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Blue Line

By adamg - 7/5/23 - 8:08 am
Open fare gates at a Blue Line stop

Your money's no good on the Blue Line, at least through Aug. 31.

With the Sumner Tunnel now shut for the next two months, the Blue Line is now free, as Donna shows us at Orient Heights. Kind of makes you wonder if freeing the T might be a way for the state to reduce congestion and carbon emissions on Boston-area roads, although that would probably require a fully functional T system.

Other Sumner Tunnel alternatives.

By adamg - 6/29/23 - 5:45 pm
Crush at a Blue Line stop at 5:10 p.m.

Tina StGelais Kelly posted some photos from the scene at the State Street Blue Line stop at 5:10 p.m., which make her doubt the Blue Line can possibly handle any of those motorists the state is urging to take the Blue Line when the Sumner shuts on July 5 for repairs: Read more.

By adamg - 6/15/23 - 12:19 pm
Suspect wearing orange safety vest

Surveillance photos via TPD.

Transit Police report they are looking for a guy they say pummeled a man for the sort of accidental contact one might expect at a T stop during rush hour. Read more

By adamg - 6/9/23 - 11:35 am

The MBTA says you can ride the Blue Line for free between July 5 and Aug. 31 - as part of efforts to reduce traffic due to the Sumner Tunnel being shut for repairs then. Read more.

By adamg - 4/24/23 - 3:39 pm

With the first of the 8 p.m. shutdowns of the Blue Line for track work beginning tonight, the MBTA is announcing a series of similar shutdowns on the Red and Green Lines, along with shutdowns on the Orange and Silver Lines, as the T works through all the slow zones that have turned many commutes into something like riding the back of a snail even aside from the reduced service caused by a lack of dispatchers. Read more.

By adamg - 4/24/23 - 10:03 am
Damage to Aquarium stop

Remains of windows at Aquarium T stop. Photo by TPD.

Transit Police report arresting an East Boston man they say tried to smash his way into the Aquarium stop on the Blue Line with a chair after learning it was closed at 2:30 a.m. last Tuesday. Read more.

By adamg - 4/19/23 - 10:50 pm

The Federal Transit Administration yesterday demanded the MBTA take "immediate action" to correct safety problems it says are still endangering T workers ten months after it issued several urgent directives about safety problems on MBTA subway lines. Read more.

By adamg - 4/19/23 - 11:36 am
Blue Line issues on a map

MBTA chart.

New MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng said today that although he hopes to have all speed restrictions between Bowdoin and Aquarium on the Blue Line lifted by the end of May, fixing all the track and other problems that keep slowing the line down could take until November to fix. Read more.

By adamg - 4/14/23 - 11:04 am

Transit Police report arresting a man at Aquarium on the Blue Line last night for allegedly attacking another man who refused to give up his seat. Read more.

By adamg - 4/13/23 - 2:41 pm

The T managed to fix this morning's issues on the Blue Line just in time to announce new delays due to switch problems at Wonderland.

By adamg - 4/13/23 - 9:29 am

The Blue Line is even more of a mess than usual today, as in, the T is running shuttle buses between Orient Heights and Wonderland and telling people who can to take the ferry, because of some sort of wire ish at Revere Beach.

By adamg - 4/11/23 - 8:15 pm

WCVB reports maintenance equipment derailed on the Blue Line yesterday and on the Red Line today.

By adamg - 4/7/23 - 9:34 am
Vague MBTA sign says trains run every 9 to 11 minutes

The MBTA today switched to a new mode on the arrival boards at terminal stations and stops near them: Instead of telling riders when the next two trains should arrive, signs now just tell them how often trains are currently running. Read more.

By adamg - 3/30/23 - 10:39 am
Guy arrested for kicking man onto subway tracks at State Street

Man in act of kicking somebody onto train tracks. Surveillance photos via TPD.

Transit Police report arresting a Whitman man on charges he kicked somebody onto the Blue Line tracks at State Street around 2 p.m. on Tuesday, a few hours before he allegedly then stabbed another person in the face at a Whitman apartment complex. Read more.

By adamg - 3/23/23 - 12:30 pm
Slow zone on the MBTA

The black triangles show where trains can't go more than 10 m.p.h.

The MBTA has unveiled its speed restrictions dashboard so you can see where somebody on a bicycle can pedal faster than a subway train - like much of the Blue Line and the Green Line between Chestnut Hill Avenue in Brighton and the Lechmere viaduct.

The T promises to update the page every day so riders can follow along as the T clears, or doesn't, the slow zones that have long plagued riders and all the new ones that were added over the past couple months.

By adamg - 3/17/23 - 3:53 pm
Sloth locomotion

Interim MBTA General Manager Jeff Gonneville says the T is continuing to work through a morass of track defects across all four subway lines and that he hopes to lift the "global" speed restrictions on the Green Line with the start of service on Saturday. Read more.

By adamg - 3/12/23 - 9:10 pm
Trying to get snails to move

In 1875, Richard Doyle anticipated the T in "Triumphal March of the Elf-King."

The T sounded the alarm tonight: Nearly a third of the tracks on the Red, Orange and Blue Lines remain subject to snailish speed restrictions, which are in place along all the tracks on the Green and Mattapan lines. Read more.

By adamg - 3/10/23 - 11:05 am
Old Boston trolley

Rapid transit back in the day. See it larger.

The MBTA began slowing down all its subway trains around 5:30 p.m. yesterday after state inspectors filed reports that they found track problems on one Red Line stretch this week and the T couldn't assure them that repairs had actually been made because of problems with paperwork and decided it needed to check all its tracks. Read more.

By adamg - 3/10/23 - 10:01 am

The T is currently running buses instead of trains between Maverick and Airport because of a downed wire.

By adamg - 3/9/23 - 10:25 pm
Turtles

The MBTA announced tonight that trains on all four subway lines will no longer go any faster than 25 m.p.h. - and that in some spots their drivers are being told to go no more than 10 m.p.h., following an inspection of the Red Line between Ashmont and Savin Hill by investigators from the state Department of Public Utilities, which has suddenly remembered it has the power to investigate T operations. Read more.

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