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Three commuter-rail lines to get weekend service back
By adamg on Tue, 10/07/2014 - 8:08pm
MassDOT says Saturday and Sunday service will start up again on the Kingston/Plymouth and Greenbush lines, while the Needham Line will gain back the Saturday service it lost two years ago.
The restored service starts Dec. 27, thanks in part to funding by the legislature.
"Restoration of the Needham Commuter Rail Service on Saturday is vital to the needs of commuters from Needham, Dover and Medfield to work, shop and hopefully have fun in Boston as well as the many reverse commuters who work and shop and have fun in the communities along the route and in Needham,” said Representative Denise Garlick. “A hallmark of Needham is accessibility to Boston which is a great city. Needham's citizens and the many people who come here need and deserve safe, reliable, cost effective public transportation now and as we look to future needs."
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Comments
why no Sunday service to Needham, though?
I don't understand restoring only Saturday on one line, but both days on the other two.
The Needham line didn't have
The Needham line didn't have Sunday service before the most recent weekend cuts.
When did it last have Sunday service? In 2007 it didn't.
https://web.archive.org/web/20141008001458/http://www.mbta.com/uploadedF...
Never
As far as I know, going back 20+ years there was never any Sunday service on the Needham line.
7 days a week service on Needham Line
We had 7 days a week service when I moved to West Roxbury in 1992.
Needham folks who live near the rail line petitioned to have Sunday service halted. They didn't like the noise.
I remember the line before it was rebuilt
Yes, I was young, but I also remember that when the restored service, there was no Sunday service.
At one point, there was talk of not restoring service, running buses on the line to Forest Hills instead. I think people are happy they didn't do that.
So move
How quiet do they like their Sundays? So quiet they will deny their neighbors a ride into the city lest they suffer hearing a short, light, no horn blowing passenger train go by every few hours. Wow, how ridiculously selfish. Will they complain about Saturday too?
There used to be Sunday service
According to Wikipedia: Historically, the line has had Saturday service but not Sunday service. Experimental Sunday service was operated from July 11, 1992 until February 14, 1993.
But I'm not complaining. I am so happy to have a Saturday train. My three year old will freak out when he hears this.
However, the 59 bus does run
However, the 59 bus does run on Sundays (every 90 minutes, whether you need it or not). Most buses that far out in the suburbs don't have Sunday service.
Glad to have service back, but...
Now my family can take the train from Roslindale to the Children's Museum on Saturday for $23 round trip and grumble about the fact that parking there would have only cost us $13. I'm happy to have the train service, but this will be a real win when the MBTA gets serious about pricing the train so that it's more clearly a better option than driving.
Move to HP
Where they receive special treatment and preferential pricing.
Quick Quiz
You board the train at Hyde Park Station and ride to Back Bay Station. What would the fare be? What would it be from Readville Station?
Answer tomorrow.
Get a monthly link pass...
Should be in Zone 1 right? So I believe it's about the same a a regular bus/subway monthly pass if not slightly more. I could look it up myself, but alas, I don't feel like it.
Even better...
What about Fairmount station and Readville, just one mile down the tracks? Both are in Hyde Park, but that mile makes a $4.15 difference. For my wife and me, a $25 round trip for two makes taking the train downtown barely competitive with paying for parking, even though we live in the city of Boston.
The differential will end
And not to your benefit. The word is that the discount is part of a federal grant that ends next spring.
It will be interesting to see if either the T or Keolis will do anything with the fare structure to deal with the decreasing ridership. Of course, there is always the 32 bus. Sure it is always packed and doesn't have the frequency of, say, the combined trips of the 3 buses that run down Belgrade Ave between Roslindale and West Roxbury, but the price can't be beaten.
Why should living within the city limits of Boston matter?
I do not understand why living in Boston should matter. This the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority we're talking about here, not the Boston Transportation Authority.
You seem to be suggesting that someone who lives in Kendall Sq. or on St. Paul St. in Brookline should pay more than you, even though they live a fraction of the distance from downtown Boston (which is the destination about which we are writing) that you do. I can't follow that argument.
On the other hand, however, perhaps riders from Riverside and the other furthest outlying "subway" (I use that term because that is how the T appears to refer to the service on their fares page) stops should be paying significantly more.
Riverside
Until seven or so years ago, Riverside riders and Braintree riders and maybe a few others did pay more for the subway.
The issue is the inequity.
The issue is the inequity. It's around 14 miles from South Station to Braintree, and a Red Line trip costs $2. Meanwhile, it's a little under 10 miles from South Station to Roslindale but it costs $5.75 per trip. An even shorter trip from Roslindale to Ruggles also costs $5.75. Residents of southwest Boston are paying substantially more to use rapid transit than most other residents of the city. This is unfair to folks there and also hampers transit-oriented developments in the area. It's also harder to pitch a business to relocate to say Roslindale Square versus Jamaica Plain when JP offers the business's employees a substantially cheaper ride to work.
Equity yes, Boston proper, no.
The problem should not be expressed as soley a Boston problem.
The problem is that it is feast or famine for public transit due to the antiquated notions of "everybody works downtown", most of the lines being far shorter than those in other metro areas, and where lines have traditionally been run being where they get run.
Absolutely agree with the
Absolutely agree with the overall point. But on this specific piece, as a Boston resident, it is frustrating to feel like we're getting short end of the stick here based on what neighborhood we live in. The MBTA as a whole obviously serves beyond the city limits, but most of the rapid transit options are in the city proper or immediate urban vicinity - we're completely left out of that.
Not rapid transit
You're comparing apples and oranges. A trip from Roslindale to West Roxbury on the commuter rail costs $2.75, as you are getting away from the core areas (zone 1A) Getting to Needham would cost $3.25. ChrisRich went on about this the last time this whole thing came up. At the end of the day, the commuter rail is a different beast entirely compared to the subway. I would imagine that even if we were to adopt a WAMTA or BART style of subway fares by distance, the commuter rail would still cost more.
I would argue that Roslindale Square is a better spot to locate a commercial business than JP Center. Parking is better, and buses flow from Forest Hills down Roslindale (at least they do now until the Casey fiasco some of us are predicting) and a good frequency. I in all seriousness would do Orange Line to bus to the Square over limping along on the 39 any day.
Unfortunately, commuter rail
Unfortunately, commuter rail is all we have right now as you know. I'd certainly prefer to extend the Orange line (as was originally planned decades ago). In the absence of that ever happening, I'd at least like better pricing on the commuter rail as mentioned. Fairmount Line has it, at least for the time being.
All we have right now?
What was that big white thing that picked me up at the Square this morning and brought me to Forest Hills. Yes, it was white (an ad for that Japanese clothing store), but if you wanted yellow, two of them were there, too.
Trust me, other parts of the city would love to have the bus service that goes from the Square to Forest Hills.
As I like to note, every day I either walk to or from the Square from Forest Hills (18 minutes, but I am chugging along), taking a bus the other way. I would not want to do that from Cleary Square. In short. we are not as isolated as people make us out to be.
Was referring to rail service
Was referring to rail service that takes you directly downtown.
I take the bus too a lot.
At one point, you needed to
At one point, you needed to pay more to get on and off the Red Line from Quincy Center on. When the Charlie Cards came to be, that was eliminated.
Double fare
Quincy Center to Braintree had the exit fares, and 2 tokens were needed to board anywhere in Quincy and Braintree.
And the answer is
Hyde Park Station- $5.75 each way, $11.50 round trip
Readville Station- $6.25 each way, $12.50 round trip
So yes, move to Hyde Park.
Or you could walk down the street
to Fairmount and pay $2.10, or $4.20 round trip.
If you want out of whack
Braintree to Boston via Red Line is $2.65 tops ($2.10 if you have the card) while if you don't even cross a street (as opposed to the quarter mile walk you suggest) to get option 2. Braintree to Boston via Commuter Rail is $6.25. I will concede that it is not that popular, but if people want to discuss discrepancies in cost, that is a prime one.
I am dying to see the ridership figures from April 2014 in the next Blue Book to see if the fare changes had an effect on ridership of the two stations. Hyde Park was in the lead over Fairmont before. Both barely have ridership compared to Roslindale Village, so I think the demand pricing is right.
New housing going up across the street from the Fairmont Station. I believe an anon (not verified) said that the wrong element will be living there. And you are an anon (not verified), so I will assume it was you, since you all look the same to me. You could still move there. Logan Square is a great place.
Not necessarily a fair
Not necessarily a fair comparison, as you can argue that the commuter rail is more comfortable than the Red Line at rush hour, and is also faster by about ten minutes.
Whether that speed and comfort is worth an extra $4 is another matter.
A distance comparison
The argument is that the cost differential between Forest Hills and Roslindale Village is unfair, along with the commuter rail troll being borderline racist. This is a case of two stations literally adjacent, but with vastly different fares.
My argument in general is that you pay for the comfort and speed. That and the commuter rail troll is a bigoted idiot.
Who is the commuter rail
Who is the commuter rail troll? The anon that mentioned Hyde Park?
The one who told Vaughn to move to Hyde Park
I might disagree on the issue of the fare differences, but there's a guy who keeps on posting who is upset with the fact that the T has dropped the fare to Fairmount to zone 1A, for a year, to encourage use of the line. This tone entails that somehow Roslindale is this downtrodden area and that Hyde Park is getting this great perk probably because it is minority white (almost majority black.) To be fair, the slights at Hyde Park are not blatant, but there is an undercurrent. Also, he seems to be ignorant to what the other fares in Hyde Park are.
Honestly, if they dropped the fare to Roslindale, I would ride it, even though it would interfere with my exercise routine. The griping about Hyde Park- that's what gets me. And even though it would help my blood pressure, I won't let it go.
The commuter rail stops at
The commuter rail stops at places like Quincy, JFK, and Braintree for the same reason it stops at Ruggles, Yawkey, Porter, etc. - so people who don't work downtown can get OFF the train there, not so that people can take the train in from there. There's a reason according to the Blue Book these stops have only a handful of riders (I think in the last Blue Book JFK had a measly 1 daily inbound rider).
The T expects people from Braintree and Quincy to take the red line, leaving the commuter rail for people coming in from the burbs. Quite a different story from the Needham, Fairmount, etc. lines.
Porter
Actually a good number of passengers board inbound trains at Porter. It helps that Porter is 1A so is the same fare as the Red Line, and is a faster and more comfortable ride, and more direct if going to the North Station or Haymarket areas. (Of course you can't use a CharlieCard pass.)
True, maybe Porter wasn't the
True, maybe Porter wasn't the best example. The others still stand though.
True enough
But (as there always is a but), the pricing is still there. If there is going to be an argument about distance, the gulf between the fares at the 2 Braintree Stations becomes valid, as the commuter rail is priced by distance and the subway is (now) priced at a flat rate. JFK/UMASS is zone 1A, Quincy is zone 1, and Braintree is zone 2. Commuters by St. Margaret's could avoid the Red Line hassles by going a few feet further, just like Forest Hills people can do. I was one of the latter until the Charlie Cards began.
I used to take the commuter
I used to take the commuter when I lived in Rockland/Abington and it was great. The trains were so crowded on the Kingston/Plymouth when I got on at S. Weymouth (zone 3) that the 12 ride tickets were not punched in the morning. It would turn into a 24 ride ticket.
CR <--> Red Line
I kinda wish the T was better about promoting use of the Old Colony lines at JFK, Braintree and Quincy. Especially when the Red Line goes into one of its almost daily collapses. Seems that it would be awful handy for many riders just to hop over to the CR platform at the times it is possible. If the T was smart, they'd even try to help arrange it, during a severe delay.
Seriously over priced in Rozzie
$2.10 for bus/OL vs. what, $5.75 for the train? It's faster on the Needham line, but infrequent headways negate that benefit much of the time. Rozzie needs the Orange Line, that's the real solution.
The orange line should
The orange line should definitely go to Roslindale Sq and even a few stops more, looking at the number of buses it should be obvious for the need to extend the orange line. The recent success of community groups in Somerville and Allston fighting for transportation improvements should be a model to people in Roslindale and West Roxbury.
If Baker wins there is not a good chance of transit funding for projects like these seeing as how transit was neglected while he was in the Weld Admin, and Romney, Cellucci and Swift kicked the can on the green line and you can see what happened with the silver line, downgraded from the plans for light rail to the slowest bus in the system that doesn't even connect to itself.
To make things worse for the
To make things worse for the commuter rail, if your destination isn't within walking distance of Back Bay or South Station, you're paying an additional $2.10 on top of the $5.75.
Unless you have a monthly
Unless you have a monthly pass, in which case your transfer to the subway would be free.
Back in the good old days
They had special week-end and off peak fares to encourage families to ride into town. I remember bugging my mother to take me on "the train" (as opposed to the subway), I believe to the Children's Museum. It was so much fun. Not that I didn't like it when we took the subway into town, but it was special.
Of course, ridership has been off in the commuter rail, so that might want to be thinking about things like this.
(you see, anon commuter rail troll, there are positive ways to think about these things.)
..
Please tell me where you're getting all of this free gas.
You're right, gas isn't free
On the other hand, I hope that wherever you're buying gas the amount that you use during a round trip from Roslindale to the Children's Museum doesn't even approach the $10 cost difference I mentioned above.
Gas won't, but I bet if you
Gas won't, but I bet if you factored in taxes, insurance, wear and tear, registration, inspection, etc. it certainly would approach $10!
The problem is that since people don't directly pay that cost each time they drive, they tend to forget about it in cost/benefit comparisons.
It's not that simple, though
Lots of people along these train lines already own cars, at least in part because train service isn't frequent enough that they can conveniently get by without one. So when they're deciding whether to take the train on any particular trip, taking costs like registration and insurance into account doesn't make sense because they're going to pay them either way.
Now, if we're talking about the larger decision about whether to own a car at all or to rely on the train, a bike, zipcar, uber, taxis, etc., those are all costs to take into account. It would be great if we had a transit system that was robust enough that more people would/could seriously consider ditching their cars.
Set costs vs variable costs
taxes, insurance, registration, and inspection are the same regardless of whether you drive your car 100 miles or 20,000 miles a year. Assuming you get your oil changed every 3,000 miles (the recommendation now is over 5,000), that works out to $0.01 a mile. Let's say that overall wear and tear in fact is more like $0.10 a mile. The trip from Rozzie to Museum Wharf is probably a 15 mile round trip, so $1.50. We'll put gas at $3.50 a gallon, which you would be insane to pay right now. That's another $3.50. So, $13 + $1.50 + $3.50 would be $18, though if we are just talking an oil change, that is $16.51. It's still cheaper to drive to the Children's Museum on Saturdays. Get your gas for $3.00 and the cost drops to $16.01 to $17.50.
Sorry, when people talk about the true costs of using the car, they are usually talking about the overall buying and maintaining the vehicle. If people come from the point that they "need" a car (I do, for lugging the groceries every week and various trips to places ill served by public transit, though not for commuting), the true costs can thus justify taking trips not needed (e.g. driving a half mile to the park to get some exercise)
Insurance
Actually, your insurance will typically be lower if you only drive 3,000 miles a year vs. 20,000. But if you already drive to work, you're probably not getting a low mileage discount anyway. And if you take the T to work, you probably don't drive the car much and a round trip to the Museum of Science isn't going to dramatically increase your yearly mileage. Though if you take the T to work, you likely have a pass, and that changes the math a bit on the cost of taking the T to the museum.
Ah, the mileage discount
I was hoping no one would notice that one. Still, a single trip should not affect that, while aggregated trips like this could.
I can't speak for Vaughn. but the T pass would affect the decision. I am dying to take the little one on the commuter rail (he's taken the Orange, Green, and Red Lines along with a round trip to Philly on Amtrak, but no diesel trains yet), but the Charlie Card won't cut it. And there is something special about getting off at South Station and walking over the Fort Point Channel, but is it $10 special?
Not in MA
That discount doesn't seem to exist. Many states or insurers give it to you with <8,000 miles per year.
USAA
USAA offers a low mileage discount. Don't know about other insurers.
I've dealt with Commerce and
I've dealt with Commerce and Progressive, and they both offer low-mileage discounts as well.
We get a low mileage discount
We get a low mileage discount in ma from amica.
Sure it does
Most insurers have a discount for less than 10,000 miles and another for less than 5,000 miles. I've been getting it for years.
Travelers Mass offers 6.2%
Travelers Mass offers 6.2% 10,000 miles or less.This is going into 2015 ...
Bear in mind, you're
Bear in mind, you're preaching to people here who want to minimize car rides. We're seeking better and more reasonably priced transit options. We understand the costs of using vehicles, that's why we want more affordable transit options in our area!
13 Dollars?
Where were you parking by the Children's Museum for $13? If it was in those surface lots accros from the Courthouse, you don't need to feel so bad about the cost of the Needham train. Half of those lots were filled with construction equipment when I last ventured down there, and the rest of them are soon to follow.
That's the weekend rate in the nearby garages
And I didn't even realize that there's another nearby garage that's only $9.
http://www.bostonchildrensmuseum.org/visit/parking
I am glad it's back as well
I am glad it's back as well BUT that being said it really pisses me off the we subsize the end of the liners (no offense).
With my combo train/bus pass pass I can take the Needham line from South Station or Back bay and get off at Forest Hills for no charge. But if I want to get off at my actual stop I get charged $5.75 and the end of the line is only .50 more at $6.25. I just don't think that is anyway at all fair. Sure, charge me a surcharge for taking the CR... maybe $2 but almost $6 for going 2 stops. Highwaya robbery if you ask me.
My combo pass is supposed ot cover trains and most buses in the city of Boston. Roslindale is in Boston as is W. Rox. The MBTA seems to forgets that and will soak us no matter what.
Three things
1. The City of Boston has nothing to do with the MBTA.
2. There is no "combo pass". It's a "Link Pass."
3. The "Link Pass" covers subway, buses other than express buses (including the Brighton Center bus) and commuter rail up to Zone 1A. So no trains to Roslindale, West Roxbury, and the majority of stops in Hyde Park.
Other than that, there is some level of hosing, so that gripe is valid. I guess that is the game. Double the fare to Roslindale (6 to 7 miles away) and you can get from South Station to Providence with some change to spare.
HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!
Now working in town on Saturdays during tax busy season will be a bit more hassle-free. WOO HOO!!!!!
No Fairmount?
Thought Fairmount was to be included... at least thats what I thought I read on rr.net..
heard that as well
That Fairmount would have weekend service the end of September.
Vote NO on Question 1
If you'd like to see transportation improvements continue, even little ones like this service restoration, please vote no on question 1 on the ballot. Voting no is voting against the repeal of the gas tax indexing introduced a few years ago.
Good!
I've been itching to get down and spend a weekend in Wompatuck State Park. It would be difficult to get down there from Somerville, though, without a car. Unfortunately, the campground is closed during the winter when service will be restored on the Greenbush line, and it'd be a bit frosty for recreational bike riding at that point. So, maybe next summer.
Take the Hingham ferry -- but do it soon
It runs on weekends, but only through this Monday (Columbus Day). I hope they will restart service next spring or summer.
The 220 bus from Quincy will
The 220 bus from Quincy will get you closer to the park than the commuter rail.
Too bad they have to run such BIG trains
As I recall, the Saturday Needham trains are always pretty empty, which is why they got cut. It's too bad there isn't some way to make them cheaper to run....maybe just a locomotive and 1 or 2 cars for passengers. That way they'd only need 2 people to run it. Not sure if this would save anything, but I want the Saturday trains to continue running. Is there some other way to make them more efficient?
That's a good point
If only the cars were made to be uncoupled so they could run only one or two during off hours. Or better yet, if only there were smaller train units with engines that could be used. Let's call them DMU's for short.
It always seems silly to me that nearly empty trains with a large locomotive are run when a much smaller train is needed. It seems like a lot of excess weight to pull.
And with shorter trains we wouldn't have to walk a third of a mile down the platform at South Station to board the train.
Supposedly the Commuter Rail
Supposedly the Commuter Rail management has long-term plans to run frequent short DMU trains. But you'd never know it, since they keep buying more traditional locos and coaches.
Staffing is the bulk of the
Staffing is the bulk of the cost. The commuter rail is overstaffed: 1 employee for every 2 cars is ridiculous in the year 2014. Might've made sense in 1914.
Anyway, what they do is what you described: close off all but 2 cars and then have a single employee for that, plus the engineer. Still expensive, but less so.
Juggling consists to make it so that the actual train cars are cut off to have a single loco + 2 passenger cars ain't worth it. For maximum flexibility, you want all your trains to be as similar as possible. Needham line trains often get swapped back and forth with the Franklin line as is, and it's not worth it to send them into the yard just to put the three cars back on. It's bad enough that you can't swap these 5-car Franklin/Needham trains with the 8-car trains required for busier Providence line service.
Just dreaming...
I know there is no money for this, but if they could buy some kind of Green Line-like train where the driver is the conductor, they could run more frequent weekend service AND it would be cheaper. If you had two of those vehicles on each weekend line, they could run back and forth all day, providing much more frequent service for the same personnel cost as running 5 car trains a handful of times.
Well, that's kinda the idea
Well, that's kinda the idea with DMU service, except I'm not sure that they would allow the engineer to be the conductor (they are still usually in a separate compartment).
The proper way to do this is to not bother the engineer with any of the fare collection duties. The job of the engineer is to drive the train, and do it safely, do it right, and not worry about anything else.
Instead, you send out roving inspectors to randomly check that people have paid the fare. The inspectors are sent, based on automatically collected data, out to likely places to find evasion, and the penalties assessed make up for the expected value that might be lost to some slipping through, plus salaries for inspectors. This is how it's done in many places all over the world and increasingly all around the USA too. It's all about working smarter and deploying expensive resources most efficiently.
This system should also be extended to the buses and trolleys as well, because it means that (a) the drivers don't have to be hassled about fare collection and can focus on performing their primary duty safely, and (b) boarding and alighting is so much quicker, more accessible, and fairer when you can use all doors.
The main purpose of the DMUs would be to provide the infill service mid-day and off-hours where you want frequency to attract customers but don't need the gigantic capacity of the 8-car push-pull trains. It doesn't matter whether the trip is served by a push-pull or a DMU, the important part is offering consistent, predictable and frequent service.
Regarding the Needham line, the future of that must be an Orange Line extension combined with a Green Line branch. Maybe not now, and maybe not for a few decades. But increasing traffic on the unexpandable Providence line is going to eventually consume the slots used by the Needham line. That's just something the MBTA is going to have to come to terms with eventually. I think it would be wise for residents of Roslindale, West Roxbury and Needham to start organizing and push for the resurrection of the Orange Line + Green Line plan for converting the Needham line to rapid transit over the next decade or so, after the existing GLX is completed.
I don't think it would work here
I have been to places where it's sort of "honor system" to get on, but with a high fine if you get caught. I rode the public boats in Venice for 2 days after my pass expired and was terrified every time that I'd get caught. (My initial 3-day pass was $72.)
I just can't imagine that people in Boston would be honest enough to always have a TPass or ticket unless there was severe enforcement, in which case you might as well just keep the same turnstyle/farebox system that we have now. I think there is the most fare evasion on the commuter rail where you don't have to show something to get on. I think if all the buses and the Greenline were like that, it would be chaos.
I was on a Paris bus...
... when it was boarded by a 5 or 6 person Pass SWAT team. while one team member guarded the back exit, they checked everyone's tickets, writing citations to a couple of people and arresting one person who had neither a ticket nor adequate ID.
I just can't imagine that
I think you're being overly dramatic. Plenty of systems around the United States now use the proof of payment style fare collection. In fact, most new light rail systems do so. And the entire city of San Francisco's transit system, MUNI.
Everyone's migrating to it because it's so much more sensible then forcing a train to stop for 3 minutes while you sort out 50 people trying to board. It's more sensible than painfully loading a 60' Silver Line bus one passenger at a time ... watching their Charlie cards get rejected, pressing the buttons, inserting the dollars, inserting the coins, pressing the buttons, failing, getting frustrated, the bus driver just waves them onboard because this is taking an insanely long amount of time, rinse and repeat...
It does not matter how honest you think Bostonians are, the system adapts to the conditions based on real data, not anecdotes.
You seem to forget that there are some very high costs to the current way of doing things. It's very inefficient. Time is money, no less so on a transit system. Every time the bus or the trolley has to sit around and wait, wait, wait because of slow boarding, that's money lost for the T. That's vehicles bunching up. That's schedules blown. Slow boarding is one major source of many of the most commonly complained about problems.
In addition, every fare gate and fare box costs money to install and maintain. A lot of money. Spent just to collect money, not to improve service. Those fare gates don't work very well and have to be watched by employees. That also costs money. It also doesn't help that the MBTA seems to pick and get locked into the most incompetent vendors, either.
Of course you are right, but....
I'd have to see it work here to believe it.
There are also ways to speed up boarding like requiring everyone to use a Charliecard (not a Charlieticket) and not accepting cash. If everyone who uses a bus HAD to have an electronic Charliecard, there is no delay boarding and everyone pays.
If it's OK with you, we'll agree to disagree. If they roll this out here and it works and the T saves a ton of money I'll be the first to say I was wrong.
Nitpicking
Even putting aside the fact that it'll be really hard to let go of cash-on-board (SF MUNI still accepts it, for instance), it's actually not true that moving to CharlieCard-only-too-bad-if-you-need-to-fill-it would speed up boarding completely. The use of multiple doors, and on the Green Line, level boarding, is supremely important.
Trains (and long buses) are designed to be boarded and alighted from multiple doors. It's just how they work most effectively. It's their big advantage over other vehicles. The biggest advantage is gained by trains that have platforms configured for quick arrival at the station, and completely level boarding for everyone.
The Green Line throws away this advantage entirely when on the surface (and only gets it partially when underground). The commuter rail throws away this advantage entirely when serving old-fashioned low-level platforms. It's a major flaw. Some have estimated that the performance gained for having entirely high-level platform, level-boarding, is comparable to switching the entire commuter rail fleet from diesel locomotion to overhead electrification.
Nerd alert -- I read a study sponsored by US DOT that compared different ways of boarding vehicles and how long they took per passenger. The best was pre-paid, level-boarding from the platform with no stairs involved. The worst was being forced to climb stairs and pay on-board. Guess which one the MBTA does for the Green Line. Even with the CharlieCard-style RFID fare payment mechanism, it did not match the best option.
And of course, level boarding is a prerequisite for true accessibility under the ADA, and that's an important issue in my book as well.
Fine by me.
Galloping Goose!
You want a Galloping Goose! Like a bus with a Model T front end, on the rails! Folks used to get around on those back in the day. One-person operation, cheap on gas!
The difficulty in adding and
The difficulty in adding and removing cars is yet another inefficiency of the outdated trains used on the Commuter Rail.
We all know that a single-occupant gas guzzling SUV is bad. Well, so is a 5-car train with one car worth of passengers. (Or for that matter, a 5-car train idling while parked in the yard all night.) The difference is that when the state pays the gas bill, there's nobody with a personal interest in keeping the costs down.
There exist trains that can be coupled and decoupled by pushing a button *even while moving*. There's no reason to buy new trains that need a yard crew to remove a car.
Plus if they ran more frequent service, which small-crew trains would allow, they wouldn't need to swap consists to other lines. Line swapping is only necessary when they need to divide a small number of trains into a small number of runs, and the numbers don't divide evenly.
Smaller Commuter Rail trains
Commuter Rail trains require 4 cars minimum for braking purposes. DMUs will be the wave of the future for off peak service if they can build reliable crash worthy vehicles.