And we are not talking school buses....
"Black commuters face longer trips to work; Disparity particularly bad on buses, averaging 80 minutes more per week" by Eric Moskowitz |
Globe Staff, November 25, 2012
In other words, affordable housing is scarce and often far from
desirable subway and rail stations. Those who can afford to drive
largely do so, because it is faster. And a transit system built up over a
century to funnel commuters toward downtown Boston does a poorer job
connecting to the service and physical-labor jobs not concentrated
downtown — meaning longer, slower bus rides, often with transfers....
Lawmakers and advocates see an opportunity in the new year, with Beacon
Hill expected to debate new taxes to support the Massachusetts Bay
Transportation Authority, the highway system, and the regional bus
agencies beyond Greater Boston, a transportation network deeply indebted
and unable to keep up with basic maintenance and operations....
Historic investment created a system of haves and have-nots. One of
the poorest and most densely populated stretches of Boston lies in a
void between the Orange and Red subway lines, where about 126,000 people
— mostly in Dorchester and Roxbury — live more than a half-mile from
the nearest rapid-transit station.
On the other side of the T map, the immigrant-rich city of Chelsea is
similarly bus-dependent, marooned between the Blue and Orange lines,
despite being more densely populated and closer to downtown Boston than
several Boston neighborhoods.
Transportation agencies that receive federal funding are required to
consider equity, but their models do not fully capture reality, said
Penn Loh, who helped create the T Riders Union to advocate for
lower-income and transit-dependent riders in 2000....
State planners were better equipped to calculate whether a bus route
stuck to its schedule than whether that route adequately served the
public, Loh said.
Boston is not alone in confronting transit inequity. Conventional
wisdom says a long commute is a life choice, a trade-off for a
picket-fence home in the suburbs.
But research by New York City’s Pratt Center for Community
Development found more than 750,000 workers living within the city
limits commuted an hour or more each way, a burden shouldered
disproportionately by lower-income people of color.
Among New York City dwellers, black people spent 22 minutes more per day commuting than whites.
“The degree to which that was segregated was shocking even to us,” said Joan Byron, the Pratt Center’s policy director.
Constructing subway lines can cost billions of dollars and take
decades. Pratt research made the case for bus rapid transit, which costs
less to design and operate than subways. With bus
rapid transit, buses travel in dedicated lanes, have the power to turn
traffic lights green, and do not linger at stops because customers pay
before boarding.
In Boston, the Silver Line is sometimes portrayed as bus rapid
transit but it lacks most of the defining features needed to fit that
category....
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