The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s 11-mile-long Orange Line has been entirely shut down for 30 days, beginning at 9 p.m. on Aug. 19. The shutdown is supposed to end on Sept. 18. The line carries 101,000 riders a day and is an essential line of transportation for people of Massachusetts.
The move comes in the wake of safety failures that prompted the Federal Transit Administration to take on safety oversight of the MBTA in April. Authorities are trying to improve the troubled MBTA following a series of incidents that include runaway trains and collisions, and they hope the maintenance work will improve safety and reliability.
The line carries 101,000 riders a day.
MBTA General Manager Steve Poftak said the network would replace more than two-thirds of a mile of track and improve signals. Crews have been working as early as last Friday to repair parts of the transit system. The MBTA said the 30-day shutdown would improve travel times between stations.
The monthlong loss of an essential transit line in one of the nation’s largest public transportation systems comes as transit agencies across the country face a $176 billion backlog to bring their systems to a state of good repair, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2021 Infrastructure Report Card.
