The Never Ending Fight Over The Yawkey Stop

Last week we sent the following letter to Mr. Daniel Grabauskas, the General Manager of the MBTA in reply to his last letter we received in June.

Dear Mr. Grabauskas,

Thank you very much for your letter of June 2, 2008. Again we appreciate your taking the time to answer our questions and address our concerns.

We would like to take this opportunity to present you with the reasons why the daily service to the Yawkey station should be restored for the P528 train. Each of the following reasons is explained in more detail below.
1) The P528 train is routinely on time when stopping at the Yawkey station for the Red Sox games, which demonstrates that the train will continue to run on time when making this stop on non-game days.
2) There is no evidence to show that the elimination of the P528 stop at the Yawkey station caused the on time performance improvements on the Framingham/Worcester line.
3) The number of people who regularly used the Yawkey station stop on the P528 train before the schedule change, and who will continue to use it if the stop is reintroduced far exceeds the count of 3 or 4 that the study you sited estimated.

1) In your letter you state that “between February 19 and May 12 [2008], P528 has been on time 59 out of 60 days for an OTP of 98%.” We are pleased to see such excellent on time performance. According to the Red Sox game schedule, there were 11 weekday evening home games between February 19 and May 12, 2008. We thus conclude that when P528 made the stop at Yawkey it was on time at least 10 out of 11 times (for an OTP of 91%), and potentially 11 out of 11 times (for an OTP of 100%), depending on when the single delay in question occurred. Such excellent on time performance on Red Sox evening game days when ridership is higher then normal indicates that the P528 train can consistently run on time while making the stop at Yawkey on non-game days.

2) We are happy to experience the improved on time performance of the trains on the Framingham/Worcester line. However, so far we have not been presented with any conclusive evidence that the OTP improvements resulted from the elimination of the stop at Yawkey. In fact, the elimination of the Yawkey station stop for the P528 train was one of multiple schedule changes applied to all trains on the Framingham/Worcester Line on February 18, 2008. Thus, there is no baseline data to which the current data can be compared.

3) We continue to believe that your estimates for the number of passengers regularly riding the P528 train and using the Yawkey stop are inaccurate and low. We hope you will look at the data we enclose, Survey Results of Commuters Employed by The MathWorks, which we collected from other commuter rail users who work for the same company that we both work for. Our data shows higher utilization of the Yawkey stop, and calls into question the accuracy of the MBTA study results you sited to support your decision to eliminate the Yawkey stop from the P528 schedule.

In your letter from March 21, 2008, you site the following reasons for removing the Yawkey station from the P528 train schedule: low utilization of the stop by P528 train passengers, insufficient time for both P528 and P531 trains to make the stop, and improved on time performance of the P528 train. The data from our survey suggests that the utilization of the Yawkey station by the P528 passengers was higher then 3 or 4 people a day prior to the February 18, 2008 schedule change. Also the data from the days when the P528 train stops at Yawkey shows that making the stop regularly will not delay the train.

If you still have concerns on any of these points, or if there are other issues preventing the regular stop that we are not aware of, please explain. If our points and data are not sufficient to return the stop, please consider running a pilot P528 schedule change to include the Yawkey stop for a period of 2 or 3 months. Then you will have the P528 on time performance data available that will include the overall schedule changes that came in effect on February 18, 2008, and the stop at Yawkey. We are confident that the analysis of the data will show that making the stop is not detrimental to the P528 on time performance.

We thank you for your time, and hope you will consider our suggestion. Please feel free to contact us directly.

Sincerely,

[Names and addresses edited out here]

Enclosure

And here is the enclosure:

Survey Results of Commuters Employed by The MathWorks

We work for a private software company, the MathWorks, located in Natick. In July, we conducted a short survey of the MathWorks employees who regularly commute to work, in order to determine how many of them regularly use or used the Yawkey stop while riding the P528 train. The results are as follows:

Before the schedule change of February 18, 2008
6.7 --> Average number of people riding the P528 train
5.5 --> Average number of people getting off at Yawkey
After the schedule change
5.1 --> Average number of people riding the P528 train
If P528 train stopped at Yawkey every day
6.1 --> Average number of people who would get off at Yawkey

The results of our survey indicate that prior to the February 18, 2008 schedule change 5 or 6 MathWorks employees got off the P528 train at the Yawkey station daily. The results show higher usage of the station as compared to the results of the MBTA survey. Moreover, our results do not take into account any riders who do not work at the MathWorks, any new riders who have started working at the MathWorks in August or later, and the rapidly increasing population of the Fenway area.