Atlast, T service is getting a bit faster
Agency addresses slow zones at a rapid pace
It’s not your imagination; the T is getting faster.
The percentage of subway tracks where trains are forced to slow down because of defects dipped below 20 percent in December for the first time since the MBTA slowed down trains throughout the entire subway system in March, according to the agency’s dashboard. Now 16 percent of the tracks have slow zones.
For many riders, this means recovering precious time that they previously wasted as trains crawled along much of the system, in some areas at speeds as slow as 3 miles per hour.
In March, the T took the drastic step of slowing down trains to a top speed of 25 miles per hour throughout the entire system when the agency’s state regulator, the Department of Public Utilities, found track defects that the T said it didn’t know about. The top speed of the T’s subway trains is normally 40 miles per hour, the agency has said. The agency restored full-speed service to most of the system shortly after, but kept speed restrictions in place for more than 20 percent of the tracks.
With repairs made during the 30day period ending on Dec. 28, the T eliminated 43 speed restrictions, according to the dashboard, marking the most successful month for eliminating slow zones since March.
But the progress came at a cost in the form of subway shutdowns for repairs and even slower commutes for some riders shifted onto shuttle buses.
In November, the T launched its plan to eliminate all slow zones on the subway system by next December by incrementally shutting down parts of the system for days at a time so that workers can make repairs. The plan is a promise kept by General Manager Phillip Eng, who vowed on his first day as head of the agency in April to provide the public with a schedule for when the T would make repairs.
In December, the T shut down long stretches of the Green Line. Prior to that, trains had to slow down to speeds as low as 6 miles per hour for much of the trip from North Station to Heath Street Station. Now there are far fewer speed restrictions left there, according to the T’s dashboard. Some of the elimi
nated speed restrictions, including between the Museum of Fine Arts and Symphony stations, had been frustrating riders there for more than a year, the T’s dashboard shows.
The success signals a fundamental shift in the T’s approach to its infrastructure problems. The T has long opted to slow down trains over faulty areas instead of making repairs in a timely fashion. Even as the Federal Transit Administration admonished the T for failing to properly maintain its tracks in 2022, the agency repeatedly declined to provide the public with information about its slow zones, keeping private the extent of the problem. Only in February did the agency begin to publish data about the zones.
And when the T did shut down parts of the subway for repairs, often the results were mixed. The shutdown of the entire Orange Line in 2022 for track repairs inexplicably resulted in slower, not faster, service.
After the T slowed all trains in March, the agency hired an outside expert to review its processes and tasked its own safety department with investigating how it had overlooked some track defects.
Workers with Maintenance of Way, a department of the MBTA responsible for checking subway infrastructure for defects, either didn’t understand their responsibilities or didn’t fulfill them, reports by an outside expert hired by the T and the agency’s safety department showed last year. As a result, inspectors missed defects on vast swaths of the subway. The reports also said that many workers didn’t have enough experience or training.
Since then, the MBTA has been trying to better document its track defects and repair them. But it wasn’t until December that the percentage of track with slow zones significantly decreased. Now, 21.7 miles of the system’s track has speed restrictions, according to the agency’s dashboard, compared to 31.9 miles at the end of April.
The MBTA also added seven new speed restrictions in the 30day period ending on Dec. 28, which it attributes to better inspections. The agency is aiming to eliminate these new speed restrictions over the next year.
“At General Manager Eng’s direction, there has been a more concerted effort to conduct thorough inspections systemwide on a set cadence — and of course, quite naturally, when looking under the hood, the more you are likely to find,” said agency spokesperson Lisa Battistonl.
Many more shutdowns for track repairs are planned for this year, starting with much of the Green Line in January. Riders can monitor the latest shutdowns on the MBTA website.