A Common Question About Arborway Restoration

by Franklyn Salimbene

I had a recent visitor from the United Kingdom stay with me in Jamaica Plain for a few weeks. She relied heavily on public transit to get around, particularly on days when I was away at the office. She quickly mastered the Charlie Card for both the Orange Line and the #39 bus.

During her visit my visitor became aware of the efforts by the community to restore Green Line streetcar service to the Arborway in place of the #39 bus. She noted the reasonably good level of service to JP provided both by subway and bus and asked what the advantages would be to restoring streetcar service.

Her question was not new. In fact, it has been raised frequently during the many years of public discussion surrounding restoration, discussion, I might add, that led to a decision by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in November 2001 to restore streetcar service. [The failure by the state to implement this decision is now the subject of a legal challenge in the state Appeals Court.]

During the public discussion the facts supporting restoring streetcar service provided the answer to my visitor’s question, an answer that is simple and straightforward. And in 2010, aware as we must be of the adverse environmental impacts of reliance on the automobile, it is important to remember.


Every responsible study that led to the 2001 DEP decision concluded that restoring Arborway Green Line service would increase transit ridership and thereby reduce reliance on the automobile. These studies were supported not only by statistical projections, but more importantly by the facts on the ground. While Green Line ridership throughout the system grew in the 1990s and 2000s, ridership on the #39 bus fell, and fell precipitously according to the MBTA publication Ridership and Service Statistics.

When streetcar service last ran in JP in 1985, ridership on the line was over 40,000 a day as attested by the MBTA’s 1987 Arborway Transit Study. With the suspension of that service and the implementation of the #39 bus service, daily ridership tumbled to 28,000 in 1988; 19,000 in 1997; 17,000 in 2001; and 14,000 today.

Streetcar service would never have seen such an erosion in ridership.

The #39 is a loser. My visitor had her answer.