It's a project roughly 40 years and $1.1 billion in the making: Rail service that reconnects passengers in South Coast communities, like New Bedford, Fall River and Taunton, to Boston.
Trains are set to start rolling Monday on the MBTA's long-awaited South Coast Rail project.
On a Friday in early March, the T's Chief Operating Officer Ryan Coholan toured the newly minted East Taunton station.
With its two sleek entrances and not a single piece of trash or graffiti in sight, the station looked fresh and modern. Its steel and glass structures glistened in the afternoon sun.
"Dial it back two years, this was a wooded lot, you know, with a single-track railroad running through it," Coholan said. Since the 1960s, that lone track was exclusively used by freight trains.
Coholan grew up in New Bedford, another South Coast community a few miles away. As a child, he'd visit the railyard there.
"If you had asked me, you know, 7-year-old Ryan, if he thought this [South Coast Rail] would happen, I probably would have been like, 'eh, maybe, I hope it does,' " he said. "To be part of making it happen, it's amazing."
For weeks, the T worked to gear up for Monday's launch, running commuter rail trains on the South Coast Rail tracks.
Coholan said conductors had to memorize "every switch, every signal, every crossing, every curve, every speed limit, every station" in their new territories.
The South Coast Rail project includes six stations built to serve the Fall River/New Bedford line. Weekday trains will run about every 70 minutes and every two hours on weekends. According to a 2017 projection, the T estimated the line will provide roughly 3,200 trips per day.
Transit riders in Fall River looked forward to a new way into Boston. The ride will last about 90 minutes one-way.
Resident Enrique Montero said it's tough to travel between the two cities for people without a vehicle.
"Public transportation to Boston will be really helpful," Montero said, adding the new commuter rail line will allow him to pursue job opportunities in the city.
Caleb Magaw, a bus rider who has lived in Fall River his whole life, said he too was excited about how the train would make his life "so much easier."
"They're way faster, they're better built," Magaw said. However, he noted he would need to keep taking buses until he could save up enough money for train fare.
Fares on the Fall River/New Bedford line to Boston will cost up to $12.25 each way. Seniors, people with disabilities and others eligible based on their incomes will be charged up to $6 a ride.
The region's bus and paratransit provider, the Southeastern Regional Transit Authority, or SRTA, currently offers fare-free travel thanks to a state grant program announced last year.
SRTA Administrator Erik Rousseau said the authority is on-track to provide about 4 million rides this fiscal year, which would more than double its totals before the COVID-19 pandemic. He said SRTA wants to connect its ridership to the T's commuter rail service, but it does not plan to change bus routes just yet.
Starting in April, SRTA instead will pilot an on-demand service that allows passengers to book rides to the new stations with an app. It's similar to how ride-hailing services, like Uber and Lyft, work.
"It'll be there for the early morning trips and the late-night trips in hopes of being able to be that last-mile connection that people need," Rousseau said.
He added the authority will collect data on when people are traveling to the commuter rail stations and from where, which means it could one day strategically "expand or bring on other fixed route services" to each of the stations.
Officials at the authority and MBTA plan to monitor how people's travel habits change once South Coast Rail comes online.
General Manager Phil Eng said the T is comping rider fares and station parking along the Fall River/New Bedford line on weekends through the end of April as a way to "to say 'thank you' to the riders" and nudge potential passengers to "please give us a chance."
"We'll show you that we are not only a good way to go, we're the best way to go," he said.
The Healey administration also announced Friday that all service will be free along the rail line for the last week of March.
Back at the gleaming East Taunton commuter rail station, the T's Ryan Coholan, smiled as a nearby train blared its horn.
He looks forward, he said, to bringing one rider in particular aboard for the line's launch day.
"Because he was such a naysayer, I'm going to bring my dad," Coholan said.
They'll meet in New Bedford Monday morning, where the first South Coast Rail train is expected to take off at around 4:30 a.m.
"He's going to come on the train with me," Coholan said, "and we're going to go for a train ride."