It’s one of Greater Boston’s most highly anticipated transit improvements in years, sent to unspool years of wound-up frustration that only intensified with every breakdown or delay. Yet when it finally hit the rails, the MBTA’s first new Red Line train in a generation found few riders around to welcome it.
One day, presumably, new cars will be packed to the gills. But for now, with transit ridership way down during the pandemic, the first new train is more like a secret treasure for the smattering of masked riders who happen upon it.
“With nobody on it, it really feels like a luxury ride. It feels like we’re on a train from the future,” Red Line rider Johain Ounadjela said on a nearly empty car during what was once considered rush hour. A researcher in Kendall Square who can’t work from home, Ounadjela has now ridden the new train twice. “This is a reward for our daily commute,” he said.
After a little more than a month in service, the new six-car train is still clean and shiny. The cars have wider doors than previous models, as well as digital screens that provide service announcements and other information. The vehicles also feel more spacious than the old cars because of new seating arrangements.
Advertisement
So far, that space is largely unfilled, though. The first train entered service in late December, nearly 10 months into a global pandemic that had stunted transit ridership. While the Red Line is still carrying more than 35,000 passengers each weekday, that is a steep decline from the nearly 200,000 prior to the pandemic. And only a fraction of those riders luck out and get the new train.
The six cars are the first of more than 250 expected coming years to replace dinosaurs that date back as far as the late 1960s.
Advertisement
The project also includes more than 150 new Orange Line cars, 28 of which have been approved for service. Most days, three of the new six-car Orange Line trains are in service, and a fourth is expected this month.
The project will fully replace the Red and Orange lines’ fleets, and expand them, allowing for more frequent service and fewer breakdowns.
The first of the new Orange Line trains debuted under much different conditions, in summer 2019. They were a tangible sign of of improvement for commuters, but they were swiftly frustrated when mechanical issues put the new trains out of service for days or weeks at a time.
The Red Line cars, by contrast, were introduced quietly, with little advance notice.
“I and a number of officials from the operations team were on the train for its inaugural run,” said the MBTA’s deputy general manager, Jeff Gonneville. “When it pulled into the station and the doors opened and these unassuming riders and customers got on board, they were like, ‘Is this really happening? Can we really get on this train right now?’ ”
Gonneville said the pandemic doesn’t make it easier or more difficult to add new cars, though there may be a modest benefit from low ridership: a slight advantage when testing the cars, since they can cover more ground with fewer of the delays that plagued subway service before the coronavirus hit.
He cautioned that it will be several months before more Red Line cars carry riders. The first six-car set was built in China, by the MBTA’s contractor, CRRC. But CRRC is assembling most of the vehicles at a Springfield factory that has struggled to ramp up production. The trains have been slower to arrive than planned, and MBTA officials last year said it will take until at least 2024 to complete the fleet replacement, a year longer than expected.
Advertisement
In the meantime, some riders who have spent most of the last year at home feel like they’re missing out.
Caitlin Walsh, a self-described transit buff from Mattapan, used to ride the Red Line weekly but has had no opportunity to try the new train and said she is unlikely to seek it out until the public health threat has passed. She’s just glad those relying on transit throughout the pandemic are at least getting a new ride.
“It’s a proxy thing, knowing other people can take joy in the thing I relish and enjoy,” she said.
Adam Vaccaro can be reached at adam.vaccaro@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter at @adamtvaccaro.
February 08, 2021 at 05:06AM
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/02/07/metro/if-new-red-line-train-rolls-into-town-is-anyone-there-ride-it/
If a new Red Line train rolls into town, is anyone there to ride it? - The Boston Globe
https://news.google.com/search?q=Red&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
No comments:
Post a Comment