Drastic MBTA Cuts Could Leave North Shore Commuters Stranded

BEVERLY, MA — As the MBTA considers drastic cuts in commuter rail service to the North Shore that includes slashing all weekend and late-night routes amid the coronavirus health crisis, there are questions about where those cuts will leave communities at the end of lines when life begins to get back to normal.

All weekend commuter rail service, 25 bus routes, ferry service, any rapid transit after midnight, and far more will be eliminated next year under a package of service cuts that MBTA officials proposed Monday.

The plan would shave roughly $130 million from spending on service, trimming current offerings by about 15 percent on buses, 30 percent on subways and 35 percent on commuter rail.

Yet, while the cuts come as ridership is way down due to people working at home and apprehension with train travel as the virus surges across the nation, it is unclear how quickly — if at all — the services will be restored post-pandemic for cities like Beverly where people may have moved because of the commuter and quality-of-life access to Greater Boston.

"Beverly is the only municipality in the state that has (five) stops," Greater Beverly Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Leslie Gould told Patch. "Beverly has always had a very high volume of commuters going into Boston. That has been an attraction for anyone looking to Beverly.

"A lot of the housing that has been developed, and the housing to be developed over the next couple of years, is based on the commuter rail, and our downtown as well."

Gould doesn't dispute that the MBTA must make hard decisions while commuting has plummeted during the pandemic, but she is hoping the T will commit to bringing the services back in the aftermath of the virus.

"This will be sort of a litmus," Gould said. "There is no reason to spend money if ridership is not there as much. It will be an absolute barometer over time. I am confident that (Transportation Secretary) Stephanie Pollock and her team will reinstate it if the demand is there.”

But MBTA General Manager Stephen Poftak said on Monday that service restoration would only be considered when demand was considered "durable."

"I want to avoid a situation where we make an (Fiscal Year 2020) problem go away and we all gather back here again for (Fiscal Year 2023) having to make a similar set of difficult choices," Poftak said.

On the commuter rail network, T leaders will suggest cutting more than a third of pre-COVID service, largely by shutting the system down on weekends and after 9 p.m. on weekdays.

Officials also proposed eliminating the suburban subsidy program partially funding additional service in Bedford, Beverly, Burlington, Lexington and Mission Hill, plus hiking fares on about 1 percent of trips using the RIDE paratransit service.

"We are very aware of how anxiety-producing the conversation about service adjustments is," Pollock said, "but we're confident that making the changes now to avoid spending money on service that people are not using is the best prescription we have for having the money we need to run fuller service when our riders come back, whenever that may be."

Gould noted that it's not just those commuting into Boston for their job who frequent the rail.

"The T is a service that services not just workers, it services students, people with disabilities who are not able to drive," Gould said. "There are all different people taking the T for all different reasons. It is a vital resource."

And while North Shore residents may not be taking the rail very often right now with no concerts and sporting events in Boston, and a large percentage of the workforce working remotely or making limited trips into the office, there will presumably be a time in the not too distant future when that connection between Boston and the far-reaching suburbs is restored, and that access via rail reemerges in importance to North Shore residents.

"A lot of people do consider that as a vital lifeline," Gould said. "My hope is that for those who work in Boston, and their schedule is shifted with the train (cutbacks), their employers will be flexible because this isn't something they did. This is something that was done to them."

More Patch Coverage: Struggling MBTA Plans Deep Service Cuts Across The Board