BOSTON — The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority announced it eliminated six speed restrictions during the latest service shutdown on its rapid transit network, suspensions of Orange Line service between North Station and Oak Grove June 22-23 and between North Station and Wellington June 24-30.
“We continue to accomplish long deferred maintenance, repairs, and full-depth track replacement across our system, fulfilling our commitment to our riders and the communities we serve, delivering reliable, safe, and quicker trips,” MBTA CEO Phillip Eng said in a press release. “With each diversion, we maximize every opportunity to tackle this work, including station improvements, through better planning, scoping, and coordination.”
The latest work was in coordination with a Massachusetts Department of Transportation project to replace bridge superstructures at Maffa Way and Mystic Avenue, providing more time for the Track Improvement Program announced last with the goal of eliminating outstanding system slow orders. During the service outages, crews replaced over 5,700 feet of running rail and nearly 3,200 ties; resurfaced and tamped 10,500 feet of track; performed 657 feet of full-depth track construction; performed signal and switch modernization work between the Oak Grove and Assembly stations; and addressed station repairs and upgrades at the Sullivan Square, Community College, and Assembly stations, among other projects.
Additional Orange Line work is planned to address speed restrictions north of Wellington later this year.
According to the MBTA’s speed restriction dashboard, the number of speed restrictions — 143 covering 22.1 miles as of Jan. 1 — has been reduced to 80 covering 10.7 miles as of July 1.
