Longer rides: Lobbying by Worcester officials fails to halt change in train schedule

WORCESTER — Despite pleas for a pause from Worcester officials, early-morning train commuters from Worcester to Boston are set for a longer train ride Monday, with four new stops being added to what is currently an express train.

Keolis Commuter Services, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's commuter rail operator, unveiled scheduling changes where the Heart to Hub express train will have added stops between Worcester and West Natick, adding to the trip time.

City Manager Eric D. Batista and several city councilors have said they asked MBTA and state officials to reconsider the changes, but time is running out and the schedule will be set until May 2024.

Healey urged to step in

Mayor Joseph M. Petty called on Gov. Maura Healey to get involved in halting the schedule change.

A spokesperson for the city said Friday that Batista will continue to have conversations with the MBTA and the state, but there remains no apparent pause in the change to train services.

Responding to a request for comment, a spokesperson for Healey said her administration and the MBTA are in conversation with the city officials about their concern.

A spokesperson for the MBTA said the change was made in response to customer and stakeholder feedback that the services should be more in line with the pre-pandemic schedule.

That schedule included additional morning and afternoon peak service and shorter headways and only way to accomplish those objectives and maintain midday hourly frequency was to change Heart to Hub into a zonal express train, the MBTA spokesperson said.

In addition, the spokesperson said 75% of riders on the line originate or terminate at Framingham.

City officials have said the city was not told in advance that the additional stops would be added to the express line.

Currently, the 6:30 a.m. train from Worcester makes one stop at Framingham before going directly to Lansdowne Station in Boston, arriving at 7:24 a.m. The new schedule’s additional stops will add as much as half an hour to the commute.

On Sept. 19, School Committee member Tracy O'Connell Novick, who takes the 6:30 a.m. express train to Boston for work, petitioned the City Council in her capacity as a resident.

Novick asked for Batista to intervene in order to preserve at least one express train that allows for 8 a.m. arrivals and at least one leaving Boston to allow workers to leave at 4 p.m. or later. She also asked the City Council to advocate for the agencies to inform and better consult residents about scheduling changes in the future.

She said her commute would become two hours long on the train and make her late to work, or require her to take an earlier 5:45 a.m. train that would require driving to Union Station, since the Worcester Regional Transit Authority bus routes do not run that early.

'Quality-of-life issue'

"This is a basic quality-of-life issue for scores of Worcester residents," Novick said. "It is not too much to ask that at least once a day, there is a train that takes an hour or less to get to and from the second-biggest city to the largest city in Massachusetts."

District 2 City Councilor Candy Mero-Carlson delayed a vote on the petition to the Sept. 26 City Council meeting. Mero-Carlson said at the Sept. 26 meeting that she and Councilor-at-Large Morris Bergman had an item related to the routes that did not make it to the prior week's agenda and the two had needed to gather more information on the matter.

Councilor-at-Large Morris Bergman filed an order for the Sept. 26 meeting asking Batista to communicate with Worcester's delegation in the State House and all other relevant agencies about restoring the express train service schedule.

Responding to a question from Mero-Carlson, Batista said he met with Acting Secretary of Transportation Monica Tibbits-Nutt and transportation officials a month earlier along with Petty and other members of the city administration in a conversation that included possibilities of expanding services for Worcester residents.

Batista said the transportation officials were open to expanding train services and did not mention the end of the express service.

Batista: 'Not communicated to us'

"It was not communicated to us that they were shutting down the express train in the city of Worcester that was coming just a month later," Batista said.

Batista has also talked to MBTA and state transportation leadership about the city's displeasure with the changes and requested that they be halted.

The city manager plans to present a full report of what happened.

Mero-Carlson said she has communicated with state Sens. Michael Moore and Robyn Kennedy to put the scheduling changes on pause.

"For them to just stop a service without having communication with this administration just really is befuddling to me," Mero-Carlson said.

Bergman said the scheduling change felt like it "knock(ed) the wind out of us," with the growth the city has seen as more people have moved to the city and commute to work in the Boston area.

Petty recalled his morning drive to Boston on the same day as the City Council meeting.

"This morning I drove down to Boston and I couldn't believe the traffic," Petty said.

Moore also received a letter from Councilor-at-Large Khrystian King and District 5 City Councilor Etel Haxhiaj.

King also sent Keolis a letter requesting the continuation of at least one express train.

On Wednesday, Petty's office released a statement where the mayor asked for Healey to stop the proposed changes. Petty reiterated his call to Healey in a Friday morning post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Worcester as a housing option

“We need to ensure that the train service is permanent and will take one hour. As costs in Boston spiral upwards, people are looking toward Worcester for housing,” Petty said in the statement.

Petty also said the service was vital for Worcester's growth and supports efforts to fight climate change by reducing the number of drivers on the Massachusetts Turnpike.

Petty and Batista also sent a letter this week to Tibbits-Nutt urging the agencies to reconsider the scheduling change.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Lobbying by Worcester officials fails to halt MBTA change in train schedule