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Before Boston went electric, people got around the city by horse. Boston had a large network of horses, but they were messy, dirty and hard to clean up after. Boston was a peninsula back then, so some people took ferries from Charlestown to get into Boston.

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Late Nineteenth century: going electric 

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Late Nineteenth century: going electric 

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Because horses were nasty and dirty, and were also unreliable, people thought that electric streetcars or trains would fix this problem. They would be  able to carry more passengers and run a little faster. There were also no long-term costs after getting the cars. The first streetcar began its service on January 1 1889. It ran from the Allston Railroad Depot all the way to Park square.

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Picture of first green line train in Boston

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Picture of first green line train in Boston

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1897: the hemisphere's first subway emerges

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1897: the hemisphere's first subway emerges

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Trains soon became incredibly congested. Some people said that it would have been faster to get on top of the train and walk on the rows and rows of them than to ride normally. This started talks of building subways, and on September 1, 1897, the Tremont street subway started running.

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Talks of creating an "El" (elevated track) started, and the Boston Elevated Railway Company built 7 miles of track and bought 150 cars. On June 10, 1901, the first El train rode out, which started 86 years of service, on which over 325,000 people squeezed onto a day.

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Around this point, many of the railway companies were all combined into one, the MTA, Massachusetts transportation association. This company served 14 towns altogether, and with so many people the trains began to get crowded. Along with this, many people were getting tired of seeing the ugly elevated tracks throughout Boston, and wanted to do something about it.

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The MTA started demolishing the El tracks, which would go on for around 40 years. In the 1960's, more and more people were using cars, and with that came a lot of traffic. With there being so much traffic, many people turned to the T, and as the MTA tried to meet demand it sank into debt. With this, Boston officials knew that something needed to be done, so they made the MBTA, which was part of the government, and took over the MTA. This new organization immediately applied for funding to bring it out of debt.

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During the 1970's, gas prices exploded, and with this, the number of the people who rode the T also exploded, while the MBTA was trying to keep up with demand, problems were creeping up on the old train systems. On December 6, 1980, the T even shut down completely for a whole day. To stop this from happening again, the MBTA board expanded from 5 to 7 people. Even now though, the backlog of problems continues to grow, and a red line train even derailed in 2019.