For the next 24 days, the MBTA will shut down a major portion of the Red Line for long-overdue maintenance on 18 miles of tracks.
The work beginning Friday will close the Red Line’s Braintree branch from its terminus in Braintree to the JFK/UMass station in Dorchester — a stretch “that needs to be restored and replaced,” MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng said. “That is a significant amount of work we’re doing in literally 24 days.”
But when the project is completed on Sept. 29, assuming no delays, trains will safely move much more efficiently, according to the MBTA. Roundtrip travel on the branch could improve by 24 minutes, the agency said.
That’s “giving people back time in their days,” Eng said Wednesday at a news conference in Brookline.
Round-the-clock closures are disruptive, no doubt, but necessary, transit officials said. If repair crews could only work an hour or two each night when the Red Line is normally closed, “we would have been here for 10 years probably,” Eng said.
During the shutdown, the MBTA said a combination of free shuttle buses and Commuter Rail lines would carry riders between Red Line stations.
The closure was certainly on the mind of Elizabeth Garcia, a UMass Boston student who commutes from Randolph. She normally takes the Red Line from the Dorchester campus to Braintree and catches a ride home.
The Commuter Rail will be quicker but run less frequently. For Garcia and other UMass commuters, that will mean more planning and likely more hanging out on campus, waiting for the next train. But as long as the maintenance was productive, Garcia was for it.
“If you’ve got to shut it down, shut it down. But get it fixed,” she said.
The work is the latest step in a major undertaking to bring the full length of the MBTA into a “state of good repair” by year’s end — meaning it will be structurally sound, functional and compliant with safety and performance standards.
Last week the T reopened a large portion of the Red Line stretching from Boston into Cambridge after an eight-day maintenance shutdown.
The work allowed it to lift safety-related speed restrictions in a half-dozen areas.
“What we’ve been through this year, I know has been tough for a lot of riders,” said Eng, who was appointed last year after serving in top posts in New York City’s public transit. “But the endgame is to have long, reliable and sustainable service that is faster.”
“It’s a lot of catch-up but I thank the public for their patience,” he added. “Because at the end of this year, they will have a system that they can better rely on.”
Paul Norton of Hingham said the work is “long overdue” and that pressure is now on government leaders “to get this done and get it done right.”
“This should have been done before you were born,” he told a 20-something reporter while waiting for a Braintree-bound train at JFK/UMass Thursday afternoon.
In the absence of Red Line service, the MBTA will ferry riders on shuttle buses for free between the Braintree, Quincy Adams, Quincy Center, Wollaston, North Quincy and Ashmont transit stations.
Commuter Rail service at the affected stops will also be free on the Kingston, Middleborough and Greenbush lines, which run adjacent to the Red Line.
The shuttle buses will not stop at JFK/UMass. Riders boarding or exiting at that station should instead use the Commuter Rail when possible, the MBTA said.
There is one twist: the Commuter Rail lines will also be replaced by free shuttle buses between South Station and Braintree during the weekends of Sept. 7-8 and Sept. 14-15.
The work will not affect the Ashmont Branch of the Red Line. The MBTA will increase the number of Ashmont trains to keep service consistent over the rest of the Red Line.
“A lot of people are going to need to swing their schedules around it,” Norton said.
But by shutting down train service, MBTA work crews can enjoy unencumbered access to the tracks for more than three weeks, allowing them to finish projects significantly quicker.
The work will include replacing tracks and ties, resurfacing and tamping track areas and upgrading station amenities, the T said.
The repairs will allow the T to lift over 20 speed restrictions on the Red Line, the agency said. About 6% of all MBTA tracks are still under speed restrictions, a majority of them on the Red Line.
Chris Leach of Cambridge said his travel between Harvard Square and Kendall Square was noticeably quicker after recent work on that section of the Red Line. Still, he recalls the hassle of taking the shuttle bus while the train line was closed.
“It was way more time,” Leach said. “It adds half an hour to everyone trying to get to work”
“You’ve got to leave early, and who wants to do that?” he added.
Transit officials hope improvements to the tracks this month will not just eliminate speed restrictions, but set them up to increase Red Line speeds in the future.
“I know the folks on the Red Line have some of the longest trips,” Eng said. “All of the work we’ve done to date has been giving people back time in their days.”
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