In just ten days, the MBTA will launch its highly-anticipated late night T and bus pilot program. The weekend only-service will cart Bostonians and neighboring residents until 3:00 a.m. (full schedule here), falling directly in line with Mayor Walsh’s call to keep Boston’s late night scene running into the wee hours. But Massachusetts Restaurant Association has been calling for later public transit long before Mayor Walsh set up shop in City Hall.
BostInno spoke with Bob Luz, president and CEO of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, to find out how exactly the nonprofit organization is supporting the program.
Turns out, what started out as a grassroots campaign evolved into stronger encouragement and an undisclosed financial commitment.
“We’ve been advocating for quite some time now that extending the T hours is a really important move,” Luz told BostInno. “It ends up being a confluence with Mayor Walsh saying we should extend hours.”
Though he wouldn’t mention exactly how much monetary support the MRA is throwing behind the MBTA’s program, he did say that the ultimate goal of late night service is to offer safer alternatives to restaurant workers whose hours typically run deep into the night. More business is just a bonus.
“To some degree because we think it’ll give our guests more access to our restaurants, cost them less to get home, and let them enjoy another night out or that night out longer,” continued Luz. “For our employees, they got off after 11 p.m., 12 p.m. or 1 in the morning and often times are faced with making decisions that either: A, might not be safe for them to get home; or B, have them reaching into their pocket to spend an awful lot of money on a cab.”
With safety the number one priority, the MRA board agreed to make a financial pledge that, for a nonprofit Luz tells us, is a big deal.
Along with the likes of the the Boston Globe, Suffolk Construction, Dunkin’ Donuts, Karmaloop and the Boston Red Sox, the program was able to secure approximately $1 million in outside sponsorships. The reamining $17 million will be subsidized by the government.
Back in November, when the state Senate passed a resolution calling for an incremental increase in minimum wage to $11 per hour over three years, Bob Luz told BostInno that a drastic raise for tipped-wage employees would be crippling for the industry. But with a new proposal by Massachusetts Speaker of the House Bob DeLeo to make tipped-wage earnings more manageable for smaller restaurants, in tandem with more people streaming into eateries at later hours, Luz is optimistic that the industry won’t be as drastically affected.
“Certainly [late night T service] would offset the minimum wage increase,” supposed Luz. “Certainly this helps. Every single penny counts. This is a very thin margin industry. We want to make sure there’s money left over for the true people that need those wages who really are hourly employees.”
Late night weekend T and bus service will kick off on Friday, March 28. Be sure to let us know your thoughts on the program and how you plan to best utilize it in the comments section below.
