We not only did work that allowed us to eliminate the speed restrictions, but we also tacked on and piggybacked additional repairs, removing infrastructure conditions like deteriorated ties, track, and ballast," said Eng. The 16-day closure “enabled us to have a safe work zone and do work more effectively and efficiently, and more robustly. Work done during the October closure eliminated almost all of the branch's slow zones and dramatically reduced travel times between Ashmont and JFK/UMass stations. Unlike the previous administration's month-long closure of the Orange Line in 2022, the MBTA's 16-day closure of the Ashmont branch in October appears to have been an overwhelming success, and Eng cited that work as a model of how the T would tackle repairs in the rest of the subway system. The T also plans to coordinate the work with the final phase of the Government Center parking garage demolition in downtown Boston.Įng's team is also planning another multi-day closure to repair the Green Line's D branch (from Riverside to Kenmore) in December.īetween these two closures, and other work being planned for overnight work and shorter weekend closures, T thinks that it can repair about 3 miles of rail to remove 39 more slow zones before the end of 2023, resulting in a 20-minute improvement in travel times across all lines. “We've identified structural work that we need to do in the tunnels," said Eng.Ī 9-day closure of the Green Line tunnel from North Station to Kenmore, Heath (E branch), and Babcock (B branch) stations will address those structural repairs, and also remove 10 speed restrictions, Eng said. Work begins on Green Line with 9-day closure later this monthĮng also announced that the next segment that the T wants to repair will be the core tunnel of the Green Line between North Station and Kenmore Square, where all four branches of the Green Line converge. The closures would ultimately affect nearly every piece of the MBTA rapid transit system, with the exception of the new Green Line Extension and the Ashmont and Mattapan branches of the Red Line, which the T already repaired during a 16-day closure last month. “We want to today present how we want to go forward with regard to tackling speed restrictions, for the remainder of this year and into 2024, with the intent of lifting all the speed restrictions by the end of 2024,” MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng told board members.Įng and his newly-hired deputy, MBTA Chief Engineer Sam Zhou, presented a game plan to address speed restrictions with roughly 20 multi-day, targeted closures on specific segments on the rapid transit network over the next 14 months. This morning, the Safety, Health, & Environment Subcommittee of the MBTA board of directors met in downtown Boston to discuss the agency's plan for repairing the "slow zones" where track problems force trains to crawl at low speeds in order to avoid derailments. The MBTA will take a "divide and conquer" approach to tackling the track problems that have added hours to transit trips across the region in recent years.
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