Blue Line
Crumbling Orient Heights T stop to get rehab; work will mean service disruptions
By adamg - 1/26/12 - 9:42 pmThe East Boston Times-Free Press reports the station will be completely replaced by the spring of 2014 and that work to begin later this year will mean the station will be shut for six months and that buses will replace trains past Airport on weekends for four months.
Police finger man for MBTA pervishness
By adamg - 12/29/11 - 9:14 am
Updated with arrest information.
A Roxbury man was ordered held in lieu of $5,000 bail today on charges he used a special slit in his pants to masturbate and expose himself on a Blue Line train as it traveled under Boston Harbor on Dec. 24, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.
Abdelhakim Rezzoug was arraigned in East Boston District Court on a charge of open and gross lewdness for the incident. A rider captured him on video as he got off the train at Airport around 5:40 p.m., MBTA Transit police say. The DA's office says that not long after MBTA police released a wanted poster, a Boston Police sergeant reported he knew that guy - he was a resident of a DMH facility.
The DA's office says Rezzoug was arrested today on the Blue Line and that he will also be charged for a similar incident earlier on Dec. 24 on the Red Line.
The video taken by a passenger:
Who can take a rainbow, wrap it in a sigh?
By adamg - 11/21/11 - 7:21 pmOrange Bird tweets:
Nothing perks up a bad day like hearing the Sammy Davis Jr. doppelganger at Gov Center sing "Candyman"
Cell service coming to all T stops, tunnels, but not all cell users will have coverage
By adamg - 10/5/11 - 7:54 amThe Daily Free Press reports the company that's built cell antennas along the Red and Orange lines is extending the service to the underground portions of the Green and Blue lines.
Whether you can actually take advantage of that depends on whether your carrier has signed a contract with the company. AT&T and T-Mobile, for example, will have systemwide coverage; Verizon has only signed a contract for four downtown stations, the Globe reports.
Remember when local highways used to have signs advertising the T as "the alternate route?"
By adamg - 9/13/11 - 3:23 pmThe MBTA just reported:
Blue Line. Expect significant delays due to a wire problem. Seek alternative transportation where possible.
The Blue Line sure seems to have a lot of wire problems.
Nice day for a walk
By adamg - 9/10/11 - 5:27 pm
Joel Barciauskas photographed Blue Line passengers being evacuated at Orient Heights late this afternoon. The T blames "wire problems."
Man with knife charged with threatening to kill Blue Line worker, getting into it with T cop
By adamg - 8/19/11 - 1:30 pm
A Jamaica Plain man got cut over his left eye during a struggle with an MBTA Transit Police officer investigating threats against a worker at the Wood Island Blue Line stop last night.
According to a police report, officers got a call around 9:30 p.m. from a customer-service agent at the station about a "loud and disruptive" man whom the CSA said had threatened to kill him. The officers were able to get Gentyrus Gibbs, 36, out of the station, but when they told him to sit down, he instead jumped up and came at one of the officers - who noticed he had a sheathed knife on his right hip. The two battled and both fell to the ground, with Gibbs getting a cut open above his right eye, the report says. As another officer grabbed his legs, the report says, the first cuffed him.
Police say Gibbs refused to let EMTs - or medical personnel at Mass. General - treat his cut and the hospital eventually put him in four-point leather restraints, the report says.
The report does not state what allegedly set Gibbs off.
Innocent, etc.
State wants to drive stake through heart of undead connector between Red and Blue lines
By adamg - 8/1/11 - 6:59 pmIn addition to announcing more delays in the Green Line extension, the state Department of Transportation wants to make sure the dormant proposal to extend the Blue Line to Charles/MGH stays dead.
In a filing with state environmental officials, MassDOT says spending another $49 million to study finishing what is now a $748 million project it has no intentions to build is pretty damn stupid, so it wants to be released from any obligations to do more studies.
As a matter of policy, MassDOT believes that it is irresponsible to spend precious public funds to design and permit transportation projects for which there are no identified construction funds, particularly given the need to continually refresh planning and permitting materials for major projects. To pursue final design of the Red Line/Blue Line Connector project at this point would be to squander resources that could otherwise be spent on projects for which construction funds are already committed.
Therefore, MassDOT is initiating a process to amend the [State Implementation Plan] to permanently and completely remove the obligation to perform final design of the Red Line/Blue Line Connector.
MBTA to run 'near rush-hour' subway service on Saturday
By adamg - 6/16/11 - 3:37 pmThe T says it's beefing up service on Saturday for the Bruins victory parade, which kicks off at 11 a.m. at the Garden.
All four subway lines will run at "near rush hour" schedules during the day. The T says it will also have extra orange-vested workers stationed throughout the system to help riders unfamiliar with how to use CharlieCards or get to the parade route.
The T said commuter rail will run on its normal Saturday schedule, but that it hopes to announce some additional service tomorrow.
Because of the expected crush of fans at the Garden, the T is urging people who want to be right there to use other stations, such as Haymarket and Government Center, or even Park Street and Downtown Crossing, and then walk over.
A novel reason for a Blue Line outage: Rodeo
By adamg - 6/16/11 - 3:01 pmLast week, Boston hosted the American Public Transportation Association's annual rail conference. A highlight of the conference is always the rail rodeo, in which teams from subway systems across the continent compete in both train maintenance and operation.
Turns out some Blue Line riders had to take a shuttle bus instead of trains to let the teams do some competition - and get some training - on real subway tracks. On Friday, the T substituted buses for trains between 9:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. between Orient Heights (where the Blue Line maintenance facilities are) and Wonderland, then repeated the bustitution on Saturday from early in the morning until 3 p.m.
T spokesman Joe Pesturo says the outage also let T maintenance workers "address and rectify some defective lighting systems at Orient Heights and Wonderland Stations."
