Foxboro Commuter Rail Extension

[mirage]

They will see that Walpole parking utilization is down and say hey, it worked, people left Walpole go to Foxboro! And they will eventually see that the Norwood Central lot is full and say, great new riders due to increase service! When all of this is just people diverting from Walpole to Norwood Central due to decreased rush hour service from Walpole.

I don't know how much detail the MBTA will see, but you do enter your plate number into the Pay by Phone parking app. I would guess that they could look at a plate's history to see if it had been in Walpole for some period of time and then switch to NC when the service to W was decreased.

I had not thought of that, it is a good idea. I wonder how much access MBTA has to pay by phone app data. It would be interesting to see that data for a number of reasons.

[MBTA3247]

They would need to have access to license plate numbers so their "meter maids" can verify that everyone in the lot has paid. How long they have access to/retain those records, though, I have no idea.

[charding]

...what is the latest on Foxboro ops...like load factors..

[Commuterrail1050]

Not really utilized much if at all for now. Maybe a few people board there at the most.

[mirage]

https://www.thesunchronicle.com/news/lo ... 631c0.html

For November, the mbta is saying there were ~70 boardings per day, or 7 boardings per train.

Frankin line performance remains terrible since the pilot started (76% peak on-time performance the last 30 days) and Norwood central remains overcrowded due to all the diversion from Walpole to Norwood Central due to service cuts at Walpole.

The service clearly needs more time to play out but the idea that 500 parking spots was going to cause riders to flock to Foxboro due to overcrowding at other stations is a myth, if anything the pilot has created parking problems at Norwood Central where riders are now being turned away for the first time due to lack of parking.

[charding]

...are ridership loads still low? If so, doesn’t seem worthwhile to continue this test after its trial period...also, in the realm of unintended consequences, maybe if the MBTA goes back to the previous Franklin Line schedule, it will alleviate the parking problem in Norwood...