On Monday, the Red Line was zip-zip-zippee. This morning, though, the MBTA announced delays of up to 15 minutes on trains out of Braintree because it turns out you can replace all the tracks you want, but the trains are going to go slow again if there are signal problems at JFK/UMass.
Photo of seized weapon by Transit PD.
Transit Police report "a large affray amongst juveniles" at the JFK/UMass T stop around 2:40 p.m. on Wednesday ended with four teenagers under arrest, one after he allegedly tried to shank another combatant with a knife that could be disguised as a pen.
This morning, the day after the MBTA announced the end of slow zones on the Blue Line (if not the end of dead trains and malfunctioning signals, the Red Line has turned into a swampy morass of not-getting-anywhere-fast. Read more.
Teddy Kokoros recorded the aftermath of a mighty wind at the JFK/UMass T stop this morning.
Damien Drella reports that high winds caused the partial collapse of a four-story section of an apartment building in Saugus. Read more.
At 4:12 p.m., the MBTA reported a deceased Red Line train at JFK/UMass.
An outbound Red Line train thought it could, but it couldn't, so it died nearJFK/UMass, causing delays that reached 15 minutes shortly after noon but which were cleared shortly before 12:30, the MBTA reports.
Transit Police report arresting a man they say "while armed with a knife, threatened to stab a fellow passenger without provocation," on an inbound Ashmont train about 7:45 a.m. Police say the man was arrested at JFK/UMass on a charge of assault with a dangerous weapon.
Transit Police report arresting several teens they say responded to a woman's request to settle down on the Red Line Thursday night by pointing gel-pellet guns at her - with one opening fire and shooting her in the mouth. Read more.
From video by Timothy Dunn.
The MBTA shut power on the Red Line in both directions at JFK/UMass after a third rail caught fire just before the station around 4:20 p.m. Read more.
The Dorchester Reporter reports the T has added a couple million dollars to its 2024-2028 capital plan to hire a consultant to look at redesigning JFK/UMass, where one entrance had to be shut for four months and where a man fell to his death on a stairway missing stairs that had never been removed despite being marked as unsafe.
The Dorchester Reporter reports the entrance, closed since November as a menace, could re-open after workers finish getting it back into safe shape.
The Dorchester Reporter gets the scoop: Inspectors found a critical structural problem along Columbia Road that required the entrance to be shut over the weekend - along with "additional structural issues" that led to the concourse over the Braintree tracks to be shut - for possibly the next four to five weeks.
The Savin Hill T stop also has some issues, the Reporter adds.
A roving UHub photographer snapped this shot of the only way to get into JFK/UMass from Columbia Road now that the T has shut the original entrance for some sort of construction. For some reason, the T officially would prefer that people coming from the west take the extra hike to the Old Colony/busway entrance.
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