Readers: Have you noticed the Orange Line improvements?
We want to know if your commute has improved.
When the MBTA first announced that it would have to shut down the Orange Line for much of September, officials said it was necessary to make significant improvements to the line. Now that trains are back up and running, we want to know if those improvements are getting noticed by the people it matters to most — commuters.
There were a couple of shaky starts — including problems with train doors and a smoky escalator — but, overall, MBTA officials were happy with the results of the closure and the reopening. General manager Steve Poftak told reporters that his own commute was smoother, but noted that it may take another week for all the improvements to be felt.
“As the General Manager said on Sunday, slow zones will remain in place for about a week after service resumes,” MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo told the Boston Globe. “This is because it takes time for the new track and ballast to settle as trains repeatedly run over the areas where the slow zone removal work was done.”
Some readers felt the closure went well enough that they’d support the city doing this again on other lines. In a recent Boston.com poll, 66% of the more than 100 readers polled said they think the shutdown went better than they expected.
“If additional planned shutdowns mean a faster path to safer and quicker trains then it seems to be the right, albeit challenging, approach,” said Allison from Malden.
Despite this, there’ve been grumblings from riders who say they haven’t seen any speed improvements the MBTA has touted. During the first week of the reopening, several riders took to Twitter to complain that their commute was taking longer than before the shutdown.
“@MBTA When are these slow zones going away?” one rider wrote in a Tweet. “12 min to go 2 stops on the Orange Line is cuckoo. My commute from Oak Grove to Downtown is unacceptable, it’s 3x as long as usual. You need to be specific in your info as to how bad these slow zones really are and when they’ll stop.”
Have you ridden the Orange Line since it reopened? We want to know what your experience has been. Tell us if you’ve noticed the changes by filling out the survey below or e-mailing us at [email protected] and we may feature your response in a future article or on Boston.com social media channels.
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