Why Boston's Late-Night Service Cuts Could Be a Civil Rights Violation

When the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s governing board voted to suspend the Boston area’s late night transit service in late February—still technically a pilot program even after two years—Boston seemed far from surprised. Local newspapers had been speculating about the demise of late-night service, which ran for an extra 90 minutes on Fridays and Saturdays, since the summer. (The Boston Globe published a post-mortem in December, more than two months before the decision became final.)

And yet, just days later, the Federal Transit Administration approached the agency with an issue that, for all its preparation, the MBTA had avoided. In a letter to MBTA counsel John Englander, the FTA Office of Civil Rights’ associate administrator Linda Ford wrote the Boston agency had failed to prove that its cuts wouldn’t disproportionately affect low-income and minority residents. The MBTA had simply skipped filling out an “equity analysis,” she said, which is required under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.