Mayor Wu and MBTA Announce Compromises and Another Round of Meetings for Blue Hill Ave. Project
On Friday, the City of Boston and MBTA announced another round of community meetings to discuss “an updated design” for the long-planned addition of dedicated, center-running busway on Blue Hill Avenue, New England’s busiest bus route.
The MBTA considers Blue Hill Avenue one of its highest-priority streets for transit improvements. But Blue Hill Avenue’s busiest bus routes, the 23 and 28, are some of the T’s most crowded routes, and they also rank among the region’s slowest buses.
The T estimates that the new dedicated busway on Blue Hill Avenue will shave 10 to 15 minutes off a typical rush-hour bus trip between Grove Hall and Mattapan Square, and collectively save the neighborhood’s bus riders over 3,000 hours every day.
Those time savings would also let the agency cut costs and operate even more bus service to the corridor, because buses and their drivers would waste less time stuck in traffic.
More lanes, more parking
In spite of those benefits to transit riders, the project has also attracted the ire of a vocal group of car owners in Mattapan and Dorchester.
When project opponents hosted an evening community forum at the Prince Hall Grand Lodge in Grove Hall in March, there was a strong generational divide evident in the audience.
In one memorable exchange, former state senator Dianne Wilkerson asserted that “nobody takes a bus to pick up their fried chicken for dinner.”
But several younger attendees subsequently told her that they did, in fact, use the bus to pick up take-out meals, get to school, and get to work.
In an effort to win over skeptics, the MBTA and City of Boston have announced some revisions to the project’s most recent design.
The agencies are now promising “two or more travel lanes in each direction throughout most of the project area” to preserve most of the avenue’s capacity to accommodate traffic through the neighborhood.
According to a City of Boston and MBTA press release, the new design may also make adjustments to the project’s proposed bicycling facilities.
Previous iterations of the plan (pictured above) included one-way protected bike lanes on either side of the avenue; the new design calls for “a two-way protected lane for bicyclists” instead.
As in previous iterations of the plan, there’s also a big focus on adding shade, greenery, and pedestrian safety improvements. The city is emphasizing plans to plant around 200 new street trees, replace streetlights, and add 20 new signal-controlled crosswalks along the rebuilt Blue Hill Avenue.
Finally, in one of the more significant bids to patronize car owners, the project’s proponents are now promising “a net increase in parking” after the project’s completion.
“The residents, businesses and those that frequent and traverse Blue Hill Avenue deserve a corridor that balances the needs of all,” said Interim Secretary of Transportation and General Manager Phillip Eng in an MBTA press release issued last Friday.
“The community has been asking for and deserves a Blue Hill Avenue redesign that addresses longstanding neighborhood priorities,” he added. “One that improves safety, preserves parking, supports businesses and allows many modes including pedestrians, motor vehicles, buses and bikes.”
One more round of feedback
The city and the T have already spent 6 years and hundreds of meetings collecting public feedback on the Blue Hill Avenue plan.
By 2023, the City of Boston and MBTA published a public engagement report that claimed that planners had already conducted “direct outreach with over 2,800 residents, business owners and staff members, young people, bus riders, (and) community organization representatives.”
This September, the agencies will hold yet another round of evening in-person meetings for the project’s updated design. Those meetings will be:
- Wednesday, September 10, 2026, 6:30 p.m.
Morning Star Baptist Church at 1257 Blue Hill Ave. - Monday, September 14, 2026, 6:30 p.m.
BCYF Perkins Community Center, at 155 Talbot Ave. - Tuesday, September 22, 2026, 6 p.m.
Mattapan Branch Library, at 1350 Blue Hill Ave. - Wednesday, September 30, 2026, 6:30 p.m.
BCYF Holland, at 85 Olney St.
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