Last week, the Orange Line saw total delays of more than 12 minutes due to slow zones. Back in August, the Orange Line was shut down for 30 days and is now open again. Now that the fall season with students in the city and professionals back in the office, Boston is busy once again. Did the MBTA actual fix everything that needed fixing?
When was the Orange Line shut down?
Service on the Orange Line resumed on Monday, September 19. That is the good news, but how did everything get fixed? We all know it was chaos during the shutdown.
This map details all the alternative options for navigating the route during the shutdown and it was not pretty.
As of September 6, the MBTA said that they completed more than 50% of the planned repairs. And now, post shut down it has been reported that crews replaced 14,000 feet of rail and nearly 3,500 feet of track, made repairs to Orange Line stations and eliminated six slow zones. However, the issue of slow zones is back.
“They haven’t lifted restrictions on both the north and south side in a number of areas. They haven’t lifted them as fast as they said they were going to,” Gov. Charlie Baker said Monday, according to CommonWealth Magazine. “I think General Manager Poftak has made clear he wants the engineers and the people on the ground to tell him when the most appropriate time to do that would be.”
According to Boston.com, median travel time from Oak Grove to North Station was also about five minutes slower on Tuesday than it was pre-shutdown. How has your Orange Line experience been post shutdown?
But if you are back to your normal commute and have some extra time in Boston, check out our best restaurants in Boston or our best cocktail bars in Boston.