T Closing Central Green Line Tunnel for Most of January to Fix More Slow Zones
Today, the MBTA is suspending service on the central segments of all four branches of the Green Line for most of January to try and fix some of the track defects that slow down trains between Kenmore Square and North Station.
The closure will affect the B branch east of Babcock Street, the C and D branches between North Station and Kenmore station, and the entirety of the E branch south of North Station.
On the B, C, and D branches, riders will be able to access closed Green Line stations with free shuttle buses.
On the E branch, the T is asking riders to use the 39 bus route instead. The 39 will operate fare-free during the closure and bring riders to transfer to downtown Boston stations at the Back Bay Orange Line station.
The T plans to re-open the Green Line for regular service for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday weekend, during the weekend of January 13-14 and on the holiday itself, Monday, January 15.
But then the closure will resume again on January 16, and last for 13 more days until Jan. 28.
According to the MBTA’s speed restrictions dashboard, the entire Green Line has 38 speed-restricted segments of track as of January 3.
In a presentation to the MBTA board of directors in November, the T’s management suggested that the current Green Line closure could repair 15 of those speed restrictions and improve end-to-end travel times on the four branches of the Green Line by 8.7 minutes.
At the beginning of December, a previous nine-day closure of the same central segments of the Green Line in Boston allowed the T to remove 12 slow zones – two more than the T had initially planned to tackle.
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