One of the best ways to prevent drunk driving is to give people transit options so they don’t need to drive at all, argues Sommer Mathis at The Atlantic City Lab. But she says the benefits of avoiding drunk driving crashes is rarely cited as a reason to expand transit, using the MBTA as an example:
Politicians and policymakers all over the country have been hard at work in recent years convincing voters that investing in systems like light rail and bus rapid transit will reduce congestion, improve air quality, and spur economic development. But nowhere has anyone been making the case that giving people more and better options not to drive is a massive public safety issue.
Take Boston, for example. In one of America’s oldest cities, stuffed to the gills with thirsty college students, the MBTA only introduced late-night weekend service on the ‘T’ a couple of months ago. But the expanded service, part of a one-year pilot program, is not being billed not as a public safety initiative. Instead, as the Boston Globe reports, the ‘T’ will be monitoring whether the new hours “increase sales at local businesses, encourage restaurants close to T stations to stay open later, and make Boston’s convention centers more competitive in bringing high-profile events to the city.” That’s not to say economic goals can’t be put right alongside safety ones, of course, but saving lives has not, as yet, appeared to have entered the conversation.
The war on drunk driving, like the war on drugs, is far too limited to a “just say no” strategy. Even at one-time huge drinking festivals like New Bedford’s Portuguese Feast where temporary shuttle service could be provided cheaply and easily, instead everyone looks the other way.
Massachusetts is definitely a state that loves its booze, and doesn’t seem to do a very good job preventing or punishing drunk driving. It also seems to undervalue public transit for some reason, choosing instead to waste money on unncecessary billion-dollar convention center upgrades and the like.
I’m going to guess that the MBTA isn’t promoting this because they don’t want the public to think that the riders are a bunch of drunks – so it’s an image issue. They may also not want to be seen as promoting drunkenness.
But prioritizing “adults drinking is sinful” over “let’s keep the T open late & save lives” sounds like that.
…between adults drinking and getting drunk. There’s really no need for the latter though people I’m sure misjudge from time to time. That said, this is one of many reasons to run the T later. Not everyone keeps a “normal” schedule.
…Puritans drank their share. Water wasn’t clean back in the day and most of their liquid consumption had some alcohol content.
I suspect there are 20 accused witches in Salem back in 1692 who would beg to differ:)
There is a world of difference between “drunk” and “not able to drive safely”.
I’m a big guy (6’5″, 250lbs), and I like to have two or three glasses of wine with a nice multi-course dinner. I haven’t been “drunk”, in the sense of falling-down puking-my-guts-out where-am-I wasted in decades. Nevertheless, I do NOT feel comfortable driving after three glasses of wine.
I suggest that if the T ran all night, it would be possible to get a decent meal in a restaurant after a late movie (try that now!) or stop in for dessert and drinks on the way home from a concert.
I agree with you that MBTA may be thinking this way — I think it is wrong-headed and provincial.
I have no problem sharing a streetcar with somervilletom after he’s dined and had a few glasses of wine.
I’m absolutely not interested in sharing a streetcar with a bunch of bros heading back to their pad in Allston after doing Jaegerbombs downtown all night. I’d very much prefer that they ride taxis or ubers and keep their antisocial behavior to themselves.
This is the line that folks have to walk when discussing using the MBTA for late-night transportation.
But the bros, if they have jobs, are more likely to have monthly T passes, which will come in handy because they drank the cab money.
and, more importantly, those so-called bros all use uber anyway — credit card on smart phone.
So, drink away the cab money — and still take personal flexible transportation home. And a barf bag.
… and a better option most of the time.
There’s a common thread between this & Kevin’s comment, which is “I don’t think people should be allowed to go out & get drunk.” That is a valid point of view, but the proper legislative response to that is “ban bars from selling you more than X drinks,” not “prevent drunks from getting home affordably & safely.”
Let me just clarify so people don’t think those were my words. I had a marketers hat on and was speculating why the MBTA isn’t using safe travel for those intoxicated as a marketing tool to extend hours. Now – even if I weren’t going to use it as a marketing tool externally – I think we have a responsibility to the community to provide safe means of travel and I would hope the MBTA is using that as an argument internally to extend hours – they are just then challenged on how to sell that to our puritanical society.
I would be the last person to try and restrict personal freedoms. I don’t think anyone has the right to tell me I can’t go out and get drunk (or stoned for that matter) as long as I have a safe way to get home. It certainly would be nice if the state provided that service.
…and that there already were laws on the books against public intoxication.
Go back and re-read.
A somervilletom getting on the train drunk — no problem. Somervilletom won’t behave badly.
The issue isn’t intoxication per se, it’s antisocial behavior. The reality is that, collectively, the young people returning to their apartments in Allston and Brighton on Saturday and Sunday 2am behave antisocially. If you encourage them to ride, you’re discouraging everybody else from riding, and you’re begging for the added costs ranging from cleaning up puke to police dealing with everything from elbow titting to fist fights.
Or, to put it another way, when was the last time you were on the B Line at midnight between Sep and May on a weekend?
Go back and re-read the post. The point is if they’re drunk on the T, they’re not drunk in their car.