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Apr 30, 2008 11:30 pm US/Eastern
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Empty MBTA Buses Spotted Throughout Boston
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
If you are looking for a little peace and quiet, you might want to ride MBTA bus #6 right through the heart of downtown Boston. Chances are you could be the only on it.
This bus, which connects Haymarket to South Station, averages only 83 passengers a day, spread out over a dozen trips.
Michael Widmer of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation said "the T cannot afford to underwrite lines that are severely, seriously underutilized."
At a time when the T is facing increased rider ship due to high gas prices, and they say they can't increase service because of their dire financial situation, we analyzed the usage on several other bus routes as well.
We rode the #48 which runs through Jamaica Plain and it picked up just one other passenger.
On average, it carries just 85 people a day on 12 trips. We found a similar situation on bus #439 which runs through Nahant and Lynn. It averages only 66 riders a day.
We asked MBTA General Manager Dan Grabauskas if it wouldn't actually be cheaper to put these people in cabs instead of running entire buses. "Well, I can absolutely tell you that we do do a cost benefit analysis and, and in some cases we do discontinue routes."
Some taxpayers might think that this doesn't affect them because they don't ride an MBTA bus. But every time someone pays the state sales tax, the MBTA automatically gets 20 percent of that money, regardless of where that transaction took place.
When told of these empty buses, one taxpayer in Sudbury, a community without MBTA service, said "there's a problem there, that's an issue."
Another responded "I'm not happy about it, my money going to it because I don't use it."
Grabauskas pointed to the little used Nahant line as an example of the MBTA fulfilling a community obligation. "I'm always balancing an interest between not being outrageously cost ineffective, but I do have other interests that I do serve."
But while many buses are driving around virtually empty, passengers on well traveled lines can be packed in like cattle. Bus #66, which connects Dudley Station to Harvard Square, carries more than 11,000 passengers a day. Grabauskas explained "I think that what is a reasonable expectation is that I don't have an unlimited budget to be able to add unlimited service at any particular time."
Because of that financial reality Michael Widmer said business as usual, and wasting resources, has to end. "The reality is the reality. The cost structure has to be attacked, and more aggressively than it has been to date."
In all, there are about a dozen bus routes which service less than 100 people a day.
Grabauskas told us that they routinely re-evaluate the use of all bus lines every two years, but that now they will take an immediate look at the three lines we analyzed. That would be good news for taxpayers.
Last year, about $700 million from the sales tax went directly to the MBTA.
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)