The transit agency will end the rear-boarding only policy that resulted in free fares for months.
After nearly four months, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority on Monday will again require bus riders to enter through the front doors, rather than the back, a change that effectively ends a brief era of fare-free trips.
The rear-door policy, which was also enacted on the Mattapan trolley line and at above-ground stops on the Green Line, was intended to create separation between riders and drivers as the coronavirus spread. But the MBTA has since installed clear barriers between the driver seat and the front entry area, allowing for safer boarding from that end of the vehicle.
MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said riders will now be asked to exit exclusively through the back.
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“Pedestrian flow in a single direction is safer than people trying to enter and exit through the same door,” he said.
The T is also removing cable barriers that cordoned a section of the front of vehicles to give drivers even more space. However, some passengers complained that it created less space for riders to distance from one another, and contributed to crowding on busier routes. The MBTA said that once those roped-off areas are opened, sections of the vehicle near drivers will still be marked with decals to indicate where passengers should stay clear.
The T said it could return to rear-door boarding only if a second wave of the pandemic hits Massachusetts.
The return of front-door boarding now means passengers will again be paying for their trips. The T has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in fare revenue throughout the pandemic, both due to the rear-boarding-only policy and from overall lost ridership. Federal funding from the CARES Act is mostly covering these losses.
Even before the pandemic, boarding policies at the T were under close scrutiny. The agency is preparing to install a new, electronic fare collection system that will allow passengers to pay at the back doors, as well, which could speed boarding and result in faster service.
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The T’s goal has been to reduce crowding by running more vehicles and keeping additional ones on standby to address busy routes. Currently, ridership is still well below pre-pandemic levels because of the huge numbers of people working from home, out of a job, or avoiding public transit.
Some buses still breach the 20-person threshold that the T now uses to judge crowding conditions. The agency said Tuesday that bus drivers can skip stops when buses seem unsafely full after getting permission from supervisors.
Adam Vaccaro can be reached at adam.vaccaro@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter at @adamtvaccaro.
"front" - Google News
July 14, 2020 at 11:38PM
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Front boarding returns to MBTA buses, trolleys next week - The Boston Globe
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