With the Big Dig swallowing up our limited transportation dollars, the Indigo Line’s cost-effectiveness is especially attractive. As already noted on this website, most of the infrastructure is already in place -- the only cost will be the construction of the new station facilities, the procurement of the new vehicles, and operational costs for the added trips.

  At full buildout, the Indigo Line calls for the construction of six new stations (South Bay Center, Columbia Road, Mount Bowdoin, Talbot Avenue, Blue Hill Avenue, and River Street).  These stations need not be elaborate or costly -- and since they will ultimately serve accessible, low-floor DMU’s, they can be constructed as more affordable, low platform stations while still complying with ADA.  Based on the MBTA’s experience with the recently constructed Newburyport Branch (1999), two high platform (and thus more expensive) stations were built in Rowley and Newburyport for $900,000 and $1,600,000 respectively.  These costs include station construction only, exclusive of parking facilities.  Based on these figures, the six stations can be built for a total cost of between $5,400,000 and $9,600,000.  Approximate costs for DMU vehicles, like the one pictured in this document, are $2,000,000 per vehicle.  Assuming train sets of one, two and three cars are used, full service, with adequate spares, can be provided with ten vehicles, at an approximate cost of $20,000,000.

  Approximate operational costs can be calculated using the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) most recently published statistics in The National Transit Database (FY1997), which reports the MBTA’s Commuter Rail cost at $6.71/mi.  A more conservative operational cost can also be calculated using the MBTA’s self-reported fully allocated per mile Commuter Rail cost of $24.52.  The following table captures costs, using both FTA and MBTA figures, for a modest level of additional Indigo Line service, as called for in this proposal:

*  Assumes one additional round trip per hour for nineteen hours.
**Assumes eighteen round trips on Saturday and seventeen on Sunday.

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This page created 9.9.00, last modified 8.1.01.