BostonTimelapse looked out of his South Boston window towards the Blue Hills Reservation around 7:50 tonight and saw the red-hued smoke from brush fires in the park. He reports that an hour later, the fires, or at least the glow from them, had died down. Read more.
Students at both Curry College in Milton and Stoughton High School received text messages today telling them they've been selected to pick cotton "at the nearest plantation." Read more.
A federal appeals court ruled yesterday a lower-court judge was too hasty in dismissing a lawsuit by a Milton Hospital employee who believes current Covid-19 vaccines are made from aborted fetuses and reinstated her claim against the hospital for firing her in 2022 for refusing to get vaccinated or provide her with alternative working conditions to shield her from the public and other hospital workers. Read more.
The state's list of beaches where you need to not even think of going into the water, include Savin Hill and Tenean beaches in Dorchester, Houghton's Pond in Milton and Walden Pond in Concord.
Bobby Boyd went for a walk along the Neponset River Greenway in Mattapan and Milton the other day. Among the things he saw was a snake resting in a tight space on the Milton end of the Harvest River Bridge, a goose of the non-Canada variety near that and a pair of deer on an islet in the river between Central Avenue and Capen Street. Read more.
Just when you think you've heard it all: At 9.26 p.m., the MBTA reported 20-minute delays on the Mattapan Line "due to poor lighting at Valley Road" - which the trolleys were just completely bypassing. The T rolled out shuttle buses.
A consultant's recorder at the Readville yard used by CSX last year.
Frustrated residents from Readville, Dedham and Milton told the MBTA and state Rep. Rob Consalvo (D-Hyde Park) this evening they are fed up with the overnight vibrations, humming and train horns from Readville's two train yards that they say have especially bedeviled them since 2020. Read more.
Update: Body may have been that of a South Boston man missing since November.
State Police report that divers recovered a man's body from the Neponset River, off Granite Avenue in Milton near the Neponset Valley Yacht Club, around 11 a.m. Read more.
After years of Milton residents fretting about evil Bostonians swarming their town, it's time for some turnabout: The executive board of the Cedar Grove Civic Association in Dorchester says its residents should join the fight against a ballot question in Milton that would allow denser development in parts of that town, to keep more commuting Miltonians from swarming their neighborhood. Read more.
A federal judge today dismissed a Milton Hospital office manager's suit over getting fired for refusing Covid-19 shots because the woman initially failed to provide any details about her religious beliefs and why those barred her from getting vaccinated, but that even after she did, she failed to prove her right to practice her religion outweighed the hospital's right to do everything it could to protect its patients and other staffers from a deadly pandemic. Read more.
Mattapan Line riders had to take a bus for most of the day because of a cavalcade of trolley problems today. WCVB reports that when a trolley died at Butler this morning, the T sent out another trolley to try to push it to the Mattapan yard. But then that trolley died. So the T sent out a third trolley to push the two newly deceased trolleys down the short line. It died, too.
A federal judge yesterday dismissed most of a lawsuit by a Milton Hospital office manager who was fired when she refused to get vaccinated against Covid-19. Read more.
Transit Matters runs the numbers and finds that two-week shutdown of the Red Line's Ashmont branch and the Mattapan Line seems to have worked: The trains are back to their 2018 trip times.
Happy days are here again, rider tells MBTA's Phil Eng.
The T reports the 16-day shutdown of the two lines worked, at least so far: All 38 slow zones on the Mattapan Line and the Red Line's Ashmont branch have become normal zones again.
The Dorchester Reporter urges riders to plan ahead - and consider the Fairmount Line, which will be free to CharlieCard holders during the shutdown.
The MBTA announced today it's shutting the Ashmont branch of the Red Line and the Mattapan Line between Oct. 14 and 29 for "critical track work." Read more.
The Dorchester Reporter provides an update on the MBTA's plans to replace the current 1940s trolleys on the Mattapan Line with more recent Green Line trolleys: It could take a decade to get everything ready and would involve the elimination of the current loop track at Ashmont.
The MBTA announced this morning it's lifted most of the speed restrictions on the Mattapan Line, but adds it still has "block restrictions where necessary," so not quite 100% back to being the Mattapan High-ish Speed Line.
Fans of more leisurely trolley rides can still hop on the Green Line, which remains a "global" slow zone as inspectors continue to look for both new track problems and old ones that the T isn't sure if they were actually fixed.
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