The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) announced that it will carefully examine the viability of the Night Owl bus service. The search for lower costs comes as the MBTA is confronting a $16 million budget deficit.
The Night Owl bus service provides transportation to customers traveling later than one a.m., the T's approximate closing time.
"The MBTA is looking at a number of cost saving initiatives," Lydia Rivera of the MBTA Public Affairs Department said. "There is no definitive response to whether we are going to make changes to Night Owl."
Rivera said that the service might be altered, consolidated or eliminated in order to reduce costs to the MBTA. Although she had no official numbers, Rivera said that studies have found "minimal use" of the service.
"We've determined that the Night Owl is not utilized to its fullest," she said, adding that the $1.25 fare each passenger pays does not cover the $1.1 million annual cost of the service.
Currently, according to the Boston Globe, the Night Owl runs buses from Cambridge, Watertown, Roxbury, Allston and Brookline, and makes stops at subway stations. The future of these routes is uncertain. The MBTA has shown that it is not afraid to cut services - certain harbor routes have already been cut.
Even with the Night Owl service, Boston has limited late-night public transportation compared to other major metropolitan areas. Many buses and the subway trains stop running at approximately one a.m., well before the close of bars and clubs. The limited transportation raises questions about the implications for college students and the threat of drunk driving.
"It's a wonderful thing to have access to public transportation for people who are out at clubs, out drinking," said Margot Abels, Director of the Alcohol and Drug Prevention Services at Tufts Health Services. "I certainly don't want people drinking and driving."
The cancellation of Night Owl could serve as one more cut to the late-night services in the city. Still, no final decisions have been made.
Rivera discussed other possible measures for reducing MBTA costs.
One possible action would be to reduce the number of employees riding on Green Line trains. Currently, according to Rivera, three or four ride in the cars. Cutting this number to one would save between four and eight million dollars annually.
Revising certain schedules rather than eliminating them completely could also save money.
Though the future of Night Owl is unclear, the MBTA's examinations of its services is of consequence to Tufts students, who will need to examine the availability of trains and busses, the price of cabs and the dangers of drunk driving before settling on weekend plans in Boston.
Some students question the effectiveness of local public transit, however, blaming limited late-night service and poorly advertised schedules for the weekend Night Owl's lack of use.
"I think that Tufts students don't know the times," senior Vanessa Matthew said. "It [seems] so random when it stops running, when it starts running."
"[Students] just aren't familiar with it," freshman Caitlin Gallagher said.
Advertising, Abels said, could be an effective component in an effort to increase use of late-night services to curb instances of drunk driving.
"It would be a great thing for people to know about," Abels said. "We don't really have great campaigns in this state about drinking and driving for college-age students."
For this reason, Abels believes keeping the Night Owl is just a small piece in a larger effort to help people travel safely in the middle of the night. Eliminating the service "would not be a great decision," she said.
Matthew has used the service, to get home from a party at another college.
"I used the Night Owl bus when I was a freshman," she said. "Actually, the buses were empty at the time," but she added the emptiness was convenient when she traveled in large groups, sometimes of 40 people or more.
Freshman Peter Zaroulis, a resident of New York City, has also traveled on the Night Owl. He said, however, that the transportation in Boston was not as well-developed as that of New York.
"I think it's crucial to have a comprehensive 24-hour service," he said.
Subways in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles serve the cities' inhabitants 24 hours a day. Of these three cities, Chicago and Los Angeles have public transit systems that serve approximately the same number of people per day as Boston, with averages hovering over one million riders daily.
