At Universal Hub, John A. Keith alerts us to the arrival of the MBTA's "Blue Book," which contains data on ridership for all of the T's stations and services.
What caught my eye was the section on The RIDE, which is a door-to-door van service for the elderly and disabled. Costs for the program are soaring with increased usage, and the Boston Globe recently reported that the RIDE eats up almost 10 percent of the T's budget while accounting for less than 1 percent of all service. (Disclosure: My parents in Malden, who can no longer drive a car, use the RIDE and are generally very happy with it.)
I was curious about which communities depend most on the RIDE, so I compared the Blue Book data to the latest Census population figures to come up with a per-capita measure. The top 10 cities and towns are listed below.
Winthrop isn't a huge surprise at No. 1, since it's a small peninsular town with no train service. I wonder whether a regularly scheduled (and publicized) shuttle service to get people on and off the finger of land would take some pressure off the RIDE, which is a taxi-like appointment service. Of course, the RIDE might also become more efficient as more of its users become adept with smartphones and can schedule needed trips with a few keystrokes instead of calling the T a day in advance. (I don't see any RIDE apps on the T's website yet.)
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