![]() between North Quincy and JFK/UMass between April 3 and April 6, and a similar evening "early access" closure will hit the stretch between Park Street and JFK/UMass between April 18 and April 20. On the Red Line, trains will not run between Braintree and JFK/UMass stations on the weekend of April 1-2. While all four subway lines are affected, Gonneville said the Blue Line - 77% of which faced speed restrictions Thursday - and the Red Line's Braintree and Ashmont branches are particular areas of focus. To provide workers with more time to conduct repairs needed in the slow zones, the T will deploy more "early access" closures that involve shuttle buses replacing trains from around 9 p.m. The diversion schedule MBTA officials rolled out Thursday features a wide range of weekend and evening shutdowns that will force riders off trains and onto buses. ![]() Weekend, Evening Shutdowns On Tap in April The T realized the next day that something was amiss, according to the interim GM's account of events. On the evening of March 8, Gonneville said, the DPU requested documentation stemming from "geometry scans" MBTA crews performed to examine other areas of track for possible defects. The latest upheaval stems from oversight work performed by the state Department of Public Utilities.ĭPU inspectors visited a stretch of Red Line track on March 6, and a day later, DPU Rail Transit Safety Director Robert Hanson wrote six letters to the T ordering corrective actions to fix problems identified. "I understand," Gonneville replied without offering any specifics. "We need to understand, as the public needs to understand, how long this will take," Taylor said. MBTA officials did not offer a specific forecast of how long commuters will need to deal with heightened speed restrictions, which add more headaches for riders who have dealt with reduced service frequency on the heavy rail system for more than nine months.īetsy Taylor, the board's chair, told Gonneville at one point during Thursday's meeting she hopes he will keep the panel informed about the "timeline on when the necessary corrective actions can be implemented." "There is some work that is short-term work, and that short-term work is going to be done by our in-house crews, and there is more work that is going to be longer or more permanent repairs that can be made to the system in order to be able to also begin to lift these speed restrictions," he said. ![]() ![]() Gonneville said Thursday that, as the work of reexamining track continues, crews are finding areas that will need additional maintenance in order to resume operating at full speed. 28, when the T was still producing static monthly reports on the topic. That's a threefold increase over the 7.5% that had slow zones on Feb. The MBTA on Thursday published an interactive dashboard providing a new level of detail about slow zones, listing not only the share of each subway line subject to reduced speed limits but also the location, length and age of each of the 221 restrictions currently in place.Īltogether, 36.8 miles of MBTA subway track or 27% of the core system faced slow zones Thursday, a slight increase since Monday. Two weeks after officials opted to slow the entire system because they did not have confidence in prior inspections and repairs, the T offered the clearest look yet at the frustrating speed restrictions that now appear bound to remain in place for at least several more weeks. MBTA trains will continue operating slower than usual for the foreseeable future as officials turn their attention from a lack of documentation to fixing numerous track defects, which will require temporary shutdowns over multiple nights and weekends in April. An MBTA Green Line train rides on the tracks beneath McGrath Highway in Somerville during testing runs of the Green Line Extension. ![]()
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