ADVOCATES SAY the commuter rail’s Fairmount Line is low-hanging fruit for electrification, service improvement, and fare equity. But it’s been low-hanging fruit for many years, and some lawmakers are tired of the slow pace of action at the T.

The Fairmount Line is the only commuter rail line to sit entirely within Boston, traveling between South Station and Readville in Hyde Park. Its 9.2-mile run passes through some of the most densely populated and diverse areas of Boston, areas afflicted with the highest asthma rates in the city.

The line essentially operates as the local subway, filling a train gap in the southern part of the city between the Red and Orange lines. It runs more frequently than most other commuter rail lines – every 45 minutes rather than every hour – but not as frequently as the subway. Riders pay subway fares on the line except at the end-of-the-line station at Readville. Transfers to buses connecting to the line are free.

Rep. Brandy Fluker Oakley and Sen. Liz Miranda, both of Boston, have filed House and Senate bills that would require the MBTA and commuter rail operator Keolis to install uniform subway-standard fares all the way to Readville. Their bills would also direct the MBTA to develop a plan to electrify the Fairmount Line, coordinate bus service with commuter rail service at the stations, and rebrand the route as the Fairmount/Indigo Line.

At a hearing of the Legislature’s Transportation Committee this week, Fluker Oakley said the current setup penalizes people who board in Readville. She said a monthly MBTA subway and bus pass comes out to about $90, while a monthly commuter rail pass to go all the way to Readville would run a person $232 a month. 

“By improving our public transit system in this way, the Commonwealth can help connect our residents with all of the great job opportunities, services, and businesses throughout the neighborhoods in our communities,” she said. “The improved service also results in savings that would be a bold step for transportation equity across the city of Boston and the Commonwealth as a whole.”

Sen. Brendan Crighton of Lynn, the co-chair of the Transportation Committee, said the Baker-era Fiscal and Management Control Board voted in November 2019  to pursue  electrification and fare restructuring, starting with the Fairmount Line; the Newburyport/Rockport lines from Boston to Beverly, also known as the “Environmental Justice Corridor;” and the Providence/Stoughton Line.

The COVID-19 pandemic threw the plan to the wayside, and the past years have been consumed by serious safety and concerns across the MBTA subway system. With a new governor in place – Gov. Maura Healey has called for electrifying public transportation so that all modes operate on 100 percent clean power by 2040, starting with school and MBTA buses by 2030 – there may be an appetite to revisit the electrification question. 

Crighton has filed the Senate version of a bill that calls for the MBTA and Keolis to fully electrify the commuter rail system by 2025, beginning with those three lines. 

“Obviously, a lot of time has passed with very little progress being made,” Crighton said. “We look forward to working with the administration to move this along at a much faster pace. Obviously, if we want to reach emission goals, if we want to reach equity for these environmental justice communities, we can’t afford to wait any longer.”

Advocates who testified at the Transportation Committee hearing said electrification would improve living conditions in the community dramatically. “As a child, we watched circus trains slowly go through our neighborhood, and trains deadheading through the neighborhood, leaving a trail of diesel pollution in their wake. And we couldn’t even get on a train at that time,” said Mela Bush, a longtime transit advocate with the Fairmount Indigo Transit Coalition who for years lived and worked in the Four Corners village along the Fairmount Line.

“We see cardiovascular disease, cancer, and respiratory illness spread throughout the corridor,” Bush said. “All of my children struggle with asthma as well as the next generation after them, the grandchildren and other relatives.”

Historically, the Fairmount is one of the lowest-ridership lines on the commuter rail map, averaging around 2,800 weekly trips in late 2022. A TransitMatters report in 2020 found that ridership on the line tripled since 2012, when all but the Readville station were moved into commuter rail Zone 1A, which charges the equivalent of the subway fare.

Of all the commuter rail lines, the Fairmount saw the least dropoff of ridership during COVID, with ridership in late 2022 at 107 percent of 2018 ridership levels. Every other line saw October 2022 ridership between 44 and 82 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

Rep. Rob Consalvo of Boston, who has put forward another bill backed by Mayor Michelle Wu that would standardize all commuter rail fare zones in Boston, spoke supportively of the Fluker Oakley and Miranda bill.

“This is an extremely important bill that’s unique to just the city of Boston and several neighborhoods in the city,” Consalvo, a Hyde Park resident, said. Commuter rail trains are stored at a maintenance facility in Readville, “where they idle nearly 24 hours a day, causing a whole number of issues,” he said.