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.
Not quite up to full sprinting speed yet.
The MBTA announced tonight it's cleared a bunch of track problems and put up the proper signs for trolley drivers so it's lifting the "global" speed restrictions on the Green Line, just a few hours after it said the entire Green Line would remain a slow zone for awhile. Read more.
After saying yesterday the only reason to keep the entire Green Line as a slow zone was to put up signs to alert train drivers to individualized slow zones, the MBTA announced today it's steady, um, slow as she goes for the entire Green Line because they've found more track problems. Read more.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
PT watched as somebody drove an old Honda Fit right down the inbound E Line tracks last night.
Open, non-functioning Green Street station at 7:44 a.m. Photo by Sunsan Ellsbree.
Update: GBH reports a transformer in South Boston failed, triggering a power surge that tripped a circuit breaker.
In the middle of rush hour, the MBTA lost power to the signaling systems on all its subway lines - and at some stations - leaving some riders stranded and others breaking out their phones to call a ride-share to work. Read more.
Neal spotted this hand-drawn Green Line Extension on a system map at Haymarket the other day.
Jessica Dello Russo, meanwhile, shows that Haymarket could stand some guerrilla leak sealers and mold-remediation experts, too: Read more.
Josh Borrow reports from a hobbled C Line trolley that it took him 25 minutes to get from Coolidge Corner to Kenmore Square this morning because of a trolley that limped into Kenmore, then promptly expired.
Dan Kennedy asked ChatGPT, one of those AI-based online researchy things that are all the rage these days, to write a description of the T that Herman Melville might have written.
It is a system that demands both patience and cunning, for one must be quick of foot and mind to catch the right train, or else suffer the indignity of waiting upon a frigid platform for what seems an eternity.
The MBTA yesterday announced its latest round of weekend shutdowns aimed at upgrading various things it didn't upgrade during last year's month-long Orange Line shutdown and to account for the continuing demolition of the Government Center Garage, which will also affect the Green Line. Read more.
Sign says "Here All Belong" - except SUV drivers on the tracks. Photo by TPD.
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