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Green Line service to be cut downtown for five nights to let workers get Government Center ready
By adamg on Mon, 01/11/2016 - 2:37pm
MassDOT reports Green Line service will be halted between Park and Haymarket stations for five nights - starting tonight - to allow work on the revamped Government Center station:
- Monday, January 11, 2016, at approximately 8:45 p.m. to the end of service.
- Tuesday, January 12, 2016, at approximately 8:45 p.m. to the end of service.
- Wednesday, January 13, 2016, at approximately 10:30 p.m. after the conclusion of the Boston Celtics game.
- Thursday, January 14, 2016, at approximately 8:45 p.m. to the end of service.
- Monday, January 18, 2016, at approximately 8:45 p.m. to the end of service.
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Comments
Great advance notice they
Great advance notice they gave us!
notice
archive.org shows that as late as yesterday there was no notice of this closure.
https://web.archive.org/web/*/mbta.com
Unless this is an emergency detour then it's inexcusable that a major portion of the central subway is shut down with eight hours of notice.
Imagine if MassDOT sent out an alert at noon that the Pike was shutting down tonight between downtown and Allston.
EDIT: The T claims this detour was posted a week ago but I see no such official @MBTA tweets until the alert today.
https://twitter.com/MBTA/status/686639474919534597
Notice
I've gotten three different emails with full details of the detour, starting last Monday 11/4.
I can't track when it was first posted, but the announcement on mbta.com is listed as "Last Updated: 1/8/2016 9:31:24 AM" so it must have been first posted some time before that.
http://www.mbta.com/rider_tools/transit_updates/?ttype=subway&route=Gree...
I'm talking about public
I'm talking about public notices, not e-mailed alerts.
Public notice
How's this?
https://twitter.com/mbta_alerts/status/684037500931805185
FWIW that twitter handle is
FWIW that twitter handle is not an official MBTA account.
That's not an official MBTA
That's not an official MBTA account. Clearly there was some sort of alert in the T's alert system, that fed both the e-mails mentioned above and this tweet. But I do not see any official T tweet and did not see this mentioned at mbta.com till I saw Adam's post.
Heck, even the MassDOT blog post is dated today.
If there was a T alert, then
If there was a T alert, then it was posted on the T alerts website.
Do you think there should be a tweet for every alert, including when they're posted long in advance like this one? I think that would be overwhelming.
They should post signage at
They should post signage at all the stations in advance, and post reminders on their LED announcers.
If they can post signs
announcing the "pending reopening" of Government Center station six months in advance, there is no excuse not to post signs regarding these closures at least two weeks in advance.
And, FWIW, they have been using the message boards and PA system to make announcements.
Agreed.
Agreed.
And any planned shutdown or shuttle busing should be posted at *all* stations, not just the affected line. Someone taking the Red to the Green to catch the commuter rail at North Station shouldn't be surprised by this once they get to Park Street.
Just take the Orange Line
So if you happen to be using the green line downtown late on a weeknight this week, walk through the tunnel to the Orange Line platform. Problem solved.
Sure, because the Orange Line
Sure, because the Orange Line runs so frequently in the evenings.
And 8:45 is not late!
Major portion?
It is short notice, but do you really think that from Park to Haymarket on the Green line is "a major portion of the central subway"? How do you define "central subway", everything between the Common and the North End?
Pretty much the section that
Pretty much the section that all the branches share is the "central subway". Adding 15+ minutes to weekday trips, especially when many of those passengers will be trying to connect to commuter rail trains that run at best hourly in the evening, is a rather major detour. (Though to be honest, if I were relying on the Green Line to get me to North Station to catch a train, it'd be far more reliable to just walk the .8 miles from Park.)
Bingo
if I were relying on the Green Line to get me to North Station to catch a train, it'd be far more reliable to just walk the .8 miles from Park
it's less than a mile. if you can't walk that distance, there's a shuttle bus. Stop whining.
You must be new in town
We had random lane closures and shutdowns with no notice of the Turnpike and Central Artery for decades. It was called the Big Dig.
There were times when getting to the airport from Allston could take up to 2 hours at any time of day, because MassHighway would merge three lanes of traffic down to one on the Artery with no notice. Epic traffic jams. No advance notice.
Come on, this is small potatoes. No stations are closed; the only inconvenience really is someone going from North Station or Lechmere to the Red Line who will have to change to the Orange Line and connect at DTX or west on the Green Line who will have to make the (short*) walk through the DTX-Park concourse and continue from there. And notice they're holding off on Wednesday until after the C's game. That makes sense.
Unfortunately, the T will not be providing replacement waaaaahmbulance service between Park and Haymarket.
(* How short? If I am in the front car of a Red Line train and have a short connection to the southbound Orange Line, I can make it faster running the concourse than staying on to DTX)
If it's such a minor
If it's such a minor inconvenience, then why cater to Celtics fans? Let them be as apparently not inconvenienced as any other passenger this week.
Don't bother arguing with the
Don't bother arguing with the anti-car zealots. They see what they want to see; it's all confirmation bias and so on.
I'm sure there will be
I'm sure there will be excellent measures in place to communicate this message to the 90% of riders at Park or Haymarket who won't have seen the alert beforehand. /MBTAfanfic
What's the reopening date for
What's the reopening date for Government Center? I know it's supposed to be "Spring 2016" but not sure when. Seems like maybe it's close?
The start date was March 22, 2014,...
...so the "promise" was March 22, 2016.
Heard
I've heard spring 2016, but "full reopening"—whatever that means— in fall 2016.
spring
It's still spring on June 20th. Great way to bake in a three month delay.
LOL!
LOL!
Remember temporary suspension of the A line? Or the temporary suspension of E Line service from Heath Street to Forest Hills?
in the grand scheme of things
Everything is temporary.
The incredible shrinking T
Wonder if this will turn out like the "temporary" shutdowns of the green line in JP to Forest Hills and light rail to Dudley, those will be starting up any day now.
The core system keeps shrinking (in hours and length), while cities around the country are expanding theirs. LA has added more subway miles than the T has in total in the past few decades, and has plans for more. NY is digging a new tunnel that just opened its first new station. Come on Bakie, we don't all get chauffeured in an SUV to work.
Just saw on twitter that now
Just saw on twitter that now turning the Mattapan trolley into a bus is apparently now "on the table". Truly frightening how much transit we're at risk of losing when we should be expanding like crazy.
Its like Baker wants to turn
Its like Baker wants to turn MA back to the 1950s, cutting back on hours and turning trolley lines to buses, canceling expansion projects all while moving forward with highway projects.
The T has been decaying since
The T has been decaying since the early 2000s. There have been at least four governors in office since this mess started. And it's not even the governor who controls their funding but the legislature.
The MBTA has been decaying
The MBTA has been decaying since its inception as the MTA.
24hr service GONE
Trolleys everywhere GONE
Many entrances to stations GONE
The T functioned far better
The T functioned far better in the 1950s than it does now.
As long as you had a nickle
As long as you had a nickle to get off the train.
This has been happening on the Blue Line for months
This is exactly what they've been doing on the sneak with the Blue Line on weekends for some time now to get Government Center finished. Bowdoin gets shut down completely (what else is new?) and only one track is run from Maverick to State necessitating getting off at Maverick no matter which direction you are travelling and switching to the other side. It slows the commute down considerably.
I thought Bowdoin was this
I thought Bowdoin was this oddball station that's only open during the weekdays and then only during the daytime commute, anyway. Did they change that? (And now change back to oddball hours?)
Bowdoin
When Government Center was shut down for the renovation, Bowdoin was reopened on a full time basis to pick up the slack. But they have been closing it again on weekends since about last September with little or no advance warning.
Bowdoin
When Government Center was shut down for the renovation, Bowdoin was reopened on a full time basis to pick up the slack. But they have been closing it again on weekends since about last September with little or no advance warning.
How was it on the sneak? An
How was it on the sneak? An alert was issued in advance, and signs were posted in Blue Line stations, the same as for any other planned shutdown.
What's Even Sadder...
Several motormen I spoke with did not know about the diversion until that day when they reported for duty. I honestly wish someone didn't just forget to photocopy the Special Order and hand it out...
At least most folks seemed to have changed their AVI routing so the cars would be signed up "PARK STREET".