In particular, the Census data appear to do a poor job of capturing the phenomenon of part-time commuting, while literature and anecdotal evidence as well as the hypothesis this analysis advances to explain the discrepancies between the CTPP and LODES data suggest that many people who choose long-distance commutes do so on a less-than-daily basis. In addition, the choice to make a long or long-distance commute is a complex one, incorporating a variety of factors such as family situation, rootedness in place, and housing affordability.
One potential approach to collecting such data would be to interview passengers on board the vehicles that likely would carry long-distance commuters. Other potential targets for such data collection could be commuter buses, including those from Cape Cod, the South Shore, the Merrimack Valley, and southern NH; intercity buses, especially those from New Hampshire and Western Massachusetts; and Amtrak Northeast Corridor trains serving Providence and beyond.
CTPS collected some survey data from regional bus commuters for its Massachusetts Regional Bus Study published in ; and future analysis could draw upon that data and on contacts with the bus companies made during its collection. Collecting qualitative data on long-distance automobile commuters may be more challenging and complex. Another potentially fruitful avenue for study could be the extent to which transit options, employment opportunities, and household dynamics interact differently in generating long-distance commutes in different directional vectors from Boston.
Different geographic regions may generate different types of commuters, or different proportions of people willing to make long treks, depending on numerous factors. Section 4. MPOs typically have relationships with neighboring MPOs and agreements on various arrangements; an Obama-era federal proposal would have mandated joint planning to a greater extent within one metropolitan area, but was rolled back by Congress and the new administration this past spring.
If we accept the hypothesis explored here that there is a significant, although still indeterminate body of Boston-bound people commuting with some regularity from places like the Pioneer Valley, the Berkshires, Hartford, and southern New Hampshire—in other words, that the Boston workshed has expanded across much of New England—it seems to follow that the Boston Region MPO would consider joint planning with the immediately contiguous MPOs—not necessarily whose territory is geographically contiguous, but MPOs that generate regular Boston-bound trips.
While some such trips may be adequately planned for at the state level, especially those falling entirely within Massachusetts, others may fall into cracks as they cross state or other jurisdictional boundaries. Improved intercity rail service into Boston has been the subject of numerous studies over the years. The radar chart in Figure 1 reminds us that, in fact, that vector generates the most long-distance trips into Boston.
As such, neither commuter nor intercity operators seem inclined to optimize their planning, marketing, or scheduling around the existence of such commuters. It may be worth studying the extent to which MPOs or other entities can assist in the flow of information and awareness to plug some of those gaps.
Public planning agencies can, perhaps, push operators to implement experimental schedules or frequencies that serve commute patterns especially well, or coordinate services in a way that gives a level of comfort, ease, and redundancy.
Conventional infrastructure can, of course, have major effects on long-distance commuting. Improved rail service for long-distance commuters, however, is not solely a matter of capital-intensive investment strategies such as high-speed rail. Since its beginnings in the early s, the Downeaster has served a number of both full- and part-time commuters, as indicated by consistent media coverage of those long trips. Interestingly, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology paper found that even the promise of improved rail service in the future influenced long-distance commuting patterns between urban cores in Portugal.
The outbound schedule would not reach Springfield until PM, a possible reason for concern. However, the possibility of extending the Heart to Hub schedule represents a relatively lightweight, experimental way of both easing commutes and collecting data on demand for long-distance commuting as well as non-commute travel between Boston and the Pioneer Valley. Given that little to no capital funding is needed for implementation, the MPOs might examine whether they can allocate funding toward operational costs for such an experiment.
Extending the Heart to Hub service and examining future service options between Boston and the Pioneer Valley is just one of numerous possibilities in and around the Boston Region that illustrate the type of low-cost intervention across geographic boundaries and bureaucratic siloes that may serve long-distance commuters well. There are numerous other possible research and funding topics of potential interest to the MPO, such as adjusting parking policies at outlying MBTA commuter rail stations to allow overnight parking for long-distance commuters; coordinating connecting transit schedules with commuter rail; and exploring the possibility of an extended bus network connecting to intercity and commuter rail services, as exists in California.
This section, however, is more illustrative than specific. The point is that there exists a significant opportunity for understanding travel patterns and demand, and responding to them, that appears to fall through the cracks of some existing organizations.
It is, arguably, precisely this kind of challenge that MPOs were designed to meet. While the possibility of rail service has attracted considerable political and media attention, a large number of commuters—especially those coming from long distances—today reach Boston on intercity and commuter buses operated by carriers both public and private. Though operating somewhat out of the public and media eye, the system of buses bringing commuters into Boston has been the subject of several studies.
Although the overall regional bus network has shrunk since the s, with route abandonments primarily concentrated on those routes that do not use expressways or limited-access highways, the overall system remains robust, although uncoordinated. A variety of private and public operators send commuter buses into Boston, with robust service from locales such as southern New Hampshire, the Merrimack Valley, and Cape Cod. And it is likely that the bus system is to be a long-term fixture for travel into Boston, even if other options such as fast rail come online.
It is possible that the rail and bus trips serve different segments of the market; this is another area in which the necessity of developing better data is apparent. Strengthening the bus system, then—perhaps seeking to organize it into a coordinated network —making it easier to understand, and easing the travel of buses along regional roadways, should be a priority for serving the needs of commuters from both long and short distances.
In addition to needing to develop better data, there are a number of physical and operational improvements to the regional bus system that might speed the trips of long-distance commuters and interest the MPO.
Some of these might include the following:. Buses are operated by a bewildering variety of companies. The South Station bus terminal is near or at capacity at peak hours, 57 while on-street bus stops often lack any kind of signage at all indicating that a commuter or intercity bus stops there, much less any kind of accommodations—a situation that may be observed today on Charles Street, in front of the State Transportation building, where Merrimack Valley Regional Transit Authority commuter buses stop at an MBTA stop without any signage indicating that they do.
Numerous metropolitan areas around the U. A memorandum 62 examined numerous locations across the region and identified several for possible future study. The follow-up study introduced a conceptual plan for a preferential lane on I north of Boston. Analyzed under that metric, a preferential lane may well improve overall expressway capacity, since each bus can hold many times the typical number of people that can occupy a personal automobile. When studying the wider implementation of HOV or preferential lanes across the region, using the goal of maximizing person rather than vehicle throughput would speed the trips of numerous long-distance commuters as well as enhance overall transportation system capacity—and bring the MPO in closer alignment with these federally recommended best practices.
While many of the opportunities for better coordinating regional bus service with rail service fall outside the geographic jurisdiction of the Boston Region MPO, encouraging efforts to create a fully connected regional network that crosses mode and operator boundaries could be a productive path forward for the MPO. Perhaps the most prominent opportunity for coordination is among intercity modes of travel.
Thruway buses exist in New England as well, but perhaps there is an opportunity to expand the network in conjunction with a better understanding of travel and commute flows. Coordinating regional bus services with MBTA commuter rail may have value as well. There are numerous opportunities for such synchronization, but one avenue involves schedule coordination in public information if not in operation, as suggested on the Boston-Worcester corridor in a CTPS study whose theoretical combined schedule is presented in Figure 4 below.
While neither commuter rail nor buses provide especially frequent service between Boston and Worcester, the combined schedule is much more frequent.
If, theoretically, joint fares or passes covered both modes, riders would have more options at more times of day. Extending these vectors beyond the borders of the MPO region and examining differences in the commutes into Boston that they generate can perhaps prove fruitful, or at least illustrative of the dynamics at hand.
As such, the perhaps unique demographic characteristics of this vector, and its transportation options, could serve to illustrate the potential of the remedies outlined here. There are indications that despite the long distance, significant demand may exist for full- or part-time commutes between Boston and Western Massachusetts.
LODES provides much higher estimates for commutes into Boston from these counties than does CTPP, which this report has hypothesized is indicative of a significant population of part-time commuters or business affiliates.
Economic ties between Boston and these counties are strong. Pesaturo added that all vehicles are disinfected on a daily basis, and buses are cleaned multiple times per day. Further, all T vehicles also have a very high rate of air exchange.
The T also plans to add service as more riders return, which will provide additional capacity to allow people to maintain social distancing. Riders are already starting to drift in. Tuesday, nearly people, dressed in mostly business attire, rushed from commuter rail trains into North Station, carrying lunches and work bags.
Commuter rail passengers have been slower to return than riders on bus and subway lines, according to the MBTA data; ridership during the week of June 21 was just 23 percent of the weekday average in June Daniela Albert, 33, can attest to that. The immigration attorney resumed her minute commute from Billerica to Boston on the Lowell line in February, when courtrooms reopened.
Albert said the train was empty earlier in the spring. Since getting her vaccine this spring, she said, she feels safer.
Since getting her vaccine this spring, she said, she feels safer. Few seats were empty on a Boston College-bound Green Line train Tuesday evening, but there was plenty of standing room as hot and weary passengers headed home.
The subway system has seen a moderately higher number of riders than the commuter rail, around 35 percent of its pre-COVID ridership. Though almost everyone wore masks, Victoria Mier, a year-old Mission Hill resident on the train Tuesday evening, said she has noticed a few who did not. Buses tend to have an especially high level of mask compliance, since drivers can enforce mask wearing as riders get on and pay their fare, several regular bus passengers said.
But not all. Tastie Jones, 27, of Dorchester, was one of them. Ridership on buses has bounced back more than any other mode on the MBTA system; the network retained 54 percent of its ridership from two years ago.
A year ago, ridership hovered around 35 percent of June numbers. Mari Gonzalez of Dorchester avoided taking buses early in the pandemic. But at the start of the year, she began to ride them again, wearing a mask. Indonesia Jakarta. Ireland Ireland. Israel Israel. Malaysia Kuala Lumpur. Peru Lima. Russia Moscow Saint Petersburg. Singapore Singapore. Thailand Bangkok. Uruguay Montevideo. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.
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