public transit

Some speed restrictions on the Orange Line that have befuddled riders and slowed trips will stay in place into December, more than two months after the MBTA completed a 30-day end-to-end shutdown aimed at fixing those issues, the agency disclosed Tuesday. Most remaining slow zones on the Orange Line, particularly stretches north of downtown Boston, are “scheduled to be lifted…

MBTA Green Line service has been restored in downtown Boston after a power problem caused a suspension durig the evening rush hour, the agency said Tuesday. Service was temporarily suspended between Haymarket and Park Street. Riders can use the Orange Line from North Station or Haymarket to get through downtown. An MBTA spokesperson confirmed as of 5:45 p.m. that service…

A man died after his clothes got stuck in the door of a subway train he was racing to catch, which then dragged him onto the tracks in Manhattan, police said.

Frustrations on the Orange Line remain with slowdowns still in place two weeks after the historic shutdown ended with promises of faster, more efficient services. “It’s slightly been improved. I mean there are parts where it goes slower and it can get annoying. You can miss your bus or get late to class or work,” one passenger said. The...

The slow zones on the MBTA’s Orange Line should soon be a thing of the past, the agency said Wednesday. During the recent 30-day shutdown, one of the MBTA’s goals was to get rid of six slow zones on the track – at Jackson Square and Stony Brook, State and Downtown Crossing, Tufts Medical Center and Back Bay, Community...

Lawmakers will formally return to the topic of MBTA safety failures next week when they convene a second oversight hearing to examine the transit agency. Transportation Committee Co-chairs Rep. William Straus and Sen. Brendan Crighton announced Thursday they scheduled the next hearing for Wednesday, Sept. 14 at 10 a.m. The Democrats said they invited representatives of the Federal Transit Administration,…

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu says there are “serious equity, mobility, environmental, and economic concerns” associated with the MBTA’s ongoing service cuts. New changes to fall service were announced last week and will overlap with a historic shutdown of Orange Line service and a partial shutdown of Green Line service north of North Station. Effective as of this week, the...

Alleging that the MBTA failed to properly examine the impacts of the Orange Line shutdown on communities of color, a civil rights group on Wednesday asked federal authorities to intervene amid what it described as an “illegal and discriminatory” change in service. Lawyers for Civil Rights called for the T to undertake an equity analysis of the 30-day, end-to-end Orange…

Rick Dimino, former transportation commissioner and president & CEO of a Better City, weighs in on the MBTA shutdowns on the Orange and Green Line and what it will mean when students head back to school.

While Boston’s mayor projects a month-long Orange Line and partial Green Line shutdown will unleash “chaos,” Gov. Charlie Baker said Tuesday he feels confident that recent subway closures have gone more or less smoothly. “For the past two summers, we closed the E Branch of the Green Line and ran buses all summer long. People said that was going...

With a top state lawmaker calling for de facto federal receivership of the MBTA to address a torrent of safety failures, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said Monday that the agency needs “a partnership, not a takeover.” Wu, who leads the city at the heart of the T’s sprawling subway, bus and commuter rail network, lamented that the fraying quality...

As the MBTA continues to put out fires on trains and buses, NBC10 Boston asked commuters to describe the public transit system in one word. The answers ranged from “adventurous” to “unreliable,” though the reviews weren’t all bad. “Oh, that’s a tough one,” said Patrick Mulligan, of Somerville. “I would say it’s solid. It’s not necessarily the most reliable...

From adventurous to unreliable, here’s how MBTA riders boil down their experience to one word.

Plenty of MBTA riders have horror stories about something crazy that’s happened to them on their commute, few worse than the story that roughly 200 people have to tell about evacuating an Orange Line train that caught on fire over the Mystic River last month. With that incident and a slew of others in mind, we went out to ask…

Local leaders are raising concerns about reliability and accessibility for riders after state officials announced that the entire MBTA Orange Line will shut down for 30 days in August and September and will be replaced by shuttle buses as the embattled agency works to update its infrastructure and perform key maintenance. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who has previously called for…

The latest incident involves a runaway Red Line train in Braintree.

After being ordered to make urgent safety changes by the federal government las month, the MBTA said Thursday that it has met all current deadlines and requirements and is working on long-term plans to address the concerns. The Federal Transit Administration began investigating the MBTA in April after a recent death and several incidents that caused injuries. In June the agency...

Massachusetts lawmakers will convene an oversight hearing on July 18 to probe safety failures at the MBTA, and they also plan to schedule an additional hearing some time in early August, top Democrats announced Wednesday. Rep. William Straus and Sen. Brendan Crighton, the two chairs of the Legislature’s Transportation Committee, set a date to begin their public examination of a…

More than eight in 10 Massachusetts residents want the MBTA and the state’s regional transit authorities to offer discounted service for riders who earn the least, buoying supporters of the policy as state lawmakers weigh making another run at mandating low-income fare options. Fifty-six percent of Bay Staters surveyed in a MassINC Polling Group poll released Thursday said they strongly…

The MBTA’s Green Line B branch will close for 12 days starting Monday in order to upgrade the tracks and install new safety equipment, T officials announced Thursday. The closure starts Monday, June 20 and should end on Friday, July 1. It runs from the Kenmore station all the way out to the Boston College stop. Shuttle buses will replace…