MBTA Unveils Late-Night Service Beginning Aug. 24

Beginning this weekend, the MBTA launches its late-night extended service, providing club patrons, insomniacs, and shift workers another after-hours transportation option.

During the week of Aug. 11, the MBTA announced that it would incorporate an additional hour of service to all its subway lines and eight bus routes on Fridays and Saturdays. Extended service will be added each day of the week for five of the agency's most frequently used bus routes.

Extended service will begin on Sunday, Aug. 24, for bus routes 23, 28, 57, 111, and 116. Late-night hours on all subways and bus routes 1, 22, 39, 66, 110, SL1, SL3, and SL5 will start on Friday, Aug. 29, and Saturday, Aug. 30, according to MBTA Deputy Press Secretary Lisa Battiston.

To promote the service extension, the MBTA is making all its bus routes, Commuter Rail lines, ferries, RIDE trips, and subway lines free on Fridays and Saturdays beginning at 9 p.m. from Sept. 5 through Oct. 4.

With the one hour of extended service, passengers will be able to catch a train until approximately 1:30 a.m. on most lines and until approximately 2:30 a.m. on the Red Line departing from Ashmont. 

According to a Boston.com report, the new service schedule is not the first time the MBTA has offered late-night service. A Night Owl bus program ran from 2001 through 2005. A late-night service offering for buses and trains was piloted from 2014 through 2016. The MBTA experimented with another late-night bus offering in 2018.