The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (abbreviated MBTA and known colloquially as "the T") is the state agency responsible for operating most public transportation services in Greater Boston, Massachusetts. The MBTA transit network includes the MBTA subway with three metro lines (the Blue, Orange, and Red lines), two light rail lines (the Green and Mattapan lines), and a five-line bus rapid transit system (the Silver Line); MBTA bus local and express service; the twelve-line MBTA Commuter Rail system; and several ferry routes. In , the system had a ridership of , or about per weekday as of , of which the rapid transit lines averaged and the light rail lines , making it the fourth-busiest rapid transit system and the third-busiest light rail system in the United States. As of , average weekday ridership of the commuter rail system was , making it the fifth-busiest commuter rail system in the U.S.
The MBTA is the successor of several previous public and private operators. Privately operated transit in Boston began with commuter rail in 1834 and horsecar lines in 1856. The various horsecar companies were consolidated under the West End Street Railway in the 1880s and electrified over the next decade. The Boston Elevated Railway (BERy) succeeded the West End in 1897; over the next several decades, the BERy built a partially-publicly owned rapid transit system, beginning with the Tremont Street subway in 1897. The BERy came under the control of public trustees in 1919, and was subsumed into the fully-publicly owned Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) in 1947. The MTA was in turn succeeded in 1964 by the MBTA, with an expanded funding district to fund declining suburban commuter rail service. In its first two decades, the MBTA took over the commuter rail system from the private operators and continued expansion of the rapid transit system. Originally established as an individual department within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the MBTA became a division of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) in 2009.
History
Mass transportation in Boston was provided by private companies, often granted charters by the state legislature for limited monopolies, with powers of eminent domain to establish a right-of-way, until the creation of the MTA in 1947. Development of mass transportation both followed and shaped economic and population patterns.
Railways Shortly after the steam locomotive became practical for mass transportation, the private Boston and Lowell Railroad was chartered in 1830. The rail, which opened in 1835, connected Boston to Lowell, a major northerly mill town in northeast Massachusetts' Merrimack Valley, via one of the oldest railroads in North America. This marked the beginning of the development of American intercity railroads, which in Massachusetts would later become the MBTA Commuter Rail system and the Green Line D branch.
Streetcars Starting with the opening of the Cambridge Railroad on March 26, 1856, a profusion of streetcar lines appeared in Boston under chartered companies. Despite the change of companies, Boston is the city with the oldest continuously working streetcar system in the world. Many of these companies consolidated, and animal-drawn vehicles were converted to electric propulsion.
Subways and elevated railways
Streetcar congestion in downtown Boston led to the introduction of subways in 1897 and of elevated rail in 1901. The Tremont Street subway was the first rapid-transit tunnel in the United States. Grade-separation added capacity and avoided delays caused by cross streets. The first elevated railway and the first rapid-transit line in Boston were built three years before the first underground line of the New York City Subway, but 34 years after the first London Underground lines, and 29 years after the first elevated railway in New York City (New York's Ninth Avenue El started operations on July 1, 1868, in Manhattan as an elevated cable-car line).
Various extensions and branches were added at both ends, bypassing more surface tracks. As grade-separated lines were extended, street-running lines were cut back for faster downtown service. The last elevated heavy-rail or "El" segments in Boston operated at the extremities of the Orange Line: its northern end was relocated in 1975 from Everett to Malden, Massachusetts, and its southern end was relocated into the Southwest Corridor in 1987. However, the Green Line's Causeway Street Elevated remained in service until 2004, when it was relocated into a tunnel with an incline to reconnect to the Lechmere Viaduct. The Lechmere Viaduct and a short section of steel-framed elevated at its northern end remain in service, though the elevated section was cut back slightly and connected to a northwards viaduct extension as part of the Green Line Extension.
Public enterprise
The old elevated railways proved to be an eyesore and required several sharp curves in Boston's twisty streets. The Atlantic Avenue Elevated was closed in 1938 amidst declining ridership and was demolished in 1942. As rail passenger service became increasingly unprofitable, largely due to rising automobile ownership, government takeover prevented abandonment and dismantlement. The MTA purchased and took over subway, elevated, streetcar, and bus operations from the Boston Elevated Railway in 1947.
In the 1950s, the MTA ran new subway extensions, while the last two streetcar lines running into the Pleasant Street Portal of the Tremont Street Subway were substituted with buses in 1953 and 1962. In 1958, the MTA purchased the Highland branch from the Boston and Albany Railroad, reopening it a year later as a rapid transit line (now the Green Line D branch).
While the operations of the MTA were relatively stable by the early 1960s, the privately operated commuter rail lines were in freefall. The New Haven Railroad, New York Central Railroad, and Boston and Maine Railroad were all financially struggling; deferred maintenance was hurting the mainlines while most branch lines had been discontinued. The 1945 Coolidge Commission plan assumed that most of the commuter rail lines would be replaced by shorter rapid transit extensions, or simply feed into them at reduced service levels. Passenger service on the entire Old Colony Railroad system serving the southeastern part of the state was abandoned by the New Haven Railroad in 1959, triggering calls for state intervention. Between January 1963 and March 1964, the Mass Transportation Commission tested different fare and service levels on the B&M and New Haven systems. Determining that commuter rail operations were important but could not be financially self-sustaining, the MTC recommended an expansion of the MTA to commuter rail territory.
On August 3, 1964, the MBTA succeeded the MTA, with an enlarged service area intended to fund continued commuter rail operations. The original 14-municipality MTA district was expanded to 78 cities and towns. Several lines were briefly cut back while contracts with out-of-district towns were reached, but, except for the outer portions of the Central Mass Branch (cut back from Hudson to ), West Medway branch (cut back from to ), Blackstone Line (cut back from Blackstone to ), and B&M New Hampshire services (cut back from Portsmouth to ), these cuts were temporary; however, service on three branch lines (all of them with only one round trip daily: one morning rush-hour trip in to Boston, and one evening rush-hour trip back out to the suburbs) was dropped permanently between 1965 and 1976 (the Millis (the new name of the truncated West Medway branch) and Dedham Branches were discontinued in 1967, while the Central Mass branch was abandoned in 1971). The MBTA bought the Penn Central (New York Central and New Haven) commuter rail lines in January 1973, Penn Central equipment in April 1976, and all B&M commuter assets in December 1976; these purchases served to make the system state-owned with the private railroads retained solely as operators. Only two branch lines were abandoned after 1976: service on the Lexington branch (also with only one round trip daily) was discontinued in January 1977 after a snowstorm blocked the line, while the Lowell Line's full-service Woburn Branch was eliminated in January 1981 due to poor track conditions.
The MBTA assigned colors to its four rapid transit lines in 1965, and lettered the branches of the Green Line from north to south. Shortages of streetcars, among other factors, caused bustitution of rail service on two branches of the Green Line. The A branch ceased operating entirely in 1969 and was replaced by the 57 bus, while the E branch was truncated from to in 1985, with the section between Heath Street and Arborway replaced by the 39 bus.
The MBTA purchased bus routes in the outer suburbs to the north and south from the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway in 1968. As with the commuter rail system, many of the outlying routes were dropped shortly before or after the takeover due to low ridership and high operating costs. The MBTA started subsidizing the Middlesex and Boston Street Railway in 1964, and acquired it in 1972, creating its 5xx bus routes.
In the 1970s, the MBTA received a boost from the Boston Transportation Planning Review area-wide re-evaluation of the role of mass transit relative to highways. Producing a moratorium on highway construction inside Route 128, numerous mass transit lines were planned for expansion by the Voorhees-Skidmore, Owings and Merrill-ESL consulting team. The removal of elevated lines continued, and the closure of the Washington Street Elevated in 1987 brought the end of rapid transit service to the Roxbury neighborhood. Between 1971 and 1985, the Red Line was extended both north and south, providing not only additional subway system coverage, but also major parking structures at several of the terminal and intermediate stations.
In 1981, seventeen people and one corporation were indicted for their roles in a number of kickback schemes at the MBTA. Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation and MBTA Chairman Barry Locke was convicted of five counts of bribery and sentenced to 7 to 10 years in prison.
21st century
By 1999, the district was expanded further to 175 cities and towns, adding most that were served by or adjacent to commuter rail lines, though the MBTA did not assume responsibility for local service in those communities adjacent to or served by commuter rail. In 2016, the Town of Bourne voted to join the MBTA district, bringing the number of MBTA communities to 176. Prior to July 1, 2000, the MBTA was reimbursed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for all costs above revenue collected (net cost of service). "Forward funding" introduced at that time consists of a dedicated revenue stream from assessments on served cities and towns, along with a 20% portion of the 5% state sales tax.
The Commonwealth assigned to the MBTA responsibility for increasing public transit to compensate for increased automobile pollution from the Big Dig. However, these projects have strained the MBTA's limited resources, since the Big Dig project did not include funding for these improvements. Since 1988, the MBTA has been the fastest expanding transit system in the country, even as Greater Boston has been one of the slowest growing metropolitan areas in the United States. The MBTA subsequently went into debt, and rates underwent an appreciable hike on January 1, 2007.
In 2006, the creation of the MetroWest Regional Transit Authority saw several towns subtract their MWRTA assessment from their MBTA assessment, though the amount of funding the MBTA received remained the same. The next year, the MBTA opened the Greenbush Line. Rhode Island also paid for extensions of the Providence/Stoughton Line to T.F. Green Airport in 2010 and Wickford Junction in 2012. A new station on the Fairmount Line, the Talbot Avenue station, opened in November 2012.