Education

Wu outlines Orange Line back-to-school plan

“No matter whose problem it is, it will affect every single person who lives in our city."

Buses wait to load up with students from Boston Latin Academy in January 2022. Jonathan Wiggs /Globe Staff

By Marta Hill

3 minutes to read

The start of school for Boston Public Schools students is almost here, and this year’s transportation situation has an extra wrinkle: the ongoing Orange Line shutdown. 

“We’ve been working so hard and part of me is so frustrated because we were going to prove to everyone that it was possible to have a great first week [of busing to schools],” Mayor Michelle Wu said on Java with Jimmy Wednesday. “We were way ahead of where we had ever been. All the things were done. … And now the Orange Line (shutdown) is raising the difficulty level of challenge.”

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Wu said she is grateful for everyone who pitched in to adjust the plan when the city was informed of the closure.

“We’ve encouraged and made available anyone who is usually an MBTA passholder in seventh through 12th grade, they can come back and use the yellow bus,” Wu said. “We’re giving waivers so that if people feel safer and more comfortable they can do that.”

Students in seventh and eighth grade can apply for the waiver on the Boston Public Schools (BPS) support portal, according to the Boston Globe.

Officials also renegotiated with the bus drivers union to supplement traditional yellow bus routes with van drivers, Wu said. The agreement includes contracting additional companies to drive vans along 45 routes to serve students who travel to schools outside of the city, according to the Globe.

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“There are many young people, particularly students with disabilities, who have placements outside of the school district to get the services that they are required by law, and they’re also required to have transportation, so usually some of our yellow bus drivers are driving students from Boston out to other schools, sometimes one one at a time,” Wu said. “We have contractors with vans to take some of those routes so that more of our bus drivers can be on hand.”

BPS is discussing the possibility of the MBTA providing shuttle services for Boston students who go to school along the Orange Line, though the feasibility of this is based on commuter ridership on current shuttle buses, according to the Globe.

Meanwhile, students who arrive late to school during the closure will not be penalized, BPS told the Globe.

The Orange Line shutdown is scheduled to remain in effect until the morning of Sept. 19, seven school days after students return to most BPS schools. According to the Globe, district leaders identified 28 schools impacted by the Orange Line shutdown and estimated that 4,676 students live within a mile of the Orange Line and receive a T pass from BPS.

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On Java with Jimmy, Wu emphasized that the city has “absolutely no direct authority over the T,” ever since a change in 2015 that removed the “only tiny power” the city had over the T through a vote on a local budget advisory board. Nevertheless, Wu said the city has some less direct ways to influence the system.

“We as a city are in charge of the roads that the T buses drive on, we are in charge of what we set aside for parking versus bus lanes, or the signals and how they respond and how fast they change and for what kinds of vehicles,” Wu said. 

The plans for the Orange Line shutdown were revealed to the public Aug. 3. Wu said the city found out before, but only by two days. Wu said the city could have stepped back because the Orange Line isn’t under their authority, but instead recognized the widespread implications of the shutdown and stepped in to help.

“No matter whose problem it is, it will affect every single person who lives in our city. We’ve been trying to do our best just to step in and support and push a lot of the changes that have actually led to specific tweaks in the plan and big picture goals that I don’t think the T would have necessarily arrived at on their own,” Wu said.

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