Trouble on the T

A burst of new hiring and worse-than-projected ridership deepened the MBTA’s financial woes and officials project the agency will need to navigate a sizable budget gap in the upcoming cycle. MBTA higher-ups rolled out new financial estimates Friday that widened the gap between revenues and projected spending, which could set the scene for ren...

Train service in Boston was heavily disrupted Tuesday morning on both the MBTA’s Red and Orange lines following reports of smoke at Downtown Crossing. Shuttle buses replaced Red Line and Orange Line service at more than a dozen stops in the area on Tuesday morning. Stretches of the Green Line in the same area were also offline for a...

MBTA workers experienced three safety incidents in the past two weeks, the latest speedbumps as higher-ups work to address deep-rooted problems and overhaul the transit agency’s culture. Officials disclosed the trio of events at a board meeting on Wednesday, where they also acknowledged the agency is falling short of some of its annual target...

The MBTA announced Tuesday morning that it has completed track work on the Red Line between the JFK/UMass and Park Street stations, resulting in the removal of nine slow zones. Shuttle buses replaced service between the stations during the night from Nov. 14-16 and all day throughout last weekend. “Each step we take to repair our infrastructure is ...

The sticker shock is setting in after the MBTA announced it needs $24.5 billion to fix the system. The question now is how Massachusetts is going to pay for it. MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng said fare hikes are off the table, but the executive director of the MBTA’s Advisory Board, Brian Kane, said taxpayers will end up footing the…...

If you want a fully functioning MBTA, it will cost you — a lot, according to the agency. The T on Thursday put the price tag for all the necessary repairs at about $24.5 billion. That’s more than the final cost of the Big Dig, adjusted for inflation. The capital needs assessment is what it would cost to bring the…

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority says it will cost $24.5 billion to repair the system’s many problems, according to an internal analysis released Thursday. That cost includes only repairs and not any upgrades to the system. You can read the full report here. “Restoring reliability and ensuring safety are priorities as we rebuild...

Part of the MBTA Red Line is shut down for the next 16 days, affecting some 44,000 riders as crews work to replace some of the oldest track in the T’s system. The T is suspending service on the Ashmont Branch between JFK/UMass and Ashmont stations and the Mattapan Line between Ashmont and Mattapan stations from Oct. 14-29 so crews…...

Part of the Red Line is set to shutdown this weekend for more than two weeks, affecting some 44,000 riders as crews work to replace some of the oldest track in the T’s system. The T is suspending service on the Ashmont Branch between JFK/UMass and Ashmont stations and the Mattapan Line between Ashmont and Mattapan stations from Oct....

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey on Wednesday called a dramatic slowdown of the Green Line Extension “incredibly frustrating,” but declined to provide any details about how the nearly brand-new tracks fell into such poor condition so quickly. The MBTA last week disclosed that it had slashed speeds on the Green Line Extension to 3 mph in ...

The MBTA’s board of directors met Thursday as issues with the transportation agency continue to pile up. The latest problem is that trains on the new Green Line Extension are operating extremely slowly. The sudden emergence of speed restrictions on some of the newest tracks in the T’s system — in some places, Green Line trains are...

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu sounded the alarm about the MBTA’s woes during a radio interview on Monday, saying what used to be a “stress-free” experience now has people leaving it altogether because of its unreliability. “We are in a very, very dire place, just in terms of service delivery,” Wu said on WBUR’s &#8220...

MBTA officials added another pair of partial Red Line weekend closures to a long list of maintenance-fueled disruptions planned in October. Shuttle buses will replace Red Line service between Broadway and Ashmont on the Ashmont Branch and between Broadway and North Quincy on the Braintree Branch all day on the weekends of Sept. 30-Oct. 1 and Oct. 7...