You may have found yourself in a similar predicament: You need to get to Logan International Airport or downtown Boston at an absurdly early hour for a flight or a meeting, but the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s buses and subway trains don’t start up until about 5 a.m.

What could have been an easy $2.10 trip suddenly becomes 15 times more expensive because you have to call a cab or request an Uber or Lyft driver.

Some MBTA aficionados have pointed out that it doesn’t have to be that way.

Ari Ofsevit, a transit fanatic and transportation planner who has made regular appearances in this column, wrote on his blog recently about select bus routes that begin running for the very, very early bird.

The 171 bus, for example, leaves Dudley Station in Boston at 3:50 a.m. to get to Logan’s Terminal B by 4:10 a.m., and another follows at 4:20 a.m. to get to Terminal B by 4:43 a.m. The 115 bus also leaves Haymarket Station in downtown Boston at 5:10 a.m. to get to Logan’s Terminal C at 5:17 a.m.

Other early routes include the 57, which runs from the Watertown Yard station in Watertown at 4:33 a.m., making stops at Tremont Street and Washington Street in Boston, the Kenmore Station, and the Haymarket Station.

By comparison, the Blue Line that runs from East Boston to the airport doesn’t begin running until 5:13 a.m., and the Silver Line bus that runs from South Station to Logan doesn’t begin running until after 5:30 a.m.

So what gives? Why does the MBTA have some early-morning trips that start well before most other buses and subway trains? And, Ofsevit wondered, why doesn’t the MBTA do a better job letting people know about these buses?

Historically, the early-morning routes started running about 1960, according to a Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization memo outlining the routes.

When the agency that preceded the MBTA discontinued overnight and early-morning service around that time, fare collectors for the transit system worried about being able to get to their jobs at the start of the day. The routes were opened to the public, but weren’t marketed and didn’t appear on public schedules until 1999.

Also in 1999, several routes were added for employees who needed to get to their shifts at Logan. According to 2013 figures from the Metropolitan Planning Organization, ridership varies, with some routes being very crowded. Route 117, an early morning route that runs from Wonderland Station in East Boston to Haymarket, carried 89 passengers on one trip, a number that the memo described as “a full crush load.’’

For his part, Joe Pesaturo, an MBTA spokesman, doesn’t think the trips are so secret: “The trips appear on public schedule card/maps and on the MBTA trip planner,’’ he wrote in an e-mail.

He pointed out that even though the trips were originally made for MBTA employees, the majority of the riders are no longer T workers.

“In fact, the MBTA has improved the frequency of some of these trips to address overcrowding,’’ he said.

As the MBTA considers service changes in the future, he said, such routes will be part of the discussion.

Senate candidate petitions for return of late-night T

The last late-night train may have already had its last run, but Diana Hwang, a candidate for state Senate, has not given up the fight.

Last week, Hwang delivered to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation about 1,000 signatures from people protesting the death of late-night hours on the MBTA. Hwang is running to replace Senator Anthony Petruccelli, an East Boston Democrat.

“Over a thousand people joined me today in saying ‘enough is enough’ when it comes to decisions being made behind closed doors that hurt our communities,’’ Hwang said in a prepared statement.

The MBTA started its extended hours as a test in 2014, keeping the MBTA open about 2½ hours later than its usual 12:30 a.m. shutdown. After months of saying the extended hours cost too much, the MBTA finally pulled the plug on the pilot program earlier this month.

Hwang joined some state senators earlier in calling for the service to come back, particularly after the federal government rebuked the agency for failing to conduct a civil rights analysis. Since then, the MBTA completed the analysis and determined it will attempt to mitigate the effects by improving bus service.

Other politicians from East Boston have tried to push back on the service’s loss. Separately from Hwang’s efforts, state Representative Adrian Madaro made an infographic showing the difference between using a ride-for-hire vehicle and using late-night service to travel from Back Bay to the Orient Heights Blue Line Station in East Boston.

Joe Pesaturo, an MBTA spokesman, confirmed that the MBTA had received the petition from Hwang, but it looks unlikely that the board will be revisiting the subject.

“The MBTA is considering options to mitigate the impacts mentioned in the Equity Analysis, but there are no plans to continue rail service past the time in the existing schedules,’’ he wrote in an e-mail.

Nicole Dungca can be reached at nicole.dungca@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @ndungca.