🔒Economic engine: With MBTA ridership rebounding, planned improvements are needed to keep pace with housing and business growth

On a typical weekday, thousands of Central Massachusetts residents board Commuter Rail trains bound for Boston, connecting a lower-cost housing market with one of the state’s highest-paying job centers. That flow has helped make the MBTA’s Worcester/Framingham Line a key driver of housing development and economic activity across the region. As ridership rebounds and construction clusters near stations, questions remain about whether the rail system will deliver the level of service tied to that growth. Central Massachusetts stations recorded just under 7,000 average weekday boardings in fall 2024, according to MBTA data. About 42 trains pass through the Natick Center station every weekday. The ridership figure approaches pre-COVID levels and reflects the line’s role in linking workers in Worcester County, where the average weekly wage is $1,373, to Suffolk County jobs, where the average is $2,386, according to 2025 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “It's huge economic impact for the communities with direct access,” said Paul Matthews, executive director and CEO of the Worcester Regional Research Bureau. Two major rail upgrades have the potential to further improve the usefulness of the line, with a planned Allston project requiring a careful approach to navigate the disruption the project will bring to commuters traveling by both car and rail.

Transit-oriented housing

More than 2,600 housing units have been built within a half-mile radius of Commuter Rail stations in Central Massachusetts over the past 10 years, with at least 1,000 more units planned, according to real estate data firm CoStar. The vast majority of those built or planned units are in Worcester (1,927) and Framingham (980). These include Cirrus, a 398-unit apartment completed in Ashland in 2017, and the 370-unit complex now known as Aria on the Row in Worcester completed in 2024, among more than 20 other projects.

“Between around 2016 and 2019, there were construction cranes all around Framingham, and a huge number of units were added to downtown Framingham within walking distance of their station,” Matthews said. “There's transit interconnections there, and huge housing growth, and we’re seeing it here in Worcester, too.” A 2022 meta-analysis by London School of Economics researchers found residential property values increase by a few percentage points for every 250 meters closer to a passenger rail station. In addition to encouraging housing production, the existence of the Commuter Rail can attract employers as well, particularly as improvements are made to service, said Rick McKenna, executive director at the Framingham Economic Development Corp. “If you want to be a small economic hub, you have to become a transportation hub first, and right now, we're waiting for more work to be done on the Commuter Rail, because that would make things a lot easier for companies to come into MetroWest,” McKenna said.

Improving the line

The line’s future importance will depend on continued investment, Matthews said. “There’s several indicators that there's tremendously untapped promise for the line, should service continue to improve and the infrastructure investments be made,” Matthews said. “It will only become more important, and it will be another critical economic lifeblood, not only for Worcester and the communities along the line, but for the Commonwealth itself.” The most pressing improvement is the Allston Multimodal Transportation Project. This $1.9-billion effort will replace the aging viaduct supporting Massachusetts Turnpike traffic into Boston, freeing up space for development and the new West Station Commuter Rail hub. The project would be the largest infrastructure project in Massachusetts since the Big Dig, but has faced a nebulous timeline and uncertain funding, with the latest blow being the President President Donald Trump Administration's rescinding of $327 million of funding in July. Despite the uncertainty, the aging viaduct will need to be replaced at some point. WRRB is encouraging Central Massachusetts leaders to work together to lobby for improved and more frequent service on the line before the Allston project begins, and to ensure the project has a minimal impact on the region’s riders. With MassPike traffic being impacted by the Allston project as well, Matthews sees this as an opportunity to increase Commuter Rail ridership. “Even just shifting 2% of people from car to rail will mean another 2,500 riders a day on Commuter Rail,” he said. The Allston project is tied to a long-standing expectation in Worcester that improvements to Commuter Rail service would follow earlier decisions made in the region. Worcester Redevelopment Authority Chair Michael Angelini referenced that connection during an April 9 meeting, pointing to Worcester’s agreement to allow a CSX freight yard relocation as part of the broader effort to enable development in Allston. “I want to urge us to continue to be aggressive about this and remind all of us that the major development of the parcel in Allston is available to people in the Boston area because we agreed to allow the CSX freight yard to Worcester,” Angelini said. “There was both implicitly and explicitly an understanding that this would facilitate the state's promise of giving us more frequent and more timely train service to and from Boston, which has not occurred.”

East meets west, electrification

Compass Rail, a MassDOT effort to begin several daily round trips between Pittsfield and Boston, has the possibility of unlocking new economic opportunities for Central Massachusetts. A new station planned for Palmer would allow commuters and visitors west of Worcester an alternative to MassPike traffic, Matthews said. Electrification of the line, ending its reliance on diesel-powered trains, could unlock new opportunities.

Electric trains allow for faster acceleration and deceleration and steeper grades, slashing travel times and opening up the door for elevating the Commuter Rail over at-grade crossings with roadways like those found in Framingham’s downtown area. While any implementation of electrification remains years away, if not decades, McKenna sees this as an opportunity to supercharge the Framingham station’s role as a transportation and economic hub, improving conditions for both local riders and drivers. “If you went up and over with electrified rail, it would cut a lot of the traffic congestion and major interruptions out,” he said. Eric Casey is the managing editor at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the real estate and banking & finance industries.