UPDATE: MBTA General Manager Beverly Scott said this afternoon the authority will seek federal disaster aid and that it could be 30 days - yes, 30 - before the T is fully operational again, but only if we don't have another blizzard.
The MBTA says service on the T will be about the same as today, MassDOT says: The Red Line will run between Alewife and Andrew, the Orange Line between Sullivan and Back Bay and the Green Line between Lechmere and Kenmore, except for the D branch, which will continue all the way to Riverside. The Blue Line will run all the way between Bowdoin and Wonderland.
On the Red Line that's still running, trains will operate every six to seven minutes. On the discontinued segments of the Red Line, there'll be "limited substitute bus service" on the Ashmont and Braintree branches. Also limited bus replacement for the Mattapan Line.
Orange Line trains will run every 12 minutes, with limited bus service between Oak Grove and Sullivan and between Back Bay and Forest Hills.
Green Line trolleys will run every five or six minutes. Also:
Along the B branch, Route 57 buses will make stops between Packards Corner and Kenmore Stations. There will be no bus service between Packards Corner and Boston College.
Along the C branch, limited shuttle bus service will be available between Cleveland Circle and Kenmore.
Along the E branch, Route 39 buses will make stops between Northeastern and Heath St. Stations.
Buses, including the Silver Line, will run on weekday schedules, but expect delays.
Please note that parking in MBTA garages will continue to be permitted, but availability may be limited. Lynn, Beverly, Salem, and Wonderland Garages will continue to have low availability. Additional parking availability information can be found here. Illegally parked vehicles in garages that are found to be blocking pedestrian access ways and/or traffic lanes will be subject to towing. Passengers are encouraged to park in garages only when leaving their vehicle on the premises overnight.
MBTA passengers may also park in available Massport parking at Suffolk Downs Station and board Massport employee shuttles either to Airport terminals or to the Blue Line Airport Station.
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Comments
The Orange Line and older,
By anon
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 10:42pm
The Orange Line and older, red-and-white Red Line cars use DC motors that the media has been reporting are prone to destroying themselves when they suck snow into their air intakes. (The Blue Line and newer, stainless Red Line cars use AC motors which apparently do not have this problem.) My guess is we've gotten to the point where they've run through so many spare DC motors they literally don't have enough functional Orange/Red trainsets to do anything more than "limited" service.
So, am I to assume that the
By 2
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 5:44pm
So, am I to assume that the Orange Line between Back Bay and Forest Hills will have some sort of shuttle service? Going from 39 to Back Bay to Chinatown (or 42 to Dudley to South Station) tomorrow morning sounds absolutely hellish.
I truly feel the MBTA is
By anon
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 5:47pm
I truly feel the MBTA is hiding something or misleading customers. People that don't travel to the South Shore are being the most ignorant. So I pay for a monthly pass andI have barely any service from Quincy while other people can just get a free Pass @ Andrew?! That makes sense. NOT
Dr Scott.....
By moxie
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 5:48pm
Translation: See ya, wouldn't want to be ya!
Thanks Deval. This was an excellent appointment. I guess Olga Roche was already busy at the time, running DCF, or we would have gotten her instead.
scape·goat
By SwirlyGrrl
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 7:02pm
Nope
By moxie
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 7:08pm
She would have have to stayed around to be a scapegoat. She did a dixie last week, remember?
Wonder why.
But why stay till April?
By Lyndsay
Tue, 02/17/2015 - 2:09pm
Is she obligated to stay till April?
It seemed like her quitting was an end-of-her-rope decision, so you'd think she'd want to leave right away. Why is she staying til April? Does anyone think there is someone else running the show in her place until then?
While I am thinking of it...
By A. Nony. Fox
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 5:50pm
I think Adam deserves a lot of credit for keeping us up to date with MBTA information for whatever direction people are coming from and also the citizen commentary and information.
As soon as I heard it would be limited service tomorrow I really began to wonder. That was BEFORE I got to this subject heading. Another blizzard might well shut down Boston.
Thanks, adamg
By anon
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 10:50pm
This is definitely the most reliable site to find news about the MBTA.
At this point...
By PeyoteEatingWat...
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 5:58pm
...it seems like public transportation in Pyongyang works better than the freaking T.
It might be
By John Costello
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 7:11pm
But, you would be shot for expressing your opinion on UHub.
Outrageous
By Whogirl
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 5:59pm
ok, a foot of snow on Sunday and very cold temps today, but there is NO EXCUSE for not running the Red Line to Ashmont and Braintree. Good god, how many of us are going to be on clogged Dot Ave. tomorrow in 8 degree weather waiting for "limited" shuttle service.
Speechless
By Whogirl
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 6:58pm
I've been riding the Red Line for decades and this is just a totally unacceptable horror show.
Let's give the "T" its Last Rites
By dpalomares
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 6:30pm
...
You driving?
By SwirlyGrrl
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 7:02pm
Think parking in Boston is tight now ...
As much as I hate driving,
By Bob Murphy
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 7:36pm
As much as I hate driving, because it usually takes a lot longer than the T, at least I know I'll get home eventually driving myself. When they say all the commuter rail trains are "delayed" (for hours) like they did Friday night, I seriously wondered if I'd ever make it home. Thankfully I did make it to Milton after almost 3 hours, and my ride into work was 2 hours that morning. That was after driving in on Thursday, which was also awful, but at least I controlled my own fate, to a degree.
So, unless I'm allowed to work remotely, it's back to driving I go, although there's now a bunch or people here in Milton looking to carpool, and I assume that is happening in other communities too. Oh, and I got a monthly pass at the Pru. I bet garage passes are getting harder to come by.
school vacation week
By marathoner2
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 6:45pm
Will result in a few less traveling...but far from enough of an impact
further dysfunction
By coffeeweasel
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 7:05pm
My (work-subsidized) T pass up and expired today. It had a February LinkPass on it, so I've just lost two weeks of fares. Maybe it's an omen?
Something I didn't know until
By anon
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 7:27pm
Something I didn't know until recently is that the card itself has an expiration date.
The physical cards expiring
By anon
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 10:53pm
The physical cards expiring was all over the T service alerts a couple months ago. I assume the cards physically expire for some arcane security reasons.
You can get them to transfer
By Dot net
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 10:26pm
You can get them to transfer your LinkPass to a new card at a T sales offices at Back Bay, Downtown Crossing, Harvard, North Station, or South Station.
No, this can only be done at
By DTP
Tue, 02/17/2015 - 12:15am
No, this can only be done at the CharlieCard store in DTX.
I can't speak for the other stations, but I know North Station doesn't have a T sales office. Keolis has ticket and information windows, but they are Keolis only, they can't help you with anything MBTA.
Oops, you're right. I was
By Dot net
Tue, 02/17/2015 - 1:01am
Oops, you're right. I was thinking of where they are supposed to have new cards available all the time. But yeah, they can only transfer info/value from one card to another at DTX.
Your employer might be able
By jenniednotloggedin
Tue, 02/17/2015 - 9:58am
Your employer might be able to give you a new card with the rest of your February pass on it - mine expired in January literally mid-commute (got me on the bus, would not get me on the subway 20 minutes later) and although the one T employee available was a complete dick about it, I called payroll when I got to work and they had a new one for me right away. (I may have missed an e-mail about mine expiring, it turns out, although the thing failed so catastrophically I couldn't get the fare machine to give me ANY info about it, so I'm not sure.) I had to pay full fare to get in - they wouldn't even give me credit for my bus transfer - but at least I didn't have to wait in the 7th circle of hell that is the CharlieCard store.
Raise the issue with your company.
By Lyndsay
Tue, 02/17/2015 - 2:00pm
Many people's transportation is subsidized by work. The MBTA could not give two sh*ts about individual riders, but they might listen if companies that pay for employee transportation get involved and start complaining.
Correct me if I'm wrong...
By CopleyScott17
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 7:06pm
...but can an "authority" request Federal disaster relief funds? Doesn't the request come from the governor, much like National Guard deployments, etc.?
Something stinks about the political and governmental response to this whole situation.
And speaking of stinking situations, to look at everything on the T's website, it would appear that Symphony station should be open tomorrow. But I still haven't heard back from my complaint/inquiry from 7 a.m. today, so I'll have to assume it'll be closed. Meanwhile, how exactly is someone supposed to get from, say, Park Street to Boston College? The B train will get you to Kenmore. The 57 bus will get you to Packard's Corner. Then what?
Thirty days of this? Time for another Boston T Party.
Well, the 86 would get you to
By DTP
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 7:12pm
Well, the 86 would get you to Chestnut Hill Ave, but you're stuck either walking from there or Chestnut Hill on the D line.
I've been told that while,
By anon
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 8:46pm
I've been told that while, yes, the website and MBTA twitter are adamant that E Line service inbound from Symphony was running today, the stations was not open and passengers heading outbound were kicked off at the Pru.
They can't even announce their fuckups right. Pathetic.
You're absolutely right.
By CopleyScott17
Tue, 02/17/2015 - 6:58am
I wrote the T yesterday and again today to inquire about the discrepancy. It's comforting to know that the MBTA's "do not reply to this email" auto-response works just fine, unlike just about everything else at this miserable agency. Haven't gotten an actual answer, don't really expect to, and not sure I'd trust whatever answer I got.
(As I mentioned yesterday, the driver didn't deign to announce that Prudential was the last stop until after we left Copley. So anybody (like me) who could have switched from the E and had a shorter walk from Hynes than Prudential were SOOL.)
Bev abdicated the Throne
By anon
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 7:07pm
And instead of 'Let them eat cake' Bev the no show queen of the MBTA says 'Let them Walk'
I do think that there will be
By Lyndsay
Tue, 02/17/2015 - 2:06pm
I do think that there will be "Bev people" leaving en masse with her in April. So we can look forward to the T saving some money on salaries there, right Charlie?
How come they can operate the D line?
By anon
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 7:12pm
But they can't operate the orange line from FH? And why can't they operate the C line down Beacon St? It has it's own right-of-way. The B and E lines I understand.
Most of the people who use the underground portions of the green, orange, and blue lines feed into it from above ground. No way 'limited shuttle service' will cut it. And the D line is going to be beyond nasty. Even on normal days it's heavily used.
The D has to run in some
By TinFoil
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 10:21pm
The D has to run in some capacity because of the equipment yards at Reservoir and Riverside.
I'm curious how they managed
By tape
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 10:56pm
I'm curious how they managed to dg out the entire D line but can't dig out the less than half mile between JFK and the tunnel to Andrew on even one branch of the tracks.
Money
By BB from Dot
Tue, 02/17/2015 - 7:47am
It's because the D line serves some well-to-do suburbs, and the Ashmont branch serves lowly Dorchester (this is a battle we have fought for years!)
Budget? what comes around...
By marathoner2
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 7:41pm
Be sure to search back on info on the Big Dig....that's where the money went...they combined depts./agencies, shifting the burden of highway/tunnels etc to the T who was running efficiently at the time. Check your hx. Mr. Baker was Admin and Finance in charge of that budget back then under the Weld Admin. Will be paid off in 2038!!! What do we do till then?
Why no official MBTA comment from Scott?
By lodger
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 8:11pm
The sources are tweets from other people. Why hasn't the MBTA issued an official statement explaining the problems, and the plans for a solution?
Everything we hear dribbles in from a third party. If it's all about money, tell us what we need, and how much it will cost, so this doesn't happen again.
On the C line, there were trains running up and down the line on Sunday afternoon with no passengers. Why can't they carry passengers? The tracks seem fine.
The lack of information in such a critical situation is galling.
If it's all about money, tell
By Carty
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 10:13pm
*We* just elected a governor who ran on a platform to not increase revenue. *Now* we want to hear "what we need" and "how much it will cost?"
We *need* to own our shit.
Giving a blank check to
By TinFoil
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 10:24pm
Giving a blank check to people that have a history of spending money very poorly is an issue. The MBTA needs to submit an itemized list of what they need to make sure the money doesn't go to featherbedding instead of vital infrastructure. Make sure the requests for funds, contracts, and ledgers are open to public scrutiny to keep everyone honest.
Who are the Communications Directors for MBTA and DOT?
By Lyndsay
Tue, 02/17/2015 - 1:54pm
Because the communications staff of these agencies are clearly asleep at the wheel.
Find out who THESE people are, post their email address or Twitter handle everywhere, and press them of the importance of info for the ridership. If they get enough complaints of a lack of info, maybe they'll be responsive just to stop the influx of emails. It's THEIR jobs to manage the dissemination of information to the ridership.
Anyone know
By Jay
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 8:14pm
Where one gets this limited shuttle service? Is it only at Ashmont or does it do pick ups along the Ave, and to push the envelope anyone have any clue how often they run....T says 6-7 for their tunnel trains but nada on these buses.....oops limited shuttle buses....whatever those are and wherever one gets one.....
Seriously....anyone ?????
Typically
By Whogirl
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 10:18pm
The shuttles make posted stops along Dot Ave. as well as Ashmont and Fields Corner stations. But, the temps are going to be single-digits tomorrow, and I expect hordes of people will be waiting quite a while to get on packed buses.
The T has posted the "limited
By DTP
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 8:28pm
The T has posted the "limited" commuter rail schedules for tomorrow:
http://www.mbta.com/winter/
It's even more "limited" by
By Bob Murphy
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 10:05pm
It's even more "limited" by cold weather breakdowns. None of the 3 trains between 8 and 9:15 made it to Hyde Park on Friday. The T didn't announce any delays until 8:45, but by then people were jumping on the bus from Cleary Sq to Forest Hills to try their luck with the Orange Line...although all things considered, at least we had that option.
Good luck to those further out on the commuter rail. I honestly have no idea how they get to work, or home, when service is so severely compromised.
It officially fed up
By Waquiot
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 8:39pm
That's right, me. The guy who has been patient since the Patriot's won the Super Bowl and all this crap began 3 weeks ago. The guy who has dealt with the crowded trains, since it is an issue of historic snowfall and Carter era equipment.
I can only speak for the Orange Line, but others who have been following the Red Line as close as I have the Orange Line can chime in.
Last Friday afternoon, the Orange Line was running 6 6-car trainsets. The line has 20 6-car trainsets and typically runs 18 at peak. Where were the other 14? And now, given the 12 minute headways and the fact that it takes 12 minutes to get from North Station to Back Bay, I assume they are running 2 trainsets. My assumption was that their motors were broken, but in the 3 weeks that the motors have been an issue, what has been done to repair them? And for that matter, was it really 84 broken motors, or has it slipped their minds to swap trains in the sets? And if they knew last week that 6 was it, why didn't they say then that it was going to take 30 days? And why 30 days?
And why don't we, the riders, get updates on snow removal. For instance, last Friday they could have said that 40% of the Orange Line that was shut down was cleared and 35% of the Braintree Line (I'm making up numbers here, of course), but they wouldn't say. I mean, the numbers could be depressing, but at least we would have known what we were facing.
I guess if I knew what the exact problems were (number of motors to be replaced, miles of track to be cleared) and the progress in solving them, I could live with the problems. But despite claims to the contrary, I don't think anything is being done. I see nothing. The broken motors could be fixed at a pace that has nothing to do with the snow. Yes, this past 15 inches of snow is bad, but it's on the small side for what we have been dealing with.
If the T could show progress, I'd have more faith in them. But as it is now, fuck 'em (the management, not the grunt workers.)
There was one day last week
By anon
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 9:11pm
There was one day last week (I think Thursday) where when I left work at 5:30 - you know, in the middle of rush hour - there were only four trains running on the entire orange line. And they weren't even spaced out, all of them were in the downtown area. So of course by the time I got to DTX, they were all gone, and there was no time to next train posted.
From what the tracker looked like, those four trains were the only four running, as a new train would only be sent out when one reached the end of the line.
I know the orange line got hit hard last week, but to the point where there were only four trains servicing the entire evening commute? Something deeper's going wrong.
Unless they ruined a lot more motors recently....
By Michael Kerpan
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 9:19pm
... the drastic curtailment of the Orange Line makes no sense at all. I guess I get to count on around 5 hours of commuting time for the rest of the week (and then how much longer?)
Exactly!
By lodger
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 9:34pm
Exactly!
The fact they don't tell us anything of import makes me wonder about the true cause of these unprecedented delays. Weather is a challenge but should not cripple an entire system like this, especially not for 30 days.
Meantime you can see where trains really are here:
http://sites.harvard.edu/~wuensch/T/subway-map.html
Something fishy is going on
By dave davery
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 9:39pm
Something fishy is going on here... This is starting to look like a wildcat strike or something. Except the management is striking.
From the complaints and
By Lyndsay
Tue, 02/17/2015 - 1:57pm
From the complaints and frustrations I've read on Facebook from the conductors themselves, I wouldn't be surprised. The T's workers are being run ragged right now. And a lot of them rely on the T to get them to work too!
The orange line is scheduled
By anon T employee
Tue, 02/17/2015 - 6:29am
The orange line is scheduled to run 16 trains during the peak on weekdays - the most they are ever scheduled to run these days. And many days (before the snow started), they could only manage to muster 15 functional trains in the morning, and the frequency would suffer. Not sure where you're getting 18 from - they haven't had that many working at once in a very long time.
My bad on the numbers
By Waquiot
Tue, 02/17/2015 - 8:22am
I knew there was a reserve. I swear that when they had the map at Back Bay Station showing the locations of the trains I once counted 18 trainsets- of course 6 were between Sullivan and Oak Grove.
Still, the basic count for trainsets last week as 4- that a quarter of what is usually there. What happened to the other 11 sets?
I just do not understand why
By JeanneM
Mon, 02/16/2015 - 10:23pm
I just do not understand why they can't run a shuttle on the B line. How are people who don't live within easy walking distance of the 86 supposed to get to the 57 so they can get downtown? It makes no sense.
switch to a 7 day pass until the system gets back to normal.
By Lyndsay
Tue, 02/17/2015 - 1:51pm
I'm only doing weekly passes for now.
Unfortunately weekly passes
By DTP
Wed, 02/18/2015 - 1:37am
Unfortunately weekly passes are not offered for the commuter rail. If you want any sort of discount at all, you have to go monthly.
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