BOSTON, January 30, 2024 — I’m excited to be writing the inaugural TransitMatters Regional Rail blog post! 2023 was the year Regional Rail went from idea to work-in-progress. I’m excited to start things by reviewing a promising year gone by and previewing what I believe will only be an even more fruitful year ahead.
2023 saw success in longstanding areas of advocacy for TransitMatters and a change in leadership that heralds more to come. I’m more hopeful than ever for the future and believe our advocacy is poised for its most significant year of impact so far.
What did we accomplish in 2023?
Key Regional Rail priorities saw an infusion of money under the Fiscal Year 2024-2028 Capital Investment Plan (CIP). The CIP is a short-term rolling document that sets out the T’s spending over the next four fiscal years. Looking through the CIP provides a rundown of what the T is working on. Unlike larger, more aspirational documents like Focus 40, if something is in the CIP, we know it’s going to happen. This year’s CIP brought $61 million of new money to Regional Rail efforts, including $2 million specifically for electrification planning on the Eastern Route between Boston and Beverly. Going forward, we’d like to see more ambition and specificity. Still, this year’s CIP marked improvement over previous cycles and set a new standard.
As the year ended, news broke of the T’s plans to electrify the Fairmount Line using battery-electric multiple units, with revenue service in late 2027. This is by far the most concrete move toward electrification of the system so far. If sustained, this would be a major win for the Fairmount Line and the whole system. We believe that this can happen on a parallel track with—and reinforce—further investment in catenary and electrification across the system. Right now, the benefits of electrification might be theoretical, or largely confined to decarbonization concerns. However, I firmly believe that once the riding public gets a taste of increased performance and comfort of electric trains, they won’t want to go back. Positive feedback is key to advancing and securing policy improvement, and we’re finally on track to see that for Regional Rail.
Commuter Rail set post-COVID ridership records and has emerged as a bright spot for the T. This success is noteworthy for a few reasons. First, the fastest-recovering line has been the Fairmount Line. It has seen the greatest investment in a Regional Rail type of service so far, with consistent—though still infrequent—service throughout the day and integration with the broader fare network. Other lines have seen a significant ridership increase as the MBTA and Keolis make service more frequent and consistent throughout the day. For example, the Franklin Line saw a ridership increase of more than 20% this fill. Ridership on the Commuter Rail network recovered to more than 90% of pre-COVID levels, outpacing the MBTA’s combined figures. One might expect the existing Commuter Rail—a service still in many ways optimized for 9-to-5, suburban-to-downtown commuters—to perform the worst post-COVID. The fact that it’s leading the pack drives home the importance of service quality as the determining factor for ridership, and makes clear that our Regional Rail improvements will only further increase ridership.
The Case for Optimism
I see strong foundations for future progress, even with the considerable challenges at the MBTA. The year began with major changes in leadership in the Commonwealth and at the MBTA that bode well for continued progress. Governor Maura Healey was inaugurated in January, and General Manager Phillip Eng joined the T in March. While it’s too early to judge either leader entirely, there are promising signs of a new-found recognition that investing in transit is essential to our Commonwealth’s economic vitality, climate goals, economic opportunity, and more.
The stakes are high, but the case for sober optimism is strong. Greater Boston looks poised to avoid the worst of the urban doom loop and to put the worst disruptions on the subway system behind us by the end of the year. The in-office presence that comes with lab space and the enduring strength of our universities have kept our core urban areas populated. Disruptions on the subway as part of the T’s Track Improvement Program will cause short-term gains. In the long term, it will improve service and ridership and eliminate arguments that the subway’s issues mean we can’t invest in Regional Rail.
As Regional Rail gains momentum, we at TransitMatters are fine-tuning our advocacy strategy to keep pressure on the state and T to invest in the system. We released our report on what the Framingham/Worcester Line needs to accomplish for Regional Rail on January 17, and we’re planning to release our report on the Franklin Line–our last line-by-line report–this spring. The release of our Franklin Line report will cap off a very productive 12 months that’s seen the release of reports on the Framingham/Worcester, Fitchburg, and Needham Lines and our Turning Vision into Reality report, which took a broader view of the investment case.
This blog post was written by Jackson Moore-Otto, TransitMatters’ Regional Rail Project Manager. For media inquiries, please email media@transitmatters.org or contact jmooreotto@transitmatters.org for your Regional Rail questions.
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Photo Credit: James Wang