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IntelligentCicada363 t1_iy86yle wrote

Reply to comment by GM_Pax in could the red line be shut down next... by iFuckingLoveBoston

I would take a realistic solution over thinking that the state is going to change its entire way of life in the next hundred years, sorry. Most of Mass is not dense enough to support “state wide public transit” and won’t be any time soon.

And there is no reason why a city bus system can’t coexist alongside a regional bus system. That is how it works in the NC Triangle/Chapel Hill and it is brilliant.

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Difficult-Ad3518 t1_iy8sut6 wrote

You are right that a national rail system that works as well as a European nation's is unrealistic for the USA at this moment, unfortunately. A realistic solution that learns from other agencies' successes in centralized organizing and scratches your implicit desire for more direct planning and oversight would be to:

Reorganize the MBTA as a multi-county, multi-state entity, with subsidiary transit agencies, much like the MTA in New York and Connecticut.

The new Southeastern New England Transit Authority (SNETA) would serve three counties in New Hampshire, eight counties in Massachusetts, all five counties in Rhode Island, and one county in Connecticut, under contract with the associated state's Departments of Transportation:

  • Merrimack County, NH
  • Hillsbourough County, NH
  • Rockingham County, NH
  • Essex County, MA
  • Suffolk County, MA
  • Plymouth County, MA
  • Barnstable County, MA
  • Bristol County, MA
  • Norfolk County, MA
  • Middlesex County, MA
  • Worcester County, MA
  • Providence County, RI
  • Kent County, RI
  • Bristol County, RI
  • Newport County, RI
  • Washington County, RI
  • Windham County, CT

Like the MTA has subsidiary agencies (LIRR, Metro-North, NYC Subway, etc), my proposed SNETA would also have subsidiary agencies:

  • Southeastern New England Regional Rail (SNERR), responsible for the maintenance, operation, and expansion of Regional Rail lines in the region, such as (not meant to be comprehensive):
    • Fitchburg Line
    • Capitol Corridor (Concord (NH) - Boston, via Manchester, Nashua & Lowell)
    • Worcester Line
    • Providence Line
    • South Coast Rail
    • CapeFlyer
  • Massachusetts Bay Commuter Rail (MBCR), responsible for the maintenance, operation, and expansion of Boston-based Commuter Rail lines, such as (not meant to be comprehensive):
    • Newburyport/Rockport Line
    • Haverhill Line
    • Lowell Line
    • Franklin/Foxboro Line
    • Middleborough Line
  • Massachusetts Bay Transportation Auhtority (MBTA or the 'T'), responsible for the maintenance, operation, and expansion of Greater Boston's heavy rail, light rail, bus, and ferry service, such as (not meant to be comprehensive):
    • Red Line
    • Orange Line
    • Blue Line
    • Green Line
    • Mattapan Trolley
    • MBTA Bus
    • MBTA Boat
  • Regional Transit Authorities (RTAs), such as (not meant to be comprehensive):
    • Rhode Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA)
    • Worcester Regional Transit Authority (WRTA)
    • Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority (CCRTA)
    • Manchester Transit Authority (MTA)
    • Southeastern Regional Transit Authority (SRTA)
    • Montachusett Regional Transit Authority (MRTA)
    • Concord Area Transit (CAT)

There are currently 176 cities and towns in the MBTA district. Some just have Commuter Rail service or are adjacent to towns with Commuter Rail service. This includes far-flung places such as Bourne, Wareham, Rehoboth, Seekonk, and Bellingham. This presents the MBTA with the challenge of trying to be both a big-tent regional transit agency, but also a single city's urban area's transit agency.

Under the proposal I've laid out above, these hinterlands towns get moved off of the MBTA and to either MBCR, an RTA, or both. Then, the MBTA is left with ~50 cities and towns and can be more narrowly focused on just those municipalities in the Boston area (south to Foxborough, east to Hingham, north to Wilmington, west to Wellesley).

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GM_Pax t1_iy95boa wrote

I could get behind something like this ... if it had provisions for expanding to include other counties along the way.

Whether it was multi-state, or just Massachusetts: I'd want there to be a mechanism for other counties to opt in and join the system.

And as part of that growth, I'd like to see some uniformity on several fronts, across the entire system. Fares, levels of service, interoperability of fare cards (which does somewhat exist currently: I use a Charlie card up here in the Lowell Regional Transit Authority, right now), signage, and so on.

I want it to be relatively seamless to cross the entire system.

And ideally, I want the busses, trains, trams/streetcars, and whatever else to run so frequently I never need to look at a schedule. :)

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Difficult-Ad3518 t1_iy9lvl6 wrote

Agreed. This type of proposal actually is beneficial in exactly the ways you desire. For example, this would better enable interoperability of fare cards on regional transit authorities across state lines.

For example, right now there is limited fare integration between MBTA and RIPTA (Commuter Rail monthly pass holders can use it to ride RIPTA), but mostly they operate with entirely different payment methods. A system like this would enable all of the RTAs under the umbrella to use the same fare system, and to leverage inherent economies of scale when upgrading something like payment method.

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GM_Pax t1_iy94t9g wrote

>I would take a realistic solution over thinking that the state is going to change its entire way of life in the next hundred years, sorry.

You mean like how we did, when we turned the whole state into a car-centric sea of asphalt parking lots?

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