<p>I’ve been reading about them, and I hear that they’re threatening/planning on cutting service to Providence on weekends, which sucks. I’ve been planning on ED-ing to Brown for quite some time, but if that’s the case I’m not quite sure. Providence is a decent city, but I’m a huge city buff and it’d be great to be able to make the trek every so often easily. I have a few questions though:
Are there any cheap buses that go from Providence to Boston?
Have the cuts been finalized?
Is there an on-campus group that explores Providence or something?</p>
<ol>
<li>Yes there are cheap buses</li>
<li>First I’m hearing them though I don’t read the local news often.</li>
<li>I’m sure, of course, you could always call that group your friends… There’s a lot to do in Providence, and while Boston is also nice and we all love easy access to their, realistically few of us go often. In fact, I had friends who would go to NYC way more often than Boston for various reasons, but even then, you’re less likely to leave for the weekend then you may think.</li>
</ol>
<p>If this is true, then it’s unfortunate, as the train through Boston was the way I’d go home, since it’s significantly cheaper than by car and bus for me. I do hope this isn’t the case.</p>
<p>Last year I went to Boston on the weekend about twice per semester… not often, but I would be sad if the commuter rail was no longer an option. More inconvenient would be having to figure out an alternate way to get from Logan airport to Brown :(</p>
<p>Amtrak is an alternative to MBTA’s commuter rail, but you have to pay very careful attention to the schedules. Amtrak’s “Northeast Regional” trains between Providence and Boston are roughly $12 one-way (vs. $7.75 on the MBTA), but more than half of the Amtrak runs are Acela trains, which run $30 - $40 one-way.</p>
<p>I looked into this, and there is no official report of impending service cuts. They have been discussed, but nothing in the past year from the Boston papers or MBTA site mentions Providence losing its service.</p>
<p>If you buy a 12-ride pass, the tickets cost $7.75 one-way. If you buy them individually at the station, there’s a dollar surcharge. Amtrak raised their rates to $12 from $9 this summer. However, with a Student Advantage discount, they cost $10.20, or $10.80 with an AAA discount.</p>
<p>“If you buy a 12-ride pass, the tickets cost $7.75 one-way. If you buy them individually at the station, there’s a dollar surcharge.”</p>
<p>Actually, you can get the $7.75 rate when you buy an individual ticket at the station. There’s only the extra dollar charge if you buy the ticket once you’re on the train.</p>
And that’s only if the place where you can buy the tickets is open. I’ve bought all of my tickets on the train at no extra cost, but I generally take the 5:07 AM train out on weekdays.</p>
<p>The commuter rail is not slashing services yet, and even if it were to do so, it would be unlikely to cut the Providence line since that’s the only one that goes out of state (I say this because I’ve seen the T/MBTA threaten to get rid of a lot of services and then not do so, either because it tends to change its mind a lot or because there’s a lot of protests). What’s more likely, though, is a fare hike, on the commuter rail, subway, and bus services… And if worst comes to worst, $10.20 for an Amtrak ticket isn’t the end of the world.</p>
<p>To be honest, the last thing I read about MBTA was the potential construction of a new station in Warwick at the airport being started and that they hoped to open it and extend the commuter rail by 2011 or 2012. This would suggest a potential for increased traffic in this direction, not decreased.</p>