Highwayguy
Active Member
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2020
- Messages
- 189
- Reaction score
- 464
….And the walking speed slow zone between Assembly and Sullivan SB is back.
Over a month later and its still there, in addition to another one between Community and the tunnel portal where one of the trains decided to get sparky a few weeks back. The current rider experience was totally worth shutting it down for a month.….And the walking speed slow zone between Assembly and Sullivan SB is back.
Took my first 'crosstown' trip from E Somerville to Quincy Ctr (green > red) since the Orange shutdown, etc. It took 1hr 20! I'm completely baffled - what's causing the slow ride from JFK to N Quincy? Anyone know what's being done to address it?
In the past I would have had no doubt choosing the T was the quicker/easier option.
Took my first 'crosstown' trip from E Somerville to Quincy Ctr (green > red) since the Orange shutdown, etc. It took 1hr 20! I'm completely baffled - what's causing the slow ride from JFK to N Quincy? Anyone know what's being done to address it?
In the past I would have had no doubt choosing the T was the quicker/easier option.
It's not as publicized as the orange line shutdown, but Red Line service is catastrophically poor right now, and much worse when compared to level of service (i.e. headways and travel times) anytime in the last 10 years. They are still on weekend-level headways (15 min branches, 7.5min trunk) thanks to the dispatcher shortage, and that is made worse by the 20 mins of slow zones from poor track conditions, which effectively increases the headways by another 1-2mins.
And unfortunately, there is no end in sight to either the dispatcher issue or the track conditions (there are no planned closures to repair the track at this time). I've decided to buy a blue bike membership instead.
Aren't slow zones the way the T implicitly "fixes" track issues?Lechmere Viaduct slow zone is now 10 months old, will be a year old in 2 months. StreetsBLOG Mass reports: https://mass.streetsblog.org/2023/0...line-slow-zone-approaches-1-year-anniversary/
The T is waiting on additional parts to be delivered, in order to make additional fixes. Apparently.
It's not as publicized as the orange line shutdown, but Red Line service is catastrophically poor right now, and much worse when compared to level of service (i.e. headways and travel times) anytime in the last 10 years. They are still on weekend-level headways (15 min branches, 7.5min trunk) thanks to the dispatcher shortage, and that is made worse by the 20 mins of slow zones from poor track conditions, which effectively increases the headways by another 1-2mins.
And unfortunately, there is no end in sight to either the dispatcher issue or the track conditions (there are no planned closures to repair the track at this time). I've decided to buy a blue bike membership instead.
Lechmere Viaduct slow zone is now 10 months old, will be a year old in 2 months. StreetsBLOG Mass reports: https://mass.streetsblog.org/2023/0...line-slow-zone-approaches-1-year-anniversary/
The T is waiting on additional parts to be delivered, in order to make additional fixes. Apparently.
“The MBTA continues working diligently to execute safe and rapid strategies to eliminate slow zones across the system. The slow zone is in place at the East Cambridge Viaduct as the MBTA awaits custom ties for the 110-year-old bascule span of the viaduct,” Lisa Battison, MBTA spokesperson told StreetsblogMASS over email last week.
“While these custom ties are being replaced, the MBTA will use this opportunity to access and replace rail. Based on projections related to working and weather conditions on the open deck structure over the Charles River and the availability of resources and materials, the work to remove the slow zone is scheduled to be completed in the spring of 2023,” said Battison.
Did you depart Park Street at 3:21 PM? If so, that red dot was the train you were on, which took 12 minutes longer than the median Red Line train from Park Street to Quincy Center today.
It may not be Cambridge, but Dorchester is more bikeable than people realize. Quincy and Braintree, though, are both pretty bad.I suppose to some degree it's lucky then that a chunk of the Red Line is in a pretty cycling-friendly city, otherwise the BlueBike mode shift wouldn't even be possible. But that certainly can't be said for points south of South Station. You would hope that public officials would be hammering the MBTA for the state we're in on the Red Line, but it seems that it's really flown under the radar.
I was on the 2:40pm train. I'm surprised to see there were longer rides than mine!
I think it was the combo of the slower GLX stretch from E Somerville to N Station + a long transfer at Park + and the aforementioned slow Red, that all contributed to such a slow trip. (Are the slow stretches from E Somerville to Lechmere permanent?)
Luckily most of my trips are on buses or shorter stretches of the T nowadays. Longer trips seem to really exacerbate + highlight the impact of the slowdowns.
NTSB Report reveals Green Line TPS Project delayed from “late 2023” to June 2025.
What happened to the tens of millions from the operating budget that were redirected to accelerate this project?
The T is not having good luck with these "system integrators". First it was the fare 2.0 with Cubic as systems integrator now it's the GL train protection system and BBR ?In today's safety subcommittee board meeting, they presented an update on GLTPS. From the slides, here's the new timeline:
View attachment 33290
Also, there isn't any info about this in the slides, but in the presentation itself they mentioned the delay was (at least partially) due to the BBR* being bought out by Stadler. If you want to watch, the relevant part of the meeting recording (at the link above) is from 32:30 to 58:10.
(* BBR Verkehrstechnik GmbH, who was the original GLTPS contractor, as seen in this FMCB presentation from 2019)