MBTA: Fires, Crashes, Increased Ridership

Despite two significant tragedies last week (a fire at Park Street and a crash in Newton), new reports say MBTA ridership is up. Rising gas prices are thought to be part of the reason. T-alerts now have over 10,000 subscriptions. The MBTA is in debt and struggling to keep up with its expansions.

We hope the MBTA can safely and successfully accommodate increased ridership, avoiding additional incidents like the ones that happened last week. We also think the organization needs to improve the speed and thoroughness with which it responds to tragedies that do happen (not to mention the speed of the red line on the Longfellow Bridge). Hour-plus delays like those reported after last week's fire are unacceptable, and MBTA staff should be well-trained in emergency response. Automated signals could help improve safety and should be implemented. The MBTA system needs a surge of financial and administrative support to match the surge in ridership, or more disasters are likely to occur.

Update: The Globe provides new T usage statistics. The system deals with an average of 1,337,000 trips each weekday.