Blue Line

Crumbling Orient Heights T stop to get rehab; work will mean service disruptions

adamg — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:42:51 +0000

The 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

adamg — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:14:44 +0000

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?

adamg — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:21:54 +0000

Orange 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

adamg — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 12:54:14 +0000

The 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?"

adamg — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 20:23:02 +0000

The 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

adamg — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 22:27:01 +0000

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

adamg — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:30:51 +0000

8/18/11 - 9:30 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

adamg — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 23:59:29 +0000

In 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

adamg — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 20:37:07 +0000

The 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

adamg — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 20:01:33 +0000

Last 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."

Railroad.net discussion on the topic.

A shower of sparks from the overhead wires rarely a good omen on the Blue Line

adamg — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 11:17:30 +0000

At 6:58 a.m., Rodney Brown tweeted:

Might be late this a.m. Sparks showering down from overhead catenary wires where they meet the front of the Blue Line car I'm in.

At 7:11 a.m., Jennifer Montfort tweeted:

Delays on the Blue line inbound, fire problem at Wood Island. At Orient Heights waiting for the bus.

T worker tackles robbery suspect at Maverick, holds him for police

adamg — Fri, 13 May 2011 13:11:00 +0000

5/12/11 - 11:23 pm

WHOMP! Inspector tackles suspect, around 1:02 on this MBTA surveillance video.

Snellman and GrisoliaAn MBTA inspector who saw a Watertown man mug a woman about to get on the train at Maverick last night didn't let the guy leave the station, MBTA Transit Police say.

According to a police report, Inspector Ira Lawrence was in the customer-service booth at the Blue Line station around 11:20 p.m. when he noticed Sean Snellman hand a guitar and bag to Brittney Grisolia, then run toward a woman and grab one of the two purses she was carrying:

Trash fire briefly stops Blue Line service at Bowdoin

adamg — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 12:47:41 +0000

Around 7:30 a.m., on the tracks, natch, Channel 5 tweets.

Blue Line on fire at Bowdoin

adamg — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 23:04:19 +0000

Electrical fire on the tracks; power being shut down.

4/11/11 - 6:45 pm

T wants to shut Government Center stop for three years

adamg — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:39:43 +0000

The Herald reports MBTA officials figure a full shutdown would let them rehab the station in less time and wouldn't drag on forever and ever like certain other T-stop projects one could think of.