Jeremy Siegel: You're listening to Morning Edition, and it might be early, but we're about to go late because it is time to continue our series all about nightlife.
Welcome back to our series Nightlife in Boston, a weekly reporting collaboration with Axios Boston all about the city's nightlife identity, what makes a good, what makes it bad and what could make it better. Paris is away today, but Mike Deehan of Axios Boston is here in the studio with me. Good morning, Mike.
Mike Deehan: Hi, how are you, Jeremy?
Siegel: I am good. So today we are going to talk about something that we have heard a lot from folks about since we began this series: Transportation. Here is a little bit of a taste of what people told me during a recent night out in the city about late night transport.
Olivia Lavalle: I take the train into the city and then I always Uber home.
Siegel: And do you Uber home because the trains aren't running anymore?
Lavalle: Yeah, the trains stop running at 12.
Christopher Lund: I have to take the train in, but I can't get a train ride back.
Siegel: Oh man, so how do you get back?
Lund: I have my friend that drives my car.
Siegel: What do you think the city could do to make nightlife better?
Unidentified: If the trains are a bit faster.
Unidentified: If they went later.
Siegel: Went later?
Unidentified: Yeah, if they went later.
Marc Plageman: The main thing I believe in general is transit all night. Because way less people would be drunk driving, literally.
Siegel: So Mike, clearly, there's a desire for late-night, 24-hour train service. That's something that's easily said. But figuring out whether that's actually possible and even why our trains aren't 24 hours in the first place is a bit more complicated. So do you want a little bit of a history lesson, Mike, to go back and figure out like why we are the way we are?
Deehan: I think I've lived it, but yeah, it might be good to have a refresher.
Siegel: If you're up for it, let's start back in the 1800s. So at the tail end of the 19th century, when you might have found yourself listening to music like this in your local drinking well, there was a transit system here in Boston. There were trains in Boston, but they were not run by the T. And they actually had a different name. The name was the Boston Elevated.
Steven Beaucher: The Boston Elevated, at the time, they operated the largest public transit system in the world. That's Boston's. It's under the auspices of one company. They had a regular service through the Tremont Street subway.
Siegel: So that voice you're hearing right there is one of the foremost experts that I've been able to find on the history of Boston's train system.
Beaucher: My name is Steven Beaucher. I'm the author of Boston in Transit, and I also operate Ward Maps and MBTA Gifts retail store in Cambridge. My research covered 400 years of history for my book.
Siegel: And so in looking at 400 years in total, Stephen has found in his research that even though it might not feel like it right now, when you look at the history going back to the system that we had in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Boston was for a long time a 24-hour transit city.
Beaucher: Interestingly enough, we had pretty regular overnight service until the T took over in 1964. You know, once the T comes on board, you really lose any regular overnight service.
Siegel: So can you believe it, that we used to have 24 hour trains?
Deehan: I know that it was something in the past and I'm more familiar with kind of the recent troubles.
Siegel: Yeah.
Deehan: I think part of the reason why we don't have it now is because we didn't really do any maintenance since 1965 when when the T took over. That's, you know, an embellishment, certainly. But that's kind of where we are right now. People ask, you know, well, why can't we bring this back? And a lot of it has to do with ridership. There wouldn't be that many. It would definitely be a cost to the T, a cost to the state. It's not going to make money. Certainly not. It would need to be subsidized to the tune of, you know, around $2 million was the last time we did a pilot on this in 2014 through '16. That was supposed to be backed by private investors and private businesses who wanted to keep it going, not just the state on its own. Those businesses didn't really pony up as much. And that pilot went away after the 2015 snowstorms and kind of the realignment during the Baker administration to focus on cost-cutting instead of service expansion.
Siegel: So we are just a long way away from the 1800s, from the 24 hour service that we had back then. This is also something that I checked in with our transportation expert, reporter Bob Seay about. He actually told me that this is a question that as a transportation reporter and as just someone living in the city, has been just going through his mind constantly for decades.
Bob Seay: I should say that when I was a graduate student many, many decades ago, it was the same complaint. We were all like, we're, you know, especially those of us who grew up in New York or around New York, you know, what's the story with this town? They stopped the trolleys in subways at 1:00 in the morning. How are we supposed to get around?
Siegel: So, Mike, you mentioned the cost of making an actual 24-hour train in Boston. Bob there was talking about New York, which does have 24-hour trains. He actually told me a little bit about how a big difference that we have between New York is that we only have one track available a lot of the time, like the trains go straight through on one track and you don't have somewhere else to put them. if they're needing maintenance. And so if we wanted to do maintenance on trains, it needs to be closed down. So that's what they use the 24 hours for. So I guess I'm curious, like on top of that price tag, do you as someone who's tracking what happens in City Hall, tracking what happens on Beacon Hill, see any possibility of this actually happening? I mean, people would, you and I would want it, right? I'd like 24 hour trains. Could it happen?
Deehan: I don't think the demand is there. It would be nice to have. Certainly it's been tried out in different pilots, mostly focused on people who work in the service industry who need to get home after their restaurant shifts, or in health care, who obviously have 24-hour shifts, things like that. The focus has never really been on nightlife. It's been about workers. So that's kind of where the state's mind has always been. But look, we're in maintenance mode at the MBTA right now. We've shut down the entire Orange Line last year for a month. We're talking about sporadic shutdowns to do, you know, fixes now. To squeeze all that maintenance into the few hours a night when the T lines are shut down to begin with for regular maintenance, there's no way in hell we're going to be able to, you know, go 24/7 any time soon.
Siegel: All right. Well, thank you for being a realist, one who has left me probably sadder than I was at the start of this conversation. Axios Boston's Mike Deehan, thanks so much.
Deehan: Thank you.
Siegel: And we want to hear from you for more story ideas for our series Nightlife In Boston. So head to GBHNews.org/Nightlife to fill out our survey. You're listening to GBH's Morning Edition.
Boston's trains used to run 24 hours a day — something many MBTA riders may not know.
So why don’t we have late-night service anymore? It’s a question that’s come up over and over during our reporting collaboration with Axios Boston on nightlife in the city.
“How can Boston claim to have good nightlife when the MBTA shuts down so early?” Jane in Dorchester asked us in our survey.
Marc Plageman, interviewed on a recent night out, said running trains later in the night could also make the city’s roads a bit safer.
“Way less people would be drunk driving,” he said.
The question has been vexing Bostonians for decades.
“I should say that when I was a graduate student many, many decades ago, it was the same complaint,” GBH News’ transportation reporter Bob Seay said. “Especially those of us who grew up in New York or around New York were like, what's the story with this town? They stopped the trolleys and subways at 1:00 in the morning. How are we supposed to get around?”
There's a desire for late-night, 24-hour train service. But figuring out whether that's actually possible and even why our trains aren't 24 hours in the first place is a bit more complicated.
At the tail end of the 19th century, the Boston Elevated did run 24 hours a day, said Steven Beaucher, author of “Boston in Transit,” and operator of Ward Maps and MBTA Gifts store in Cambridge.
“The Boston Elevated, at the time, they operated the largest public transit system in the world,” Beaucher said. “It's under the auspices of one company. They had a regular service through the Tremont Street subway.”
Boston was a 24-hour transit city for a long time, he said.
“Interestingly enough, we had pretty regular overnight service until the T took over in 1964,” Beaucher said. “Once the T comes on board, you really lose any regular overnight service."
But over the years, lower funding has meant less capacity for maintenance of the T. Now, maintenance crews have an overwhelming amount of repairs to tracks and trains, and often use the hours between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. to complete them.
The MBTA did run a late-night pilot program almost a decade ago, said Mike Deehan, a reporter for Axios Boston, who has followed the MBTA’s late-night attempts. Between 2014 and 2016, the T ran a late-night train and bus pilot that cost about $2 million.
“That was supposed to be backed by private investors and private businesses who wanted to keep it going, not just the state on its own,” Deehan said. “Those businesses didn't really pony up as much. And that pilot went away after the 2015 snowstorms and kind of the realignment during the Baker administration to focus on cost-cutting instead of service expansion.”
Ridership may not be as high as needed, Deehan said, especially for something billed as a pilot program.
“People ask, you know, well, why can't we bring this back? And a lot of it has to do with ridership,” Deehan said. “There wouldn't be that many. It would definitely be a cost to the T, a cost to the state. It's not going to make money.”
In the past, policy pushes for 24-hour service have focused on late-night workers: Service industry employees, health care workers on night shifts and maintenance workers who work through the late hours.
“The focus has never really been on nightlife,” Deehan said. “But look, we're in maintenance mode at the MBTA right now. We've shut down the entire Orange Line last year for a month. We're talking about sporadic shutdowns to do fixes now. To squeeze all that maintenance into the few hours a night when the T lines are shut down to begin with for regular maintenance, there's no way in hell we're going to be able to go 24/7 any time soon.”
