|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Massachusetts didn’t spend more than $1 billion on South Coast Rail for nothing.
When the MBTA commuter rail extension opened on March 24, 2025, state officials said it would help the South Coast’s economy by increasing foot traffic to local businesses, providing access to better jobs, spurring more housing production, and shortening commutes.
One year later, it’s still not clear that the project has accomplished its economic goals. Some local leaders are encouraged by data showing more Bostonians are visiting the New Bedford Whaling Museum. But business owners say those visitors aren’t spending money at local stores and restaurants. Experts who watch the local economy say one year is too soon to expect big changes.
“We’re just starting,” said Derek Santos, executive director of the New Bedford Economic Development Council. “I can’t stress that enough.”
There’s no doubt that people are riding the train. Right after the extension opened, ridership on the newly renamed Fall River/New Bedford Line increased by an average of 2,000 trips each day, The Light reported in November. The latest MBTA data shows that the major bump in ridership has continued through at least January.
Why those people are riding the train, and how that impacts the economy, are harder questions to answer.
Business or pleasure?
Some people are heading to jobs in Boston or elsewhere along the rail line — a much easier commute with the rise of hybrid work schedules that might require office attendance only a couple times a week. But federal data on income and jobs hasn’t caught up to the extension’s opening yet, so it’s too soon to tell whether the train is providing the kind of job access that officials touted.
Besides, experts don’t expect a sudden spike in Boston-bound workers this early in the game. Job transitions take time, and the country’s currently weak labor market doesn’t help.
“It would be a particularly tough time to try to evaluate that impact,” said Michael Goodman, a professor of public policy at UMass Dartmouth.
South Coast Rail’s main benefit for workers, Goodman said, has been easing the commutes of people who already had jobs north of New Bedford.
Riders traveling from Boston to the South Coast for leisure also have the power to influence the local economy with their spending. Santos said increased tourism wasn’t a major goal of the project, but it could be one of the biggest early wins.
The Whaling Museum reported a 41% increase in visitors with Boston ZIP codes from 2024 to 2025. This year, the museum has continued to see “very strong visitation from Boston due to the train,” CEO Amanda McMullen said in an email to The Light this month.
In January alone, museum visits from Bostonians increased by 372%, likely because of record-breaking attendance at this year’s Moby-Dick Marathon, according to a museum spokesperson.
At The Drawing Room, an art and gift shop across the street from the museum, the uptick in daytrippers has been noticeable. Owner Anthi Frangiadis says their backpacks are a dead giveaway.
The travelers will look around and might buy something small like a greeting card, Frangiadis said, but it’s not driving up sales. She said she never counted on the train for that.
“It’s not solving everybody’s problems,” she said.
Downtown business owners say it has been a rough few years. They cited a wide range of challenges, but it comes down to simple math: costs are higher and customers are spending less.
If Whaling Museum visitors are hungry or thirsty after a nearly two-hour train ride and a museum tour, they’re not seeking refreshments at Moby Dick Brewing Co. just a block away.
“I definitely don’t feel like it’s improved any business at all,” Danielle Edwards said from behind the bar.
Foot traffic this year is the slowest it has been since the pandemic, said David Slutz, president and co-owner of Moby Dick.
Ask any downtown business owner and you’ll hear stories of struggle, said Elissa Paquette, president of the business advocacy group dNB, Inc. and owner of the Union Street boutique Calico.
“The numbers are just down across the board,” she said. “We face a confluence of issues that the train can’t fix.”
Even though the extension had been planned for decades, the city seemed unprepared to help local businesses capitalize on it when it opened, Paquette said. She wonders why there isn’t more signage at the train station, or a shuttle, to help visitors find their way downtown.
A potential shuttle between New Bedford Station and popular destinations is a “work in progress,” said Ashley Payne, the city’s director of tourism and marketing. It depends on a pending grant application for state transportation funds. There are also discussions between city departments about train station signage, she said, “but nothing that’s ready to announce or implement just yet.”
The city’s tourism department has a high-tech solution that might help business owners draw in potential customers in the meantime. Payne has been parsing through anonymized — yet startlingly specific — cell phone data, obtained through a subscription with a data aggregation firm.
“Boston is our No. 1 market for visitors,” she said.
The data shows basic information you’d expect from location services, such as where people are coming from, where they’re going, and how long they’re staying. It also goes deeper, with details on whether the user seems to have kids or shows signs of being a “budget-friendly” traveler.
Visits to New Bedford are up this year, Payne said. The museum is a top destination, along with the Buttonwood Park Zoo. Many visitors do fall into that budget-friendly category, and many have kids. A surprising number of visitors are staying overnight, often for multiple days in a row.
“It shows that we have plenty of things for them to do,” Payne said.
The city is still trying to figure out how to separate train riders from other visitors in the data. They’re hard to isolate because New Bedford Station shares a parking lot with the Seastreak ferries, Payne said.
For businesses, the most important data might not be the who or the where, but the when: what days of the week visitors are arriving on and for how long they’re staying.
Many people seem to be staying in the city for 3½ days, Payne said. That’s important if someone arrives on a Saturday — will the right businesses be open when that person is still here on Monday? Many mom-and-pop businesses around the city take that day off.
Payne said tourism officials across the country are grappling with declining sales at “main street” businesses. People are still traveling, she said, but spending less when they do. She said she hopes to double down on marketing that resonates with people looking to travel on a budget.
The city has presented its data to arts and culture organizations in the city, and Payne said she plans to continue sharing it with other entities that could benefit, such as businesses.
Projects in the pipeline
Developers are showing interest in building near the city’s two MBTA stations, but none of the major projects are ready to be announced, said Santos, the economic development director. They’re drawn by the city’s new transit-oriented zoning districts, which are designed to incentivize dense, mixed-use development.
One major project, a hotel near New Bedford Station, has been formally proposed. Santos said some smaller housing projects around Purchase Street will also help attract more development.
Any major construction projects spurred by South Coast Rail would be in the early stages today, said Santos.
The people behind big housing and business projects want to see strong ridership numbers and other projects getting built in the area first, he said. They might consider an idea for months or years before drawing up formal plans.
Goodman, the UMass Dartmouth economist, said he has noticed a significant amount of new real estate activity near Fall River’s MBTA station, including a handful of apartment buildings at various stages of development and a newly available swath of waterfront land that used to have a highway over it.
Goodman said New Bedford seems to be experiencing slower housing growth, and it may be a matter of having enough land — the city doesn’t have large undeveloped areas like Fall River now does. He said he expects to see more projects here in the next few years.
New housing projects still face huge financial gaps because of high construction costs and interest rates, Goodman said. Both he and Santos said that, while the train is an added amenity that makes New Bedford more attractive for development, it doesn’t inject any new money to help projects get started.
“There have to be the correct conditions in place for there to be the full economic effect,” Goodman said.
About 1,500 housing units are in New Bedford’s “pipeline,” according to Josh Amaral, the city’s housing director. The vast majority are in various stages of planning or construction. This year, the city is focusing on pushing planned projects through financing and construction, he previously told The Light.
Jacqui Manning, a spokesperson for Gov. Maura Healey, said the economic impacts of South Coast Rail include New Bedford’s new zoning districts and proposals to renovate buildings along Pleasant Street, including the New Bedford Armory and a historic home at 1061 Pleasant St.
Another way to get around
At the South Coast Rail celebration on opening day last year, officials underlined what may be the most obvious and immediate benefit of the extension: It sure beats driving.
“You get in a train, you grab a ‘Dunks,’ and sit and chill out for a bit,” Healey said that day.
The governor also said the project would lead to “less traffic congestion and shorter commutes,” but that depends on when you’re traveling and where you’re headed.
Car trips from New Bedford to Boston usually take around 90 minutes, but they can stretch much longer at rush hour. A typical weekday morning commute can take up to 130 minutes, according to Google Maps. Accidents and bad weather can add even more time.
A ride from New Bedford Station to Boston’s South Station takes between 97 minutes and 125 minutes, though most trips are about 100 to 110 minutes. Passengers also have to factor in time for travel to and from the stations, like the bus or subway ride to their final destination in Boston. It’s also not uncommon for MBTA trains to run a few minutes late or struggle in extreme weather.
So, the train may be faster than driving. But not always.
The second phase of South Coast Rail, a more direct electrified route via Stoughton, could shave the trip to about 77 minutes. It was projected to open in the 2030s, but it’s not clear it will ever happen. The so-called “full build” faces significant permitting hurdles, and officials say they’re focused on other priorities.
As for the claim that South Coast Rail would reduce traffic congestion, there aren’t clear signs of cars being taken off the road.
There isn’t much public data available on traffic along the roads to Boston. A Light analysis late last year found that the increase in train ridership did not coincide with a meaningful decrease in the number of cars heading up Route 24.
Goodman and other policy experts say that new transit options can cause people to take trips they otherwise wouldn’t, leaving routes just as congested as they were before.
The bottom line on South Coast Rail’s impact, according to Goodman: “The jury is still out.”
Email Grace Ferguson at gferguson@newbedfordlight.org
