Late-night train

Every New Year's Eve, the MBTA helps Boston's bar crowd get home safe. Now, there's serious talk of expanding after-midnight service throughout the year.

Rapid Transit by Jason Gay

Tonight, thousands of New Year's Eve revelers will squeeze into MBTA trains to travel to and from First Night festivities in Boston. Among the evening's riders will be families, couples, college kids, and more than a few people suffering from, well, a dose of too much partying. But all these celebrants are expected to get home safely, because the T will be staying open until 2:15 a.m. -- right after the last glass of champagne is legally poured inside a Boston tavern.

The MBTA has offered this free late-night service every New Year's Eve for more than a decade, and there's no question that it's a huge success. In addition to allowing travelers to avoid the headache of parking downtown, keeping the T open late encourages people to stay off the roadways -- a boon when many of the evening's activities include alcohol.

So an obvious question is: Why doesn't the T do this all the time?

It's not the first time this question has been asked. Over the years, the issue of late-night train service in this city has been kicked around more times than an empty beer can on Boston Common. Local bars, restaurants, and taverns can serve alcohol until 2 a.m., and many people -- especially the city's twentysomethings and college students -- wonder why the public transit system doesn't stay open long enough to accommodate Boston's night crawlers.

But time and again, the MBTA has responded that it's unwise to run its trains beyond the current last call of 12:35 a.m. (buses run a little later). For starters, the T brass doubts there is enough of a late-night crowd to support such a move from a financial perspective. They also say that keeping the trains running deep into the early morning would hurt the T's ability to perform regular maintenance on its rail lines before service resumes at 6 a.m.

"We have a five-hour window to maintain the system," says MBTA spokesperson Brian Pedro. "And there is always some work to be done."

Despite the T's opposition, though, the dream of late-night train service might get back on track soon. State representative Joseph Sullivan (D-Braintree), the chairman of the state transportation committee (which oversees the budget and operations of the entire MBTA), has told the Phoenix he is interested in exploring expanded night service for trains, especially in and around downtown Boston. And when the legislature reconvenes next month, Sullivan says, he intends to raise the subject with his colleagues on Beacon Hill.

"To offer this as an option to people is certainly something worthy of consideration," Sullivan says.

A five-year member of the transportation committee who is in his first year at its helm, Sullivan may become an important ally for those who want the T to stay open later. He wants to give the idea a try.

"I think the T should avail itself of a test, to see how [late-night service] operates and measure its effects," Sullivan says. "We'd see if ridership increased, and if it had a positive effect in terms of safety on the roads."

Don't expect the T to start running through the night every night, though. A likely scenario, Sullivan says, would have the T expanding its train hours until 2:30 a.m. or so on Friday and Saturday nights to keep up with Boston's post-bar crowds, which swell on the weekends. Sunday-through-Thursday service would likely remain the same.

Of course, the idea of late-night train service isn't anything new to America's metropolises. The most famous example is New York City's Metropolitan Transit Authority, which runs its trains throughout Manhattan and the five boroughs 24-7-365. The Chicago Transit Authority (home of the famed "El") also maintains 24-hour train service downtown. And believe it or not, Boston itself had 24-hour trains in the 1940s.

But like Boston today, many big cities have transit systems that close down in the late-night hours. Washington, D.C.'s Metro, for example, shuts off abruptly at the stroke of midnight. In California, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, or BART, experimented briefly with 24-hour service in 1989, after a piece of the Bay Bridge, the main vehicular artery between San Francisco and Oakland, collapsed in a massive earthquake.

"We looked at it as an opportunity to see what the market was in the late-night hours," says BART spokesperson Mike Healy. "And we discovered that there wasn't much. . . . [After midnight] ridership fell off to little more than a trickle."

Supporters of late-night train service, however, don't think the idea should be judged strictly by its bottom line. Though running a transit system late may not trigger an explosion of revenue, proponents say, it provides an important supplement to the evening life of the city and keeps people who have had too much to drink from getting behind the wheel. (Sullivan also points out that the über-subsidized MBTA, which received more than $250 million in state aid this year to go with another $250 million in debt service, hardly operates as a bottom-line business.)

And supporters of late-night T service say it's unfair to characterize the issue as only a young person's concern. According to Peter Christie of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, it's not just bar and nightclub patrons who would benefit from extended T hours. Christie thinks that if the trains ran later, it might convince more older, suburban types to head into town for après-dark shopping, eating, and entertainment.

"I think it would encourage people to go out and have fun in a safe way, and not have to worry about people on the highway," Christie says.

To be sure, Christie and other believers in late-night MBTA service face a tough fight. Despite the compelling safety and public-relations benefits of extended hours, the T must settle myriad questions about revenue, maintenance, and the extent of service -- not to mention safety. There's also the opposition of Boston mayor Thomas Menino, who worries about late-night transit riders disturbing city residents.

"The mayor feels that New Year's Eve is an exception, but he would not favor extending the hours on any other days of the year because of the impact of crowds on neighborhoods," says Menino spokesperson Jacque Goddard.

But cautious advocates like Sullivan appear ready to give expanded MBTA service a shot. Although few expect Boston to become a city that never sleeps, it might be time for its public transit system to consider staying up a little later, and not just on New Year's Eve. Says Sullivan: "I think we should take that step."

Jason Gay can be reached at jgay@phx.com.