Boston
HISTORY OF THE Boston METRO
Mister M Presents
Boston metro
Boston Metro Museum
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (abbreviated MBTA and known colloquially as "the T") is the public agency responsible for operating most public transportation services in Greater Boston, Massachusetts. The MBTA transit network includes the MBTA subway with three metro lines (the Blue, Orange, and Red lines), two light rail lines (the Green and Ashmont–Mattapan lines), and a five-line bus rapid transit system (the Silver Line); MBTA bus local and express service; the twelve-line MBTA Commuter Rail system, and several ferry routes. In 2021, the system had a ridership of 160,557,600, or about 689,300 per weekday as of the second quarter of 2022, of which the rapid transit lines averaged 267,800 and the light rail lines 86,000, making it the fourth-busiest rapid transit system and the third-busiest light rail system in the United States. As of the second quarter of 2022, average weekday ridership of the commuter rail system was 61,900, making it the sixth-busiest commuter rail system in the U.S.
The MBTA is the successor of several previous public and private operators. Privately-operated transit in Boston began with commuter rail in 1834 and horsecar lines in 1856. The various horsecar companies were consolidated under the West End Street Railway in the 1880s and electrified over the next decade. The Boston Elevated Railway (BERy) succeeded the West End in 1897; over the next several decades, the BERY built a partially-publicly-owned rapid transit system, beginning with the Tremont Street subway in 1897. The BERy came under the control of public trustees in 1919, and was subsumed into the fully-publicly-owned Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) in 1947. The MTA was in turn succeeded in 1964 by the MBTA, with an expanded funding district to subsidize failing suburban commuter rail service. In its first two decades, the MBTA took over the commuter rail system from the private operators and continued expansion of the rapid transit system.
TIMELINE STORIES
MAPLINE routes
Boston is one of the oldest cities in the United States, the capital and largest city of Massachusetts. Boston's urban transport, including the subway, is part of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) unified system and is denoted by the letter "T".
To date, the Boston subway consists of 4 lines and ranks 4th in terms of congestion, second only to New York (6 million trips per day), Washington (1 million trips per day) and Chicago (597 thousand trips) per day) subways. The T services (including the Silver Rapid Transit Line, partly in the tunnel) are used by 55% of all MBTA passengers. The Boston subway is famous for its simple and thoughtful navigation system: walls, signage at stations, trains, and even ceilings in underpasses are painted in a color that matches the color of the line.
System
Boston is the capital of Massachusetts; with 620,000 inhabitants in the city proper, it is the centre of a large metropolitan area with some 4 million inhabitants.
The Boston Subway network (the 'T') consists of three colour-coded full metro lines (red, orange and blue), plus a light rail line (green line) with four western branches and an underground section in Central Boston (actually America's oldest subway opened in 1897). The three metro lines are underground in the city centre but elevated or at grade in outer areas, partly using former railway corridors. Like the Green Line, the Red Line crosses the Charles River on a bridge (Longfellow Bridge) towards Cambridge (Harvard University), whereas the Blue line dives under the Boston Harbor to the Airport station (from where a shuttle bus links all the terminals) and further east to Wonderland. From the Red Line's southern terminus at Ashmont, a tram line continues to Mattapan.
