The MBTA provided more than 72,000 late-night subway trips during the first month of extended weekend service. Barring a dip in ridership, the T’s late-night service could compel local businesses to keep their doors open a little later.
At least one in Cambridge is already making moves.
According to a Cambridge Bay report, Kendall Square Cinemas has won approval to keep its doors open later and is slated to start offering later movie times by mid-May, after its general manager confirms the License Commission’s decision.
“It is the first expansion in Cambridge tied explicitly to late-night transit hours,” Cambridge Bay reports. Conveniently, Kendall Square Cinemas is just an 11-minute walk from Kendall/MIT Station.
Interestingly, on the same day, April 22, Cambridge Bay published another report, which confirmed Clover Food Lab would be setting up shop 496 Massachusetts Ave., in Central Square, replacing Hi-Fi Pizza. The report also has Clover founder and CEO Ayr Muir on the record, stating he’d “love” to keep the Mass. Ave location open 24-hours – this would also have to be approved by the License Commission – once the new spot opens up, sometime between July and October.
And conveniently, 496 Mass Ave is just a 3-minute walk from Central Square Station.
So, it stands to reason that the License Commission could approve a 24-house Clover location – if late-night T ridership numbers keep trending upwards.
Including last weekend’s numbers, the T provided 72,057 late-night subway trips during the first month of extended hours. However, this most recent batch of data indicates a drop in late-night ridership on April 19 and 20.
Even with last weekend’s drop, the T still managed to provide an average of more than 18,000 late-night subway trips each weekend, with the Green Line and Red Line offering the most (Kendall Square Cinemas and Clovers future location are both near two of the T’s busiest Red Line stops).
Total Subway Ridership from Weeks 1 -3:
- Week 1 – 18,069
- Week 2 -18,671
- Week 3 – 19,995
Assuming, the fourth weekend of late-night service was an outlier and not a sign of things to come, more businesses – Boston businesses – could be pushing to keep things open for night owls.
