MA: The MBTA has just 2 slow zones: What work remains?

A year ago, the MBTA network had nearly 200 slow zones, areas where aging infrastructure and delayed maintenance kept trains from running at their top speed.

Just two such spots remain.

The Red Line is slow-zone free for the first time in 15 years, the MBTA announced Monday after wrapping up a week of work that closed stations from Harvard in Cambridge to Broadway in South Boston. The Orange Line was liberated of slow zones early in November, for the first time since 2010, the T said.

“At the end of the day, it’s not just about removing the restrictions,” MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng said last week at a meeting of the agency’s Board of Directors. “It’s about giving the riders, the public, improved service, that reliability that they count on.”

Eyes now turn to the Green Line, where the final pair of speed restrictions are in effect between Government Center and North Station.

A significant portion of the line is scheduled for two weeks of maintenance in December.

During the upcoming work, all four Green Line branches will be closed north of Park Street station in Downtown Boston from Dec. 6 to 20.

For travel between Medford/Tufts station and North Station, the MBTA will provide shuttle buses free of charge. For travel downtown, the agency urged riders to take the Orange Line.

The shuttles will not service Union Square station. Instead, riders should use the 86 and 91 buses.

For all closures, full details on the alternative transit options can be found on the MBTA’s website.

By repairing its infrastructure and removing slow zones, the agency has increased the frequency of trains, Eng said at the board meeting last week. The T now averages one Blue Line train every four minutes, one Orange Line train every six minutes and one Red Line train every five minutes on weekdays.

Data collected by TransitMatters, a public transit advocacy group, shows the median southbound trip on the Red Line took about 44 minutes this week, more than 10 minutes faster than it did in the first week of the year.

The median southbound Orange Line trip took 33 minutes this week, a minute or two faster than at the beginning of the year, but more than 10 minutes faster than at its slowest points last year.

“The public can really be able to now start to enjoy the fruits of what we’ve been able to put together,” Eng said.

Riders can still expect some track closures in 2025 as the MBTA continues to upgrade train signals and complete other work. But “it won’t be to the level that we had this year,” Eng said.

Signal work on the Red and Orange Lines should be done by early 2026, he said.

The T has seen repeated partial shutdowns over the last year, some stretching multiple weeks, to allow crews to work through the massive maintenance backlog the agency committed to clearing.

Had the work only taken place at night, when the subway system is normally closed, the full slate of work would have taken far longer to complete.

“We would have been here for 10 years probably,” Eng remarked this summer, just before a three-and-a-half-week closure of part of the Red Line.

“It’s a lot of catch-up but I thank the public for their patience,” Eng, who was appointed last year after serving in top posts in New York City’s public transit, said. “Because at the end of this year, they will have a system that they can better rely on.”

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