with MBTA staff, Marc shares the latest Green Line initiatives including vehicle tracking (real-time train arrival info), signal priority, stop consolidation, three-car trains, accessibility and fare collection. Also, construction on the Green Line Extension to Somerville and Medford is moving full-steam ahead. 

We saved a few minutes to talk about Bridj, the new luxury shuttle bus service which fills gaps in our transportation network in a way that is (for most of us) not useful. We share our predictions on the future of this service, and we want to hear what you think. Will you use Bridj? 

The Transit Matters Podcast is your biweekly source for transportation news, analysis, interviews and more. We focus on sustainable transportation planning, operations and policies in Boston and beyond, and we do it in the average commute time. Read more about the podcast and send us your questions, comments and ideas for topics or guests >> contact us. 

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Share your thoughts on the Green Line and other transit topics we discussed in this episode in the comments below.