Ride the Line: Join an MBTA Bar Crawl from Dorchester to Cambridge
Photo via Margaret Burdge
Barreling full-steam ahead and continuing efforts to promote the MBTA’s new late-night weekend service, members of Future Boston Alliance are hosting an MBTA bar crawl that will take attendees from Savin Hill to Harvard Square, allowing them to experience different venues in the area until after midnight and still hitch a ride home.
Called “Ride the Line,” the April 26 meet-up will include dancing and celebrating along the Red Line from Dorchester to Cambridge, with several scheduled stops at neighborhood watering holes. What’s expected to be the first in a series of events, the Ride the Line organizers are trying to encourage residents and T riders to engage with the city’s after-hours culture, all the while fulfilling the expectation that people will make use of the transit agency’s new one-year pilot program. “Let’s show our city, this nation, and the globe our creative impact as Boston citizens,” organizers said in the event invite posted to EventBrite.
This particular trip will include three stops. Riders will meet at 9 p.m. in Dorchester’s Savin Hill neighborhood and hangout for a little more than an hour before catching a Red Line train to Park Street to check out Silvertones. From there, attendees will embark on a journey out of Boston and into Cambridge, where they will grab some late-night sushi in Harvard Square before boarding a 2 a.m. train back home.
Members of Future Boston Alliance will document the entire journey on both Instagram and Twitter, using #RidetheLine, to keep people that want to join in along the way informed about their location.
Film production One Day on Earth will also be in attendance to capture all of the dancing and singing that’s expected to take place on the transit line. “[They] will be joining us in order to highlight Boston as a true world class city—one that is culturally rich and economically developing,” organizers said.
Future Boston Alliance, a byproduct of Karmaloop founder Greg Selkoe, has been pushing people to make use of the late-night trains since the T first rolled out the program last March. The group also started an online fundraiser to help offset the cost to keep the trains running past the one-year deadline.
Running the new after-hours service on Saturdays and Sundays will cost the MBTA roughly $16 million over the next year, and only about $1.5 million will be covered by partnerships with corporate sponsors. By keeping riders flowing through the turnstiles to take part in events, Future Boston Alliance hopes it will help to convince transit officials that the service should be extended.
