Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Cost Of Subway Delays: A Counterfactual Welfare Analysis Of Boston’S T, Adam Dean

Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Politics, Economics and World Affairs

Boston’s subway system, the T, is an important artery for transportation in and around the city. However, it is the oldest subway system in the United States, and, as a result, is in dire need of upgrades. This paper employs a welfare analysis to calculate the economic cost of the T’s lack of reliability, while also comparing the T’s reliability rate to other transit systems around the world. With a counterfactual estimate of a 95 percent reliability rate versus the pre-pandemic 88.47 percent reliability rate, the difference in welfare is found to be between $54 million and $163 million annually. …