Students taking the commuter rail home for breaks will now have more accessible wireless Internet connections thanks to efforts by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority to improve and expand online services throughout the rail lines.
The MBTA announced the expansion of free Wi-Fi service throughout the commuter rail after a successful test run on the Framingham/Worcester line. The initial $1.39 million contract to outfit 258 cars with Wi-Fi was approved by the MBTA board of directors, according to the company’s website.
The Wi-Fi pilot program on the Framingham/Worcester line began in January, according to an October MBTA press release. Many commuters on other lines also experienced surprise Wi-Fi on their commutes in the last 10 months because cars are often swapped between lines when demand calls for it, according to the MBTA website.
MBTA Deputy Chief of Staff Kris Erickson said the MBTA received hundreds of feedback emails from commuters praising the Wi-Fi service.
‘This is the most well-received project the MBTA has had,’ Erickson said.
Since the program is one of the first of its kind in the nation, the MBTA used the pilot program to fix glitches and adjust the system, he said.
Though the MBTA’s debt is well-documented, Erickson said the cost of the Wi-Fi program is not an issue.
‘The service costs about $250,000 per year,’ he said. ‘You can buy a monthly pass for about $60 a month. All the MBTA has to do to make up costs is to attract 100 new passengers.
‘It’s not our goal to make money,’ Erickson said. ‘The MBTA is doing this to provide enhancements aboard trains for passengers.’
Children’s Hospital of Boston nurse Bill Frey said he has taken the Framingham/Worcester commuter rail every day to and from Yawkey Station for the past seven years. Frey said that though he has seen a plenty of people using the Wi-Fi service, the MBTA should enhance other aspects of commuting first.
‘The joke is that people email their jobs and tell their bosses when they’re going to be late because of the train,’ he said. ‘I’ve borrowed laptops and used my own to do just that with the free Wi-Fi.’
The commuters at the Yawkey station are a pretty disgruntled crowd, Frey said as an express train passed through without stopping.
‘The area around Yawkey has a large pool of medical, business and academic commuters,’ Frey said. ‘When the typical shift for a nurse is 7 to 3 and the train only stops at either 11:11 or 4:38, all of these people waste hours a day twiddling their thumbs in Starbucks.
‘[The MBTA] should focus on the meat and potatoes first, like putting benches or an enclosure,’ Frey said. ‘I appreciate being able to check my email, but there are more important things.’
Susie Santos said she just started a job at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and free Wi-Fi during her commute to Yawkey from Natick is beneficial.
‘It’s helpful to do all that catch-up work I always have,’ she said. ‘It’s a good idea to have it because you see a lot of business people that need to get work done during their commute.’
Trust International employee Mario Franco said he would rather have more trains stop at Yawkey than have access to the Internet.
‘I wish there was a Yawkey to Worcester train, instead of just to Framingham,’ Franco said. ‘I leave my laptop at home. You shouldn’t be online all day, everyday. I don’t feel the need to be connected all the time.’
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
