Recent Streetsblog MASS posts about Rail

The Blue Hill Avenue Fairmount Line stop, pictured in spring 2019. Courtesy of the MBTA.

T Restores Early-Morning Commuter Rail Trips For Health Care Workers

By Christian MilNeil | Mar 23, 2020 | No Comments

Responding to issues raised in a StreetsblogMASS report last week, the MBTA has announced that it will bring back early-morning commuter rail trains that will allow health care workers to get to work for their 7 a.m. shift change, even as the rest of the transit system continues to run on a reduced schedule. Last […]

An Amtrak Lake Shore Limited train passes through Chester, Mass. Photo by Benjamin Turon, licensed under the Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 license.

MassDOT Will Revisit Its East-West Rail Ridership Projections

By Christian MilNeil | Mar 2, 2020 | No Comments

A coalition of regional planning groups wrote that the East-West passenger rail study's low ridership projections "require more explanation, clarity and re-analysis."

Advocates Spotlight Strange Math In MassDOT East-West Rail Study

By Christian MilNeil | Feb 7, 2020 | No Comments

MassDOT believes that adding more passenger rail service between Springfield and Boston would cost more than twice as much – and attract fewer than one fifth as many riders – as a similar higher-speed rail upgrade on the Hartford Line between Springfield and New Haven.

MBTA Board Updates: More Fairmount Line Service, Action On Bus Garages

By Christian MilNeil | Jan 28, 2020 | No Comments

Today’s meeting of the MBTA Fiscal and Management Control Board (FMCB) advanced several initiatives to improve bus and commuter rail service, and also discussed Governor Baker’s new budget proposal. More Fairmount Line service approved The FMCB unanimously endorsed a one-year pilot project, proposed by the City of Boston, to add additional service to the Fairmount […]

The base of a proposed new skyscraper above South Station would sit atop a foundation of arches suspended over the station's commuter rail platform. Architectural rendering courtesy of the MBTA.

More Transit-Oriented Parking Is Coming To South Station

By Christian MilNeil | Jan 15, 2020 | No Comments

Is a parking garage an "amenity" if its users have to stuff their motor vehicles into the gridlocked heart of one of Boston's worst traffic bottlenecks?

An Amtrak Vermonter train arrives at the John W. Olver Transit Center in Greenfield, MA. Courtesy of the Franklin Regional Council of Governments.

Amtrak Wants To Compete With Planes And Roads

By Aaron Short | Nov 12, 2019 | No Comments

Amtrak could become profitable as soon as next year as it beefs up short-distance service across the country as more Americans explore cost-efficient, less-polluting alternatives to driving and flying between cities. The railroad company carried a record 32.5 million customers in the fiscal year that ended in September, a 2.5-percent increase from the previous year, […]

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