Free bus service? Only for night owls
The latest plan by the MBTA to provide overnight service could mean a free ride for night owls.
The transit agency is again seeking private operators to run an overnight bus route for late-night workers. The idea is to offer a single bus route every night between 1 a.m. and 4:15 a.m., linking Mattapan and Chelsea with Logan Airport and downtown Boston. Buses would run every 30 minutes, and the service would begin in July.
This is the second time in the last year the T gauged the market for private operators for the service. But last time, the agency got no response from bus or van companies. One challenge for private companies, according to the T, was installing T fare collection equipment on their vehicles.
The agency estimates it would cost more than $2 million a year to run the service internally. So the T is instead testing whether the service can “be operated without fare collection’’ during a one-year pilot, according to recently released bid documents, and paying a private company a fee to run it.
Operating the service internally remains an option, and the T has been exploring ways to lower costs through negotiations with its driver union. There would be no free rides if the T operated the service: “Existing fare boxes would be used,’’ spokesman Joe Pesaturo said.
Today, nearly all MBTA service shutters between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. The agency has in the past run weekend late-night service, using both buses and trains. The most recent weekend late-night service was canceled in 2016, during a big budget deficit.
Since then, however, officials have shown interest in running a nightly service aimed less at weekend revelry and more at low-income, off-hours workers. The idea was originally pitched by transit activists and has been explored by the agency’s staff for months.
The T projects the overnight bus would serve about 75,000 people a year. Giving them free rides would solve the fare equipment problem, but that wasn’t the only issue that surfaced the last time the T sought private companies to operate the service. Others said they were worried about finding drivers and staff in an industry already facing widespread labor shortages.
