Advocates rally at VA over looming T service cuts
Slam proposed changes to Green Line’s E branch
MBTA and veterans advocates slammed the T’s plans to throttle down service amid the pandemic, focusing on reductions on the Green Line headed toward the Jamaica Plain VA Medical Center at Heath Street.
“This plan by the MBTA is not only inconsiderate, but it is harmful to our veterans in the city of Boston and in Suffolk County,” said Coleman Nee, a former Veterans Affairs secretary who was representing the Disabled American Veterans organization.
Nee, standing at the Heath Street station on Veterans Day with the Veterans Affairs hospital behind him and a red bullhorn in his hand, said he, as a JP resident, is a patent at the VA hospital himself, like many vets who are having a particularly hard time during the pandemic.
“The last thing we want to do is make more barriers for them to get care for the services that they need,” Nee said, adding that this will be a spot to distribute COVID19 vaccines to vets.
The T is considering massive operational cuts as ridership remains cratered due to the coronavirus pandemic. Changes announced Monday would include ending service on the Red, Orange, Blue and Green lines at midnight on weekdays and Saturdays. Sunday service would run from 6 a.m. to midnight, and train frequency would be reduced 20%. Twenty-five bus routes would be cut, and others reduced.
Among these changes is the truncation of the Green Line’s E branch, stopping the train from going south of Brigham Circle, several stops up from the normal terminus at Heath Street next to the VA. The T would replace that last stretch with a shuttle bus.
“This is wrong, it’s cruel, and we’re going to fight it,” said Matt O’Malley, the city councilor who represents the area and who served as the Wednesday protest’s emcee.
O’Malley’s big applause line was that instead of cuts, “We should be extending the E Line to Canary Square” down South Huntington into JP.
A couple of Green Line trains trundled in and out of the station, looping around as those in attendance — including U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley — waited to speak.
O’Malley said the T suggested that the 39 Bus can take some of the loss of the space on the Green Line, but, “We all know the 39 doesn’t have anywhere near the capacity to cover what this proposal would look like.”
MBTA ridership has dropped 75% year-over-year between September of 2019 — when people took 1.26 million daily trips — and September 2020, when riders took around 330,000 daily trips. The T expects to face a budget shortfall of $577 million by fiscal 2022 unless it receives additional federal aid.
“Using limited resources to operate nearly empty trains, ferries, and buses is not a responsible use of the funding provided to the MBTA by riders, communities and taxpayers, and does not help us meet transportation needs of our region,” Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack said Monday.
Some commuter rail service changes could go into effect as early as January. Rapid transit changes would happen in spring and bus service modifications would happen later in the summer, according to the MBTA.