Restored Green Line serice is better and less costly public transit than bus service.
One-seat ride into the central subway from a stop near our homes to work, shopping, or entertainment downtown. No need to transfer outdoors at Heath, Copley, or Back Bay!
Faster on-street service to downtown for commuters and shoppers. Light rail service to Copley Square would take 28.3 minutes, while bus service takes 35.5 minutes (MBTA statistics)
State-of-the-art LRVs provide easy access for everybody. In addition to being accessible to wheelchairs and strollers, they are also roomy, smooth-riding, and easy to board.
Bus service is more costly to operate. Restoring Green Line service to the Arborway would decrease MBTA operating costs by $8,900 each day or approximately $2.8 million annually (MBTA statistic). If Green Line service had been restored when the MBTA made its restoration promise in 1991, the MBTA would have saved millions of dollars.
More frequent service along Huntington Avenue. Restoring Green Line service to the Arborway will result in a 50% increase in Green Line service along Huntington Avenue and to institutions like the VA Medical Center and Northeastern University. Peak service would increase from one trolley every nine minutes to one every six minutes.
Bus enthusiasts still claim that rail service would be more expensive. They're wrong! Using the jargon of the T, they talk about "costs per vehicle trip" and "costs per passenger trip." The fact is that operating a bus service to Jamaica Plain will always be more expensive than operating rail service. The Arborway corridor from downtown as far as Heath Street is already served by the Green Line. Arborway bus service operating from downtown to Forest Hills would duplicate existing light rail service along two-thirds of the corridor. Supporting two transit infrastructures literally competing with each other for the same riders is the recipe for higher MBTA costs, not lower costs.
And, bus enthusiasts still claim that rail would be slower. Wrong again. No matter what technological gadgetry newer buses may be equipped with, they still must ply the same streets, in the same traffic as the old buses. In fact, to provide a ride to downtown, bus service would have to be extended beyond Copley Square and Back Bay into the teeth of downtown traffic. Is it any wonder that subway service would be faster for Arborway riders? Isn't that what the subway was built for in 1897?