Amid current low ridership demand, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s (MBTA) Fiscal and Management Control Board (FMCB) has approved revised short-term service changes for Fiscal Year 2021 (FY21).
The action incorporates recent public input and additional ridership analysis. The revisions apply to FY21 only – ending on June 30, 2021.
“We appreciate the thousands of public comments we received and have incorporated this feedback into our planning efforts,” MBTA General Manager Steve Poftak said. “We recognize the importance of adjusting service levels now while ridership demand is low so that we can use the savings to increase service frequency when it is needed. These changes in service levels have also been designed to minimize impacts on current transit-critical travelers, meaning that changes in rapid transit frequency, for example, will mean that individuals are waiting only an additional 90 seconds for a train.”
Poftak said the service changes align capacity with ridership demands. The agency would continue to analyze ridership and other factors, including the economic reopening and vaccine distribution, in planning for Fiscal Year 2022 service levels.
Authorities indicated in the MBTA presently transports 330,000 trips on an average weekday but is operating the same level of service it ran to serve 1.26 million daily trips before the pandemic, which the agency deemed an unsustainable level of service delivery.
“Today’s action by the FMCB ensures that the MBTA will provide more than enough service to meet the needs of transit riders this winter and spring,” Transportation Secretary and CEO Stephanie Pollack said. “The resulting savings can be reinvested later when warranted by durable ridership and consistent with the timing of the post-vaccine economic reopening.”