The Freedom Riders and bus boycotters of the civil rights era were out to make a point: the laws and local customs that enforced segregation were unjust, illegal and inequitable. In many cases, people of color simply attempting to ride a bus were imprisoned.
Though we now take the right to ride transit for granted, there is still dramatic inequity in the way our system serves different communities, especially in the Boston area.
Obviously, the inequities in local transit do not play out as they did in the 50’s and 60’s.
A look at the MBTA’s service map shows a variety of high-speed service to moderate and upper income communities. Once you get off the train though, low income communities and communities of color, like those On The Move works with, are underserved with less and slower service. Transit injustice is alive and well in Massachusetts.
The MBTA has a long-standing policy of investing more in communities of affluence than communities of color.
When the elevated Orange Line, which ran to Roxbury’s Dudley Square and through some of the most transit dependent communities in the region was rerouted away from those neighborhoods, the MBTA promised “equal or better” service. For 14 years that meant a bus which would get stuck in traffic, dramatically increasing both congestion and duration of the ride. Finally they installed a new “Silver bus” line which, according to MBTA figures, is still more congested and takes longer than the Orange Line that once served the community.
As part of the Big Dig, a variety of mitigation projects were agreed upon as a way to provide something to transit users as well as drivers. As we near the end of fulfilling those commitments we see that projects like the Greenbush Line, which serves the wealthier communities of Weymouth, Hingham and Scituate, has taken priority over projects like extending the Green Line to Medford. Medford is the most congested city in New England and, while it has three rail lines that go through it, has no stations two stations. Instead it is served exclusively primarily by buses, and not enough of them.
Another example of transportation injustice in the state is funding priorities. Massachusetts has not increased its gas tax since 1991. MBTA fares, by contrast, have increased four times in that same period. Despite alleviating traffic congestion, reducing air pollution and, in many cases, being in greater need, transit riders are subsidizing their ride more than those who put a greater strain on the region.
Currently the MBTA is facing another in a series of fiscal dilemmas. The system has the largest debt load of any transit agency in the nation, despite having made millions of dollars in cuts and saved millions more through cost-saving measures such as curbing pension abuses and moving employees to the state’s GIC health insurance program. Despite having sold off numerous properties already, the MBTA is poised to engage in another round of property sales. On top of all this, the MBTA has been refinancing its debt for years due to an inability to pay off previous loans.
Much of the debt, $1.5 billion, is incongruously due to investments in roads. When the state agreed to the Big Dig mitigations, the Department of Revenue was supposed to pay for the projects. In 2001, with the implementation of forward funding, the bills shifted to the MBTA, effectively telling the transit agency to pay for road projects.
Justice, fairness and equity need just as much attention today as they did when Martin Luther King walked the streets of Selma. We need to see more of it in greater Boston.
Lee Matsueda is Chair of On The Move, a coalition of nine community based organizations in greater Boston that came together in 2002 to advocate for transportation justice.
no longer part of Medford?
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p>When did that happen?
Thanks EaBo for catching this, that was an oversight on our part. It has been corrected in the post.
Although it should be noted that the station serves more affluent areas, and isn’t a rational option for most of Medford.
I don’t even live there right now, but I grew up there, and it is way more congested than Medford. Wicked more.
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p>I believe a fight could be arranged to settle this if need be. :-!
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…is there any chance there is also more demand for these services in the communities it serves? It seems that poorer communities may have less reason to commute to Boston.
The demand is already there for the Green Line extension to Medford. The Orange Line has always been the neglected step-child of the MBTA and continues to be, while the bus routes that serve Roxbury are among the most overcrowded (consider the 66, for example).
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p>The elimination of Green Line service to JP should have been (some argued was) illegal, and it should be restored. The history of how the MBTA accomplished that is a case-study in lies, distortions, and the slimiest of back-room politics. It has eerie resonances with the similarly duplicitous elimination of the old A-Line service that once benefited Allston, Brighton, and Watertown. The now hugely-overcrowded B line suffers because of that terrible decision.
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p>I should add that Davis Square (in Somerville) and Alewife were poor neighborhoods before the Red Line extension was built. That extension has proven to be enormously beneficial to those communities.
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p>In the interest of full disclosure, I must also add that my new home is a few blocks from the proposed Green Line stop in Ball Square. My working-class neighborhood desperately needs this extension.
I don’t think that bringing the trolley back to JP is a good idea because Centre St is already fairly congested and is not wide enough to provide a dedicated right-of-way for the train. There is no reason to believe that reintroducing the trolley would significantly reduce the traffic along its route, so the trolley won’t be any faster or much more convenient than the existing buses. The sidewalk will need to be brought out to meet the train and allow handicapped access, but that will eliminate many parking spots on Centre St, which will push more parkers onto side streets and probably cause more of those side streets to become resident only. That is only going to scare away more people from shopping in JP. Because of the extra difficulty in building stops, the trolley stops would probably be farther apart than the existing bus stops forcing people to walk further to get on the train.
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p>For those who live South of Centre St, the orange line will remain a faster option for getting downtown.
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p>Stores along Centre St that do not have off-street loading areas may no longer be able to take deliveries during hours when the trolley operates because there won’t be enough room
to unload trucks and allow the train to pass.
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p>The fact is that while there is a significant vocal minority that wants it, most people who live in JP don’t really want the green line to come back.
I appreciate your concerns.
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p>You wrote:
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p>I’m not sure that’s true at all. After all, the trolley ran for a very long time, it was well-used, and JP center somehow did just fine. I suggest that some portion of the now-dense traffic exists precisely because the trolley service was terminated and terminated without input from the affected neighborhoods.
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p>The termination of this line affected more than just JP center. We were talking about MBTA service to poor and working-class neighborhoods. The E-Line was heavily used in those neighborhoods, and the Orange Line has terrible connections to the rest of the system.
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p>It seems to me that we should be looking at the impact on all the neighborhoods harmed by the dishonest termination of E line service, not just the gentrifying JP commercial center.
The trolley has not run in JP for 25 years. I lived in JP for 15 years from 1990 to 2005 and still visit frequently. During that time the traffic has increased greatly. This is no big surprise because the neighborhood has also changed quite a bit during that time. I don’t think that today’s JP is especially comparable to that of 1985 for the purposes of this analysis. There are more businesses, more condos, and less available parking than there was 25 years ago. Many of the existing businesses draw customers from Brookline, Roslindale and West Roxbury, none of which are served by the E line.
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p>Furthermore, if you follow cars that drive along the E line route you will notice very quickly that very few follow the entire route. In other words, most of those people are not necessarily going to and from places that are easily accessible from the E line. Those people are not going to stop driving if the green line comes back. Belief that restoring the green line will lessen traffic on Centre St is based primarily on wishful thinking.
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p>You are %100 wrong about the orange line having bad access to the system. It makes me think that you have very little experience riding it. I used to commute on the orange line every day when I lived in JP and still use it from time to time when I miss my regular commuter train. The orange line connects directly to the red, blue and green lines and major bus hubs at Forest Hills, Ruggles and Back Bay . You can also get directly to Park St from the tunnel at Downtown Crossing. Furthermore, for those with passes, it is no big deal to switch lines by walking from Back Bay to Copley, Mass Ave to Symphony, etc; I have done it many times.
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p>The orange line has much higher capacity than the E line and is much faster. The topology of the subway trains also makes it much easier to board and exit these trains than green line trolleys, especially when above ground.
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p>Bringing back the green line does not add any service that is not already provided by the #39 bus. The only advantage to the former is that it gets its own right of way when it gets to the upper end of Huntingdon and then connects to the rest of the subway system. Sure that would be nice, but is not nearly enough of a benefit to balance against the many negatives.
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p>Perhaps the way that the green line was discontinued was “dishonest”, but that hardly matters 25 years after the fact. The fact is that it just doesn’t make sense any more.
The Brookline Village area, and notably the very large Brook House, is just a few blocks from the E Line.
Yes, the E line does go with about a quarter mile of Brookline Village but I really don’t think very many people from Brookline use that route.
And it’s half of a quarter mile away from Brookline Ave and Brook House, both in Brookline. It’s also on the Rt 66 bus line, which is the most heavily used non-Silver bus line in the MBTA, and which runs straight through Brookline.
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p>Clearly, more Brookline residents use the C and D line… but plenty really do use the E line too.
but whenever I am in that neighborhood I don’t really see any pedestrians on that route, but I am not usually over there at rush hour.
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p>Regardless, as far as it pertains to JP, the green line wouldn’t really provide any particular benefit over the #39 bus for people in Brookline Village traveling to and from JP.
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p>Another point: prior to the introduction of the Charlie card, you had to get a more expensive combo pass to ride both the buses and subways and created a financial disincentive to switch between the bus and the subway. Under that system, bringing back the green line would bring a financial benefit to some riders. That is no longer true now that monthly passes work on both buses and the subway and even Charlie tickets allow you to transfer.
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p>While I would love to see various improvements to subway service in Boston, the fact is that there will never be subway service that is convenient to everyone. There will always be neighborhoods that are not close to the subway or trips that are not convenient via subway. So buses are extremely important to the system. The big problem with buses is that they are very confusing for new or occasional riders and can be complicated even for experienced riders. Putting route maps and schedules at all stops would help a lot.
You wrote:
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p>I think all of us agree that this is true.
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p>The issue remains whether “low income communities and communities of color” bear a disproportionate burden of this inconvenience:
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p>The communities that suffered most from the dishonest and abrupt termination of the E line to JP were specifically “transit dependent riders in low income communities and communities of color” along the route from the current terminus of the E line to JP center.
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p>While JP center is gentrifying, the transit options available today along the former E-line route exemplify the disparity that the thread-starter observes.
As I said, the #39 bus serves the green line route perfectly adequately. It’s not like the E line was not replaced with anything at all. Now perhaps the bus service was not good enough twenty years ago, but it is pretty good now. I don’t believe that past complaints of unfairness or dishonesty on the T’s part are applicable any more. Most of the lower-income areas of JP are much closer to the orange line than to the green line in any case so bringing back the E line won’t do most of that community any good.
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p>If there were no negative consequences to bringing back the green line, then of course I would be for it. But that is simply not the state of reality and most people who live and work in JP realize that.
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p>I think there is definitely some truth to the observation that lower income parts of the city are not well connected to the subway, but the vast majority of those neighborhoods are not served by the missing portion of the E line. What about the large portions of Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, and Hyde Park that are not served by a subway line?
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p>I have said it before and I will say it again: there is nothing wrong with buses, as long as they are run frequently enough to match the demand. The key is that the T is committed to providing quality service for everyone regardless of income level and regardless of the actual mode of transportation.
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I’m too lazy to look and don’t know if I’d believe the schedules, but the E line runs something like every 7 minutes during rush hour.
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p>Does the 39 run that frequently, or is it more like every 10-15 minutes? Is the schedule variance for the 39 as (ahem!) good as the E line?
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p>I don’t know the answers to these questions… but I think the answers are important if we’re going to talk about whether or not the 39 is just as good as the E line it replaced, etc.
In fact it is even more frequent than that during rush hour. As to the variance, it depends on traffic. When the traffic is bad they are more likely to bunch up. Of course, if you were to run the E line to Forest Hills, then it would then become susceptible to the same traffic as there is no right-of-way for the train. When traffic is crawling there is no way the T can guarantee a regular schedule in the middle part of the route regardless of whether it is a bus or a train.
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p>Obviously the E line definitely would provide some benefits that the bus does not. That’s why there are some people who want it. There is no question about that. But the negatives are just too high. I really don’t see it happening when not only does the T not want to do it, but most people in the community don’t want it either.
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p>I know that I was happy when they finally removed the tracks. They were dangerous to drive on when it was wet or icy, and the road tended to collect giant potholes next to the tracks (although perhaps that was just due to shoddy construction techniques/materials?).
…to completely overhaul and modernize the Green Line? I for one hate riding those trains. Many cars are old, they lurch, they stop too often, etc. Not sure how decisions about what routes to have could be illegal. Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for expanded mass transit, just want the best bang for buck.
The part that could and should be illegal is announcing a “temporary” suspension of service “for repairs”, then not doing any repairs, then making the suspension permanent — all without due process and, in the case of the E-Line, in spite of local opposition.
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p>The Green Line would need to be put underground, and it needs four, rather than two, tracks. The signaling and traffic control systems need to be completely rebuilt. It is an antique, and should be replaced.
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p>Rebuilding the Green Line is a major endeavor, perhaps not on the scale of the Big Dig but still an enormous public investment. This was the real battle when the Big Dig was being planned — anybody who looks at the MBTA for more than fifteen minutes realizes that the Green Line needs to be rebuilt.
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p>Because of incredibly incompetent (or simply non-existent) regional planning, the Boston area essentially wore out its highway system at the same time that it wore out its transit system. Both the Central Artery and the Green Line have performed well beyond their design targets. Both were hugely successful civic and civil engineering projects.
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p>Both need to be replaced. We’ve done only one.
I don’t understand. You make it sound as though someone’s fundamental rights were violated. Sure it would be nice if the plan was to discontinue service they come out and just say so, but it’s not as if any individual or community has an absolute right to continued T service or that the MBTA is under legal obligation to do what the community wants.
You think it would be “nice” if the MBTA would “come out and just say so” before they discontinue vital transit service for large swaths of poor and working-class neighborhoods?
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p>Do you seriously suggest that communities have no right to expect or even demand due process when public transportation service is abruptly terminated?
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p>The point of the thread is that such things happen to poor (and generally minority) neighborhoods — and they do not happen to tony areas like Harvard and Brookline.
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p>In a major metropolitan area like Boston, Chicago, or New York, public transportation is a necessity. It is a particular necessity for poor and working-class people. When that necessity is terminated, especially while the MBTA is lying about it, yes — I very much intend to make it sound as though fundamental rights are being violated.
I basically agree with you on the merits. I’m just having a hard time finding anything in this that a court could strike down as unconstitutional or something like that.
The green line was replaced by the #39 bus which uses large double length vehicles and runs frequently along the same route as the green line (at least up to where it goes underground). I really don’t see why bus service should be considered in any way inferior to subway service especially when our existing Green line trolleys are often more difficult to board than a bus. If you had ever actually ridden on the #39 bus you would see the same mix of people you see on the orange line: students, blue collar workers, Doctors, etc. So while the trolley service was terminated, it is not even remotely accurate to say that transportation service was terminated for the neighborhoods affected.
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p>Speaking of Chicago, while it has a nice elevated train system, that services only a small part of the city. It is also extremely loud and difficult or impossible to reach the platforms for the elderly or handicapped. Fortunately, Chicago has an excellent bus service. So if you want to use Chicago as an example, please do not try to push this idea that buses are not an acceptable form of transportation.
until you make Kenmore to North Station four lines. The underground tracks currently can’t handle any more cars because they need to have sufficient distance/time between the cars for safety. The way to handle more Green Line traffic is to have two tracks in each direction, and making (for example) the B Line and C Line express so that they only stop underground at Kenmore, Copley, Park, Gov’t Center, and North Station. This would dramatically increase capacity and improve speed for many riders on the train. It would also help deal with the occasional disabled train.
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p>Would it be expensive to expand to four tracks? Yip. The good news is that (nearly?) all of it is cut-and-cover. Instead of tunneling, you just open up the road which is directly above (generally, Boylston St) and trench, a much less expensive option. Additionally, by going four tracks, there’d be opportunity to increase the radius of the sharp turns and otherwise straighten out track.
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p>The bottleneck to more Green Line service is the capacity constraints underground. If you want to improve Green Line service to a substantial amount, you’ve got to start there.
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p>As for “many are old” — that’s no longer true. I live on the Green Line, and haven’t seen a set of cars not containing at least one new car in years. They do this for ADA compliance. You can always get on a new car, but really… unless three stairs are tough for you, I don’t find any problem with the old cars either.
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p>P.S. The underground stations on the Green Line have all been/are being modernized with better more efficient lighting, many leaks fixed, and elevators.
There is a currently-unused loop at Kenmore, allowing inbound cars to turn around and avoiding the underground bottleneck. There are also holding tracks on the existing B-line right of way that can hold several cars.
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p>The underground expansion to four tracks is clearly required; I wonder if the B, C, D, and E cars could run more often above ground during the decade or more that it will take to rebuild the underground portion.
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p>I’m also acutely aware that any “temporary” suspension of underground Green Line service “during construction” (with trains replaced by buses) is very likely to result in making the bus service permanent. This is one reason I’m sensitive to the lies and distortions that accompanied the destruction of the A line entirely and E line to JP.
The point about transit injustice is one hundred percent on the mark.
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p>The only thing I would add is that expansion is only one of the tools we need to make transit justice a reality. Many working-class areas of the region (parts of Dorchester and Roxbury, Revere, East Boston, Quincy, and more) are already served by rapid transit lines with a lot of potential.
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p>These are some of the areas that need transit the most, and we could increase quality of service for existing and new riders with an influx of money to provide the infrastructure and frequency necessary to give riders a comfortable and delay-free ride (which, as anyone who has ridden the subway recently knows, is pretty damn far from what we have now).
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p>The other component of this is the bus system. Now, it’s easy to take a look at the sorry excuse for bus rapid transit that is the Silver Line Washington Street and decide that rail is what we need. On Washington Street, especially in light of recent history, I’m inclined to agree.
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p>However, for many key routes (1, 23, 29, 66, the Chelsea routes, and others), buses are what we have, and through dedicated lines, signal priority, and higher-quality buses, we can make them vehicles that people want to ride. Anyone interested should check out this fascinating account of London, where steadfastly pro-transit activists and officials directed congestion pricing money into making a better bus system. It can be done, with the proper money and priorities.
The major problem with East Boston service is that after 12:30 East Boston becomes in effect an island. Cabbies don’t want to go there because of the toll situation. Running the Blue Line between Aquarium and Maverick once every half hour starting at end of regular service would be a smart, relatively low cost expansion of service. Hell most people would probably even pay $5.00 to ride that train. I know I would have.
* The cost is really high
* The public safety dangers increase
* The MBTA doesn’t like moping up puke or urine any more than anyone else
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p>I had thought that it was against the law for a Boston city cab to decline service if he’s on duty… can anyone confirm this?
but they do so ROUTINELY. I often was only able to get a cambridge cabby that was picking up an illegal fare to take me home if I missed the last call train.
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p>And not to stereotype but there are a LOT of food service workers from the East Boston community who may not get out until after the last call train.
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p>So it may be illegal, and I routinely let the police department know medallion numbers, but that law is routinely ignored.
tell him Copley Square… then, when you get in, change your mind.
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p>Easy enough.
My brother lives in Charlestown, he routinely has to lie about where in Charlestown because cabs won’t go there. I imagine he’d have a harder time if he was black just as I imagine Hispanic residents of east Boston do.
…why can’t cabs charge the passenger a surcharge equivalent to the toll? It seems perfectly reasonable to tell a passenger, “The normal rate for this distance/zone is $10, but since the route you’re asking me to take includes a $1 toll for the Tobin Bridge your fare is going to be $11.
A big issue, in addition to stomv’s points, is that the only time the MBTA gets to maintain its rapid transit lines without full-scale service shutdowns is during the night. The fact that our lines are only double-tracked almost everywhere is a big obstacle standing in the way of us being more like New York.
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p>Increasing track numbers, though, is another example of a capital infusion into the existing system that could be far more useful to far more people than billion-dollar extensions on the periphery.
There’s a lot that should be done, but one thing that is within reach is to improve existing bus service.
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p>My community is pretty well served by buses, at least along Mass. Ave. which is the main corridor.
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p>Quality of service really varies–in terms of on-schedule performance, which is pretty important if you’d like to use the bus to go to work or keep a doctor’s appointment or be at the schoolyard when your child gets out for the day. If you can’t count on the T you can’t really use it.
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p>Things were really bad before Grabauski took charge of the T, and they have really deteriorated since he left.
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p>My point is just that being on time is be something that is potentially under our control, without waiting for Congress to appropriate money for more rail or anything like that.
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p>I also think you will find tremendous disparities in quality of service by route. Compare the 1 and the 83, which serve urban neighborhoods, with the 77.
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p>Things can be improved for everyone, and made fairer, with the existing infrastructure and technology. On top of that, real-time monitoring of buses makes centralized dispatch and control of buses possible, with route corrections as needed to improve service. (A “route correction” might entail idling a bus for 5 minutes to prevent bunching and to provide buses at regular intervals.)
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p>We could further improve bus service by designating the right lanes of some major arteries as bus-only lanes during rush hour. They do this in Seattle and you know, the drivers hate it, until they switch over to bus commuting because it is so much faster.
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p>They are not sexy, but do not forget the buses in a campaign for transit justice.
the MBTA is currently working on improving the 66, which runs from Dudley Square through Brookline and Allston to Harvard Square. The idea is to do a combination of techniques:
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p>1. Combine/eliminate a few stops where they are close to other stops and not frequently used
2. Move the exact location of the bus stop to places where they are more effective, typically the far side of a signalized intersection
3. Implement curb extensions in a few locations where the added speed, safety, and ADA compliance is particularly effective
4. Create a queue jumping area to allow the bus to get to the front of the traffic light and get through, thereby reducing the wait time at lights
5. Implement traffic signal prioritization (TSP), which would allow buses to “hold the green” a few more seconds, thereby avoiding waiting at a red light for 60 seconds or more at a time
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p>MBTA Public Meetings
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p>Two side notes:
a. The iPhone app which shows you where the bus is at any moment is fantastic. It’s really nice to be able to just time the bus perfectly, so you don’t wait as long in the wet/cold/dark/etc.
b. “Route corrections” which involve pulling off on the side of the road for a few minutes are effective, but run in to two problems: firstly, buses are far more often late than early, and secondly, the passengers on the bus rarely take kindly to pulling over for a few minutes. One way to deal with that is also through TSP… on the rare case where a bus is running minutes early, the bus just happens to catch an extra red light…