Everything was on time as the train carrying a few dozen city and state officials, residents of neighborhoods along the line, and daily riders rumbled along on a round trip on the Fairmount Commuter Rail Line last Thursday. Officials hosted an hour-and-a-half talk about the citywide Imagine Boston 2030 planning initiative and solicited feedback from their audience.

The first draft of the planning report lays out broad plans for the Fairmount Corridor, noting, “We heard a widespread desire for improved service on existing transit routes, especially buses and the Fairmount corridor, and to connect neighborhoods to one another.”

At 5 p.m., it was already pitch black as the train rolled along the tracks from South Station to Readville and back. Rebekah Emanuel, the executive director of Imagine Boston 2030, led the group, which included personnel from mayoral departments, MassDOT, and the Boston Planning and Development Agency.

“One of the things we’ve been thinking about is there’s a whole bunch of measures of wellbeing across our city,” Emanuel said. “And we think about how well people are doing on education and income... there’s a spread across our city. And we think that sometimes that spread is caused by things we can change, like how transit connects with jobs, city policies; and how the market impacts those and reinforces those over time.”

The Fairmount Corridor is one of the five “big priority areas” that arose from Imagine Boston discussions, Emanuel said, speaking into a megaphone in the middle of the carriage. “And so part of what we want to talk to you about today on this beautiful train is the types of actions we think that we can take in order to make the Fairmount Corridor an increasingly vibrant area of Boston.”

Those in the audience noted that access to transit is inextricably bound up in economic and social considerations, a conclusion that matched those of respondents in survey conducted during Imagine Boston’s outreach in which 36 percent said better access to jobs via public transit was among the two most important factors that would help them the most, second only to having those jobs located in their neighborhoods (37 percent).

135,000 people live along the corridor, connected by the diagonal commuter rail path.

With weather frequently snarling MBTA train lines, the loss of late-night service, and, most recently a pattern of failures along the Fairmount line, residents and workers who rely on the train tried to envision sustainable growth without overburdening a struggling system.

Susan Sullivan, executive director of the Newmarket Business Association and Newmarket Community Partners, said “I can’t tell you how excited I am that the city is going to advocate for more investment on the line and frequency along the train line.” She said she has over 20,000 employees in Newmarket and anticipates increased growth in Readville. 

“We’re looking to incentive companies into hiring along this line,” she added, “so we can’t do that unless we have the frequency of train times that will allow them to get to those jobs.”

Gail Latimore, executive director of Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation and a member of the Fairmount CDC Collaborative, said community discussions have included mention of more stops on the 9.2-mile route.

Four new commuter rail stations were mandated in an agreement after a Big Dig-related lawsuit against the MBTA. Newmarket, Four Corners, and Talbot Avenue are complete, with the Blue Hill Avenue station in Mattapan budgeted in the current MassDOT Capital Investment Plan.

“We have been advocating also for two additional stops beyond the Blue Hill [Avenue] /Cummins [Highway] stop, which is going to come in next year,” Latimore said on the train. “Though we really have prioritized the four stops … there has been a lot of discussion among us after Blue Hill Avenue about River Street in Hyde Park and a stop near Columbia Road in Dorchester. That’s not gonna be put on the front burner, but it’s something that folks have been looking at.

The planners with Boston 2030 have been asked to offer a vision for the next 15 years of growth around the corridor, said Tad Read, BPDA’s senior deputy director of strategic planning.

Hubs like the Readville and Newmarket stops, officials said, will naturally lend themselves to becoming hubs of business and new development, but the investment would ideally happen all along the corridor.

“We certainly anticipate, hope, and increasingly are seeing greater investment shift toward Readville,” said Read. “There are plans for expansions in a number of parcels out there, so we hope it’s something that, with improving the frequency, the corridor gets better connected to become an even greater economic engine for the city.”

The Fairmount Indigo Network is hosting a community forum on Saturday, Dec. 10 at the Perkins Community Center (155 Talbot Ave.) from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The MBTA will be holding a public meeting on the equity of service and fare changes on Wednesday, Dec. 14, at 6:30 p.m. at the Mattapan branch of the Boston Public Library, 1350 Blue Hill Ave.