General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

[themissinglink]

Red Line delayed by smoke, signal problems after MBTA touts "successful" 10-day shutdown for repair work

The Red Line is back open after a 10-day shutdown for repairs, but Boston-area MBTA riders weren't going anywhere fast on Friday.

www.cbsnews.com

At 10:45 a.m., the T posted that there were delays of about 15 minutes due to a disabled train at Harvard and said trains may stand by at stations. The agency said at 11:23 a.m. that the delay had cleared.
But problems returned in the afternoon. The T said at 2:30 p.m. that a signal problem near Harvard was delaying trains for about 15 minutes. At 3:39 p.m., the T said delays had grown to 20 minutes due to the ongoing signal problem near Harvard and reports of smoke at the Charles/MGH station.
As of 5 p.m., the Red Line delays had grown to 25 minutes as crews worked to resolve the signal problem.

 

[jklo]

It's something but the CR needs much more than just cheaper monthly passes. There are too many zones, some stations (such as Lynn or the Brockton stops) should probably be moved to nearer fare zones for equity, individual fares obviously need to be cut too, and some zones should possibly have their fares cut by more than 1/2 (Such as Zones 1/2) while other zones (~7-10ish) probably don't need the full 1/2 cut. Using single fares for an example, I don't think a fare of $10 to get to Providence is necessarily unfair, for example.

Temporary Summer thing perhaps? When I looked into it, the cost was 16-16.5 roundtrips per month, if you don't use the subway at all. Dunno what the % stay home on Fridays, but it's probably high. Throw in a vacation or two and you could see why people drop the pass during the Summer. And if you say allowed free subway transfer, you'd have to include those people too.

When talking about cheaper fares overall, also have to consider the loss per rider (versus say bus or subway)

 

[Delvin4519]

Green Line to have more shutdowns in the Fall after the August shutdown

The most important sentence:

Through this service outage and other outages being planned later this year, work crews will:

REMINDER: Green Line Will Be Suspended Between Government Center and Babcock Street (B), Government Center and Cleveland Circle (C), North Station and Kenmore (D), North Station and Heath Street (E) for Nine Days, August 8 – 16 | News | MBTA

Official website of the MBTA -- schedules, maps, and fare information for Greater Boston's public transportation system, including subway, commuter rail, bus routes, and boat lines.

www.mbta.com

 

[themissinglink]

The Blue Line was supposed to be the best the T had to offer. What happened? - The Boston Globe

The oft-reliable T line is coming off a troubling bout of service interruptions that agency officials say is difficult to diagnose.

www.bostonglobe.com

The interruptions are erratic, but not infrequent: An analysis of T data by the transit advocacy group TransitMatters found the Blue Line met only 75 percent of its scheduled service in July, the lowest amount since partial shutdowns hobbled the line in 2023.
Total travel time in both directions is ticking upward. North Shore commuters who park and ride from Wonderland have reported sporadic delays and slowdowns that extended a 20-minute ride to one hour or more. Trains are lingering at or between stations more frequently.
The problems stand out because the Blue Line always seemed the smoothest and performs well overall on most days: 92 percent of Blue Line riders reach their destination within five minutes of scheduled arrivals, according to T data.
T officials admit the current state of the Blue Line is neither acceptable nor easily diagnosed. Spokesperson Lisa Battiston said there is “no common root cause or proposed mitigation” for the recent incidents.
[...]
A 2023 MBTA capital needs report found that just 15 percent of the Blue Line power assets were in a state of good repair, meaning fully functioning without safety restrictions. That is a lower share than any other line. Agency officials estimated it would cost $421 million to fix.

 

[Longfellow]

MBTA to pay nearly $500,000 to chief communications official whose hair GM Phil Eng pulled in ‘insensitive’ incident - The Boston Globe

Gabrielle Mondestin, the T's chief communication officer, will resign effective Sept. 18 and receive a $495,000 settlement.

www.bostonglobe.com

Lmao what is this? Thats wild.

 

[as02155]

MBTA to pay nearly $500,000 to chief communications official whose hair GM Phil Eng pulled in ‘insensitive’ incident - The Boston Globe

Gabrielle Mondestin, the T's chief communication officer, will resign effective Sept. 18 and receive a $495,000 settlement.

www.bostonglobe.com

Lmao what is this? Thats wild.

Wild - seemingly, he targeted a black woman for this kind of treatment.

I don't know how the MBTA and MassDOT is going to keep this man as leader and not lose major face with the Black community in Massachusetts.

 

[MrDee12345]

Wild - seemingly, he targeted a black woman for this kind of treatment.

I don't know how the MBTA and MassDOT is going to keep this man as leader and not lose major face with the Black community in Massachusetts.

If Black people can get to work on time because trains and buses are on schedule because of the good work he's done, I highly doubt they'll care all that much.

 

[as02155]

If Black people can get to work on time because trains and buses are on schedule because of the good work he's done, I highly doubt they'll care all that much.

Pretty sure it's part of the background, but, it sure gives all those folks who don't want the Blue Hill Ave changes a whole a lot of ammo - $500k settlement is "I invoke my Fifth Amendment right" worth of political ammo.

 

[Delvin4519]

3 parter:

Fall 2026 Service Updates Announced | News | MBTA

Official website of the MBTA -- schedules, maps, and fare information for Greater Boston's public transportation system, including subway, commuter rail, bus routes, and boat lines.

www.mbta.com

Fall 2026 Service Changes | Previous Service Changes | MBTA

Official website of the MBTA -- schedules, maps, and fare information for Greater Boston's public transportation system, including subway, commuter rail, bus routes, and boat lines.

www.mbta.com

plus:

Even more Green and Orange line shutdowns! 3 more consecutive weekends disrupted between Sullivan, North Station/Haymarket, Back Bay/Copley, and Kenmore. 5 consecutive weekends already for all of August,

MBTA Announces September Service Changes | News | MBTA

Official website of the MBTA -- schedules, maps, and fare information for Greater Boston's public transportation system, including subway, commuter rail, bus routes, and boat lines.

www.mbta.com

and also:

Parts of the Blue Line offline for 4 consecutive weekends plus a week in October.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

From NETransit. . .

Nine of the agency's newest LRV's (38% of the fleet) are out-of-service because of lack of parts. Where the hell is CAF vendor support hiding?!? This better not be an omen for how Type 10 maintenance goes.


This is on top of 22 sidelined Type 8's that they also don't have parts for (and have been accumulating for YEARS with no repairs), and 20 sidelined Type 7's that that they kinda sorta do have parts for (7 are marked as out "short-term", which in T-speak typically means they're moving...very slowly, and one at a time...through the shop). It says there are 170 active cars with 122 required for peak (which is a big reduction from the 146 required at-peak pre-COVID), but the listed in-service numbers don't account for cars bad-ordered for minor ailments so the day-to-day margins for providing basic service must be getting scary-thin.

 

[RandomWalk]

Could it be related to GLTPS fit out for the Type 9s?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Could it be related to GLTPS fit out for the Type 9s?

The cars can run without the components fully installed, so there'd be no reason to sideline over a third of the fleet at a time over that (and the same wasn't happening for the Type 7/8 installations).

Most likely when it says "held for parts" it's something mechanical needing attention, and they just aren't getting the parts from the vendor. Car 3902 has been out for well over a year because it's been scavenged for parts to feed the rest of the fleet. Something is definitely broken with CAF's vendor support of those vehicles.

 

[as02155]

Is this fallout from that failed "privatization" of warehouse services? Now that they tried privatizatio once and the people who know things left - no one knows what to do to keep parts in stock - and the neoliberals win their "goverment can do no good" schtick?

 

[Delvin4519]

Why the shuttle buses can't be trusted (source: zombie site)

 

[as02155]

This sounds like a version of the National Lampoon's European Vacation scene going round the gyratory at Lambeth Bridge in London.

 

[jklo]

I know it would look embarrassing, but they don't have new drivers use Turn By Turn?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Is this fallout from that failed "privatization" of warehouse services? Now that they tried privatizatio once and the people who know things left - no one knows what to do to keep parts in stock - and the neoliberals win their "goverment can do no good" schtick?

The entire agency would be falling down at repairing vehicles across all lines and modes if the warehouse were the problem, instead of just one make on one line being specifically unable to get parts. This points to an issue with CAF's timeliness at sending them parts. Which...ain't great and needs to improve pronto if the Green Line is going to be 100% sole-sourced to CAF in a few years.

 

[as02155]

I wonder if CAF is having trouble with the Trump import restrictions too? As a Spanish-headquartered company, it could seemingly be targeted by the administration for their government's general anti-US stances.

 

[Delvin4519]

Here's the super unexciting changes for the new summer 2026 service change update.

Fall 2026 schedules are out; so we can finally see what secret hidden service cuts are there.

Full overview:

In other news, we finally hit 90% of pre-COVID weekday bus service, after 6.5 years. That still means 10% less weekday bus service than 7 years ago!

All changes:
Orange Line weekday service cuts
Routes SL1, 44, 216 will have reduced weekend service.
Route 24 reduced weekday and Sunday service
Routes 38 and 40 reduced Saturday service
Route 43 reduced Sunday service
Routes 7, 26, 34, 504, 553 reduced weekday service

Updated map:
* Added routes 65 and 465
* Restored 34/34E combined route and 30/34/34E/35/36 combined route
* Downgraded route 44 due to fewer than 21 Sunday trips
* Downgraded SL2 due to fewer than 121 Sunday trips
* Upgraded routes 220, 222, and 220/222; removed West Hingham route variant.
* Upgraded route 435 due to more than 11 Sunday trips

Old maps: Pre-COVID; 2023: Winter, Spring (Slow Zones), Summer, Fall; 2024: Winter, Spring, Summer (News), Fall; 2025: Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall 2026: Winter, Spring, Summer

 

[themissinglink]

‘People were blindsided by this rule’: Paratransit riders face a greater challenge after MBTA policy change - The Boston Globe

Older RIDE users and people with disabilities say that new baggage rules enacted last summer have limited their access to grocery stores and food pantries.

www.bostonglobe.com

After outcry, MBTA reverses restrictions that made for ‘difficult year’ for some paratransit riders - The Boston Globe

Under the agency’s new policy, released on Wednesday, the MBTA is again allowing users of The RIDE to keep their belongings inside RIDE trunks and some foldable carts.

www.bostonglobe.com

The MBTA is reversing some of its most restrictive rules on what riders can — and cannot — bring on their door-to-door trips on the agency’s paratransit service, The RIDE, altering a policy that some riders said radically upended their routines.
Under the agency’s new policy, released on Wednesday, the MBTA is again allowing the service’s population of elderly users and people with disabilities to keep their belongings inside RIDE trunks and some foldable carts.
The T has said it also plans to install luggage racks in RIDE vans “soon,” and eventually give riders the option to indicate whether they are bringing luggage or a shopping cart when they book a trip to help “make sure there is enough space on the vehicle.”