You can laugh or you can cry: MBTA announces new delay in opening of Green Line Extension, and says the one stop it has opened will be shut for a month

The MBTA announced today that it hopes to finally, actually, really, no kidding, open the Green Line Extension all the way into Medford by "late November," just in time for you to go over the river and through the woods to visit the Medford house where Lydia Maria Child's grandparents lived, prompting her to write the famous Thanksgiving song.

The T allows that, yes, this is yet another delay on the extension, which they'd once announced would be done by summer's end. They blamed this in part on the need to get safety workers they'd assigned to the extension instead working on all those urgent problems the feds blasted the T for letting fester - even before an Orange Line train burst into flames high atop the Mystic River and another Red Line train tried to go on a self-guided tour.

Oh, and, of course, the opening of the Medford wing of the extension will require shutting down the Union Square mini-extension for almost a month. Or as the T sums it all up:

In order help facilitate the opening of the Medford Branch and to allow crews to perform final-phase construction work, temporary shuttle buses will replace Green Line Union Branch service between Government Center and Union Square stations in both directions beginning Monday, August 22, through Sunday, September 18. This diversion in service is also necessary to allow for continued work at the private Government Center Garage project. Regular Union Branch trolley service will resume on Monday, September 19.

The opening date of the Medford Branch has been shifted from its previous target date of late summer 2022 to late November 2022 due to a number of contributing factors, including necessary additional work and re-testing of the Medford Branch’s power systems. Much of the work to be performed during the diversion in service from August 22 to September 18 is tied to the opening of the Medford Branch, including the advancement of final-phase construction elements on the GLX project and the East Cambridge Viaduct. The start date has also been affected by the availability of Safety and Operational support crews that were previously prioritized for GLX, but are now re-allocated to other critical MBTA construction work, including in the MBTA’s response to the Federal Transit Administration’s Safety Management Inspection directives. The MBTA is in full support of making these safety-related changes, and appreciates the support of riders and the public as the Medford Branch is brought into passenger service.