Your School. Your Paper. Since 1936.

The Suffolk Journal

Your School. Your Paper. Since 1936.

The Suffolk Journal

Your School. Your Paper. Since 1936.

The Suffolk Journal

Editor’s word: Dec. 4, 2013

News broke this week via Shirley Young of the Boston Globe that the MBTA will soon service late-night weekend travelers around the city. Starting as early as this coming spring, all T subways and the 15 most popular bus routes will run until 3 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday mornings, according to Young.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick was quoted in the Globe article about the expanded hours saying, “Is this cool or what?” after finding $20 million as well as corporate partners to help with the MBTA’s latest project.

While this move by the T will surely benefit the Boston nightlife, one should not expect a Green Line trip to Harvard Avenue at 2:30 a.m. to be any better than it is now at midnight. Expanded hours are necessary for the city to truly take advantage of the fact that most of its younger crowd wants to stay out past midnight.

Bars, clubs, and music venues like the House of Blues will now be able to extend their hours knowing their customers relying on public transit will be able to stay a few hours longer.

The fairly obvious issue here is that the T is not magically going to become any more tolerable at 3 a.m. than it is anytime after midnight nowadays. If you are heading anywhere near Allston during those hours, the T is bound to be full of drunken and/or obnoxious people.

If you are heading back to the neighborly East Boston via the Blue Line, that 3 a.m. train will have to wait for the last of the Green and Orange Lines before your voyage under the sea. Chances are, even if you make the second-to-last train, you will be waiting 10-15 minutes for it to come.

Without going into the deficiencies of the Orange, Red and fabled Silver Line, the point is clear. Extending the hours of a mediocre product is helpful since people can stay out later. What is not beneficial is that the T is not getting any more efficient with longer hours. If anything, Bostonians should expect a less functional transit system when this trial takes effect this spring.

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Editor’s word: Dec. 4, 2013