MBTA Service Updates

For latest updates, go to MBTA.com/winter

The information below was released by the MBTA on Wednesday, February 18.  This information pertains primarily to the subway lines.  Please be aware that until train service is normal, bus service will is likely to be subnormal.  In general, the T’s entire fleet of buses is in use at rush hour.  To the extent that buses are diverted to cover train service, bus routes will see less frequent service.

Evening MBTA Recovery Update: Service Restoration Plan Announced, Train Counts Top Priority

Boston – Today, officials from the MBTA and MassDOT released a service restoration plan and stressed that reduced train counts due to the unprecedented winter storms will result in longer wait times and some crowding in the short term.

“Day after day with the help of the Governor’s office, the National Guard and several partnering groups, our hardworking MBTA staff are recovering more stations and restoring service to more parts of the system,” said MBTA General Manager, Dr. Beverly Scott.  “With all the additional resource at our disposal we are now systematically executing a plan to recover remaining sections of the Orange, Green and Red lines while also working to get our maintenance facilities fully operational.  The goals we identified today will hinge on a number of factors, including weather conditions, and while we are making progress on recovering tracks and stations, we are also working hard to get train counts up. This will not be an easy task but our dedicated employees are working day and night to deliver the level of service the people of Massachusetts deserve.”

 

LINE

RUNNING

SUSPENDED

RED

Ashmont to/from Alewife trains

Arrive/depart every 11 to 12 minutes

JFK/Umass trains to/from Braintree

Limited Bus Service

ORANGE

Oak Grove to/from Forest Hills trains

Arrive/depart every 8 to 9 minutes

GREEN B

Kenmore to/from Lechmere trains

North Station to/from Kenmore Trolleys

Arrive/depart every 6 to 7 minutes

Route 57 bus will make stops between Kenmore and Packards Corner; limited bus shuttle from Packards Corner to Boston College

GREEN C

North Station to/from Cleveland Circle

Arrive/depart every 6 to 7 minutes

 

GREEN D

Park Street to/from Riverside

Arrive/depart every 6 to 7 minutes

 

GREEN E

Prudential to/from Lechmere Trolleys

Arrive/depart every 6 to 7 minutes

Symphony to/from Heath Street

Route 39 buses will make stops

BLUE

Wonderland to/from Bowdoin

Trains depart/arrive every 4 to 5 minutes

 

MATTAPAN

TROLLEY

 

Limited bus replacement service

COMMUTER

RAIL

Modified weekday schedule

Through Friday, Feb 20

Significant delays and cancelled trips

Please visit: MBTA.com/winter

 

BUSES

Weekday Schedule with traffic delays

Includes the SILVER LINE

 

BOATS

Charlestown: weekday schedule 2/18

Hingham cancelled 2/18 due to ice

Hull/Boston departures cancelled today

PARKING

Permitted in MBTA Garages

But limited

Please visit: MBTA.com/winter

 

 

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In addition to the chart above, the T provided this graphic:image003

Published by Will Brownsberger

Will Brownsberger is State Senator from the Second Suffolk and Middlesex District.

18 replies on “MBTA Service Updates”

  1. What is being done to reimburse people for passes they purchased that they can’t effectively use?

    I’ve been having to take cabs from Allston to Alewife and back due to unreliable buses and trains. The wait for the 66 bus has been 30 minutes in the morning, longer at night due to the crowding.

    I appreciate the historic nature of this event, but MBTA has completely lack of preparation, a failure to plan accordingly when the storm was imminent, and total incompetence when it came to communicating with the public about the problems.

    The people of Boston are owed something in return for the terrible inconvenience a service that we OVERPAY for has caused us.

      1. That’s something that the Governor and the State Legislature, and the MBTA Board of Directors will have to figure out.

        Maybe once they do figure it out, they’ll also figure out how to fund the T properly without cutting service to unusable levels or raising fares to higher than cities that provide a much higher level of service.

        This whole situation is indicative of the larger problem. The T has been poorly managed, underfunded, and completely neglected for as long as I’ve lived here (15+ years).

        Boston can’t, won’t, and shouldn’t be taken seriously as a city worthy of events like the Olympics, or as a long-term home for emerging industries until it fixes the public transit system. The MBTA service covers too small an area, degrades too quickly during times of trouble or overload, and shuts down too early for Boston to be viable for such things.

        None of those problems can be addressed without the City and State being willing to devote the resources to it to make it work.

        1. We are basically on the same page. Representing a district that depends heavily on the busy routes of the Transit systems core, I am completely in favor of additional funding. But that doesn’t mean a majority of my colleagues or even a majority of the voters statewide agree. That’s the challenge we face.

  2. Observed on #57 bus line yesterday: Gridlock near Kenmore meant
    getting off bus and walking was the
    only timely procedure.
    Huge crowds c. 9:30 PM meant that
    most people waiting to ride the #57 could not fit. I finally got onto the third bus that came. Success came to those who were aggressive, not those who had waited the longst or were the coldest.

  3. Read the Feb. 15 Sunday Globe article on the T’s management and financial problems going back 25 years. As one person put it, the current mess is a case of the “chickens coming home to roost”.

    Contributing factors include mismanagement within the T (of physical facilities, of money, of pension plans), chronic funding problems (underfunding, change of funding mechanisms, transfer of several billion dollars of Big Dig debt to the T’s books), choices to expand the system (Greenbush Line, proposed extension of Green Line to Medford, proposed rail service to New Bedford) even when there was/is insufficient money for operation of the existing system, inadequate and/or deferred maintenance, an aging fleet of vehicles and chronic underinvestment in new vehicles.

    There’s plenty of blame to go around and plenty of parties who deserve a share. It starts with the T’s management and personnel, but extends beyond that. When now-Governor Baker was Sec. of Admin. and Finance under Gov. Weld in the early 1990’s, he (Baker) had a role in transferring Big Dig debt to the T’s books. Members of the Mass. Legislature, who lacked the cojones to periodically vote to raise the gas tax to provide better T funding, and instead passed legislation to let it increase automatically, without a vote. Members of the general public, who were too damn cheap to allow such increases, who voted to repeal that automatic increase.

    For all of the hundreds of thousands near Boston who depend on the T daily, there are millions statewide who don’t; thus, support is far from universal. It makes sense that of Mass.’s 6 million people, the 3 million nearest Boston have an interest in it, but that the 3 million in central and western Mass. don’t. Drivers resent it that a portion of the gas tax goes toward mass transit funding, even their roads would be even more clogged without the T.

    Even among T users, there are splits. Commuter rail, primarily benefiting affluent suburban commuters, costs the most, has the lowest percentage of fare recovery by riders, and receives the greatest subsidy per vehicle mile and per passenger mile. Buses have the highest fare recovery from riders and the lowest subsidy per mile. Subways fall inbetween buses and commuter rail. Perhaps, as a matter of equity, commuter rail riders should pay more and bus riders pay less.

    Now, is there anyone who still thinks our rinky-dink, tinkertoy transit system is ready for an Olympic Games in 2024?

    For those who think 10 years will be enough time to make the necessary infrastructure improvements, I recently threw out a study that the T published in 1985 (that’s right, 1985, 30 years ago), identifying alternative routes for expanding the Green Line to Medford, and estimating the cost of each. For comparison, we got to the moon in less than 10 years, built the atomic bomb in less than 6 years during WW2, built Hoover Dam during the Depression in 3 years, and built the Empire State Building in less than 3 years.

    For a more relevant example, construction of the 1900-mile transcontinental railroad began in 1862, 40 years after it was first proposed and in the middle of the Civil War, and took 7 years to complete. We are currently headed toward celebrating the 40th anniversary of the first proposal for extending the Green Line an additional 4-5 miles.

    Aram Hollman

    1. 1) Sufficient and predictable annual funding of transit service worthy of the cities and towns at the heart of the beginning of the American Revolution, High-tech, Bio-tech, The Red Sox, or The Patriots;

      2) Robust for the effects of climate change; and

      3) Credible as a public policy to mitigate our share of the impetus of climate change: CO2.

      Would we demand, ‘transit to schedule!’

    2. Well said, Aram. Just one refinement: The buses are actually the most deeply subsidized component of the system, covering only about 25% of their costs compared to about 50% for the rail components, including commuter rail. Also, the challenge is not an engineering challenge, like going to the moon. It is a political challenge — harder.

  4. I don’t understand why, where the Orange and Red lines can run at all, they can’t run every 4-5 minutes. Switching points to shift a train from one track to another takes a matter of seconds, as I understand it, and a six-car train doesn’t need much time to stop and reverse, particularly when empty.

  5. Hmm. long standing structural and management problems, disinvestment, underfunding, high debt service, pension funding problems, taxpayers not willing to pay higher taxes to fund the T. The MBTA now looks like a poster child for chapter 9 bankruptcy to keep going. We’ll see how well a bankruptcy judge runs the T in light of a court order to extend the system (well that was another court).

  6. Once again, Will, you so effectively provide us with Important information.

    Mille Grazie, Anne

    By the way I wanted to congratulate on your recent award.

  7. It would be interesting for someone to do a spatial analysis to find the correlations between length of T service outage and neighborhood-level poverty. That might explain why the B-, E-, and southern portion of the Red lines are taking so long.

    Thanks for keeping us updated.

  8. Can you say Receivership? End the bloat and political corruption. Loose the board of directors who seem to be answerable to no one, not the governor nor the taxpayers. Of course the stock answer will be “We need more money!” As long as the system is run by hacks there will never be enough money. This is disgraceful.

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