Green Line E branch detours eyed for fall

[kz1000ps]

amended..

Green Line E branch detours eyed for fall


July 7, 2006

E branch service on a half-mile stretch of the MBTA's Green Line is expected to be shut down for three months this fall for track repairs, forcing more than 2,000 daily riders to take buses between Brigham Circle and Heath Street, T officials announced this week.

The $2.3 million project, scheduled from Sept. 5 through early December, will go before the MBTA's board of directors next week. If approved, passengers would take the Route 39 bus, which would add trips to handle the additional traffic.

Drivers along Huntington Avenue from the Brookline border into the city are expected to be affected by both the construction and increased bus traffic. If the project is approved, T officials said, the contractor would have to seek city approval for a plan to accommodate the traffic.

T spokesman Joe Pesaturo said the stretch of track to be replaced is more than 20 years old and highly worn after sharing Huntington Avenue with passenger and commercial vehicles. The project would run from Brigham Circle to the curve at South Huntington Avenue.

Once the work is complete, the T will put new low-floor Breda trolleys, which are more accessible to the disabled, on the E branch.

A meeting to explain the project and answer rider questions will take place Monday from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Tobin Community Center in Roxbury.

MAC DANIEL

 

[Ron Newman]

Perhaps you should change the thread title, then. Right now it's very misleading.

 

[KentXie]

Whew I thought they were going to shut down the whole E branch and then I'll have so much headache going to school come September. Of course I wouldn't mind being late because of this.

 

[quadratdackel]

Yeah, this is about the easiest shutdown to handle that could happen accross the entire system, since it's a short enough walk from Heath St to Brigham Circle (half a mile sounds about right) and the high-frequency 39 bus is already up and running along that stretch and being used by many outbound from Heath St to connect to the E.

It'll be interesting to see if this adds fire to the old, ongoing E-line to Arborway debate. The 30-second overview of that is that when the T stopped E-line service through JP for routine repairs, not having the trolleys on narrow, crowded Centre/South Street was so popular that they never brought the service back and the 39 bus, which began as a temporary replacement, was kept for good. The main reason to bring it back is for the transfer-free downtown trip, mainly for area JP residents who work downtown; bus pollution and decreased ridership on the 39 (even after factoring in the Orange Line) are also cited. I believe Arborway restoration was one of the broken Big Dig transit promises.

Personally, I don't care for Arborway restoration because the neighborhood's already served downtown by the Orange Line and to Back Bay by the 39 while other areas (especially Somerville & Dorchester) could use the transit investment more and because Centre/South St really is that narrow. What would make sense if the money's there would be to bring the E to Hyde Square, which is more in the heart of JP yet not on anything narrow.

 

[KentXie]

Do they really need to add more bus 39? I don't know if it's just me but I see a 39 around every 5 minutes or less when I get out of school during the school year. More buses can really crowd the roads especially wen the E line tracks take a chunk of the road. If they add more traffic might actually worsen than get better.

 

[quadratdackel]

I don't know if this is related to the detour-causing track repairs that article mentioned, but there's a nice little crew of workers out on the tracks just inbound from the MFA right now. They've got wooden boards and shovels and appear to be digging under the tracks to put the new boards in. I think this has been going on for a while, because I've noticed changes in the tracks recently, but I haven't been in the office at this hour in a while. (My brain's pretty fried from a long day and all I can seem to bring myself to do is post here. Hopefully this is coherent, or at least entertaingly nonsensical.)

I bet they can't do the Brigham Circle - Heath Street repairs in the middle of the night because the tracks are embedded in pavement, so they can't dig under them like they're doing here, where the line has its own right of way.