The MBTA is Getting Better

MBTA bus. All images courtesy of Wikipedia

I know it’s not fashionable to compliment or praise, but fashion’s never been my forte, so I’m going to go out on limb. The MBTA is getting better. The trains and buses are running more regularly, the slowdowns have slowed down, the operators are nicer, more people are riding the T.

The T hit is nadir after the pandemic, when people ought to have started to come back, but pretty much refused. There were so many slow zones on the subways you’d sit and sit in the tunnels without any notion when movement would occur. There was a shortage of bus drivers, so sometimes they’d simply skip a scheduled trip. No warning. Tough luck. The Boston Globe featured stories of MBTA execs who didn’t even live in Massachusetts, yet alone ever set foot on a subway platform. Worse became worst when the Green Line extension to Somerville opened, only to reveal that the tracks were installed at the wrong width, and the trolley cars would derail above, say, three miles per hour. Social media was full of clips of pedestrians outdistancing the trains.

I still rode the T—in bad weather—but took precautions that would be unwieldy for a regular commuter. When I used to figure 45 minutes to bus/subway downtown, I left an hour and a half. Sometimes I would arrive at my destination way, way, early, but all too often it took that full amount of time to traverse the six miles from my house to Park Street.

In an era when we all understand (even if we don’t all like to admit) that we need to be driving cars less and taking public transit more, the gruesome reality of riding the T sent more and more people into their cars. More than a year after pandemic closures, T ridership was limp. I would take a mid-day commuter train out to Worcester and pass empty parking lots at every station. The system was broken.

Then, a few heads rolled. Phillip Eng became General Manager. He made sincere apologies and established attainable targets for improvement. We endured shuttle buses for months on end as they fixed deteriorated tracks in subway tunnels. He provided incentives to get more bus drivers. And slowly but steadily, things improved. We’re not done. On any given weekend, there are still portions of the system that are closed. But we are so far along.

The media, of course, is still quick to highlight every deficiency. Recently, a train accident at Union Square required five people go to the hospital to be evaluated. All were fine, but it was first page news. When would they ever going to report such minimal injuries from automobile crashes, which happen with much more frequency?

Nevertheless, I have returned to my old habits. It only takes me 45 minutes to get downtown these days. Reliably. Predictably. There are more people on the trains and buses, and they make for just as good people-watching as ever.