Boston City Councilor Mike Ross assembled students, drunk-driving activists, labor organizations and local and state officials Tuesday for a rally at City Hall to push the MBTA to extend its hours of operation. Currently only running until 12:30 a.m., the T provides inadequate service for students, tourists and workers in and around Boston.
As a response to building pressure to extend T hours, and possibly to pre-empt Tuesday’s rally, the MBTA decided to run buses every half hour until 2:30 a.m. on weekends along 17 routes beginning in September. While this signals a step in the right direction, the expansion of bus service is inadequate in addressing the overall transportation needs of the city. What the city needs more is extended train service, all week long.
Extended train service is obviously a pressing concern for college students, particularly for Boston University. Campus residents in and around Kenmore Square are highly aware of weekend traffic heading to Landsdowne Street and nearby bars. Because train service ends before clubs and bars close, Kenmore is flooded with traffic on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.
The risk for drunk-driving accidents also increases in the already perilous intersection, making Kenmore a somewhat frightening place on weekend evenings. Extended bus service will do little to address this problem. Furthermore, the MBTA has said nothing in this one-year pilot plan of extending bus service on Thursday nights. Kenmore residents know that Thursday is probably busier than Saturday at nearby clubs and bars.
Additionally, since Kenmore and Comm. Ave. are clogged with fans heading to Fenway by car during the spring and the fall, these conditions pose another safety hazard to students. This congestion makes the streets absolutely impassible and the nearby parking lots utterly stopped up. Instead of using public transportation, fans must bring their cars because the T closes before they have the chance to enjoy an evening at nearby bars.
If the MBTA extended T train hours — not just buses and not just on weekends (because games are played every old night of the week), then fans could park in the suburbs, take the trains into Kenmore, drink the night away and never pose a threat to the students who call Kenmore home.
The layout of BU is another factor that makes late-night train service a safety necessity. Since the BU campus spans several miles on Comm. Ave. between Danielsen Hall and West Campus, the school must also push for T hours so that the guests of those students who take full advantage of the generous guest policy that allows visitors to stay until 2:30 a.m. may safely return to their own residences late at night.
But there are even more reasons why extended T hours would benefit the BU community. If trains ran until 2:30 a.m., fewer city workers would need to bring their cars into the campus area, making parking much easier for students. Additionally, students would be able to visit bars, clubs and parties, without having to spend exorbitant amounts of cash on cabs. I’m sure everyone knows someone who has been stranded alone at a party in Allston after the T stopped running. Extended train service would make Boston a much safer and cheaper college town.
I also think that a better public transportation system would alleviate the housing crisis going on in Boston right now: an end to the housing crunch means better and cheaper off-campus housing for students, and thus better and more on-campus housing for the rest of us.
A better transportation system might even mean better colleges. BU would certainly become a more attractive school if transportation was safer and more accessible — more candidates would apply for admission and more would matriculate, allowing BU to become more selective (and thus churn out higher-earning alumni who increase the endowment and finally give John Silber the chance to retire).
BU is truly a university where extending T hours matters a lot. We will feel essentially no effect from the current plan to run late-night buses on Fridays and Saturdays. Every BU student should get involved in the fight to extend T hours. Check out those “Write to the Top” signs the next time you’re waiting a half-hour for an outbound train. You probably won’t write to the Clinton look-alike for your free fare, but you might consider dropping him a line to encourage extended hours. This is an issue that affects the social life and safety of every student.
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