Systemwide Speed Restriction 3/10/23

Posted on March 10, 2023
Tonight, the MBTA has announced speed restrictions between 10-25 miles per hour on the Red, Orange, Blue, and Green Lines effective immediately.

The speed restrictions are the result of findings following a recent site visit of the Red Line between Ashmont and Savin Hill by the Department of Public Utilities.

These actions will add additional travel time for people taking the T. The MBTA apologizes in advance for these inconveniences and remains committed to operating the transit system in the safest manner possible.

https://www.mbta.com/news/2023-03-10/mb ... reen-lines

Unbelievable how bad things have gotten

To many administrations kicking the can down the road to the next administration. Now it's in Healey's lap and it can't be kicked down anymore.

Very quick digest from the press conference:

-Sounds like main issue was discrepancies or record-keeping issues between track geometry car inspections, visual track inspections, and how all of that was correlated into appropriate slow orders.

-Once known, decision was made to apply blanket slow orders of 25 mph straight track, 10 mph on curves and special work.

-Sounds like they're conducting re-inspections of all lines now to identify that all local slow orders needed are in place. As of 10:00 AM Friday, the blanket full-line slow orders were lifted on the RL, OL, and BL, with (I'm guessing) new local slow orders.

-Green Line and Mattapan still under full slow orders until inspections done.

In the 1970s, the sign at the entrance to the Harvard Square Red Line station said "8 minutes to Park Street".

The sad state of the T suggests that this Commonwealth has no real commitment to public transportation, even if it's willing to spend $16 billion to bury a highway under Boston.

Not since the Duke was Governor.

I'm not following this. Are these speed restrictions at specified locations each for a short distance or is it a system-wide reduction in speed on all parts of all the lines involved?

charlesriverbranch wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 12:49 pm In the 1970s, the sign at the entrance to the Harvard Square Red Line station said "8 minutes to Park Street".

That implies two minutes running time per stop (Central, Kendall, Charles, Park Street), a tight schedule
to hold.

Unless the postwar 01400s were faster or geared to higher acceleration.

The curves at Harvard didn't exist, and the cars didn't have speedometers so it was full parallel from one stop to the next and no ATO to bring trains down to 25mph in platforms. Every deuce had its own door guard so you weren't holding 24 doors open while trying to see what the guy is doing 400 feet away. Plus with shorter trains on shorter headways stations didn't have time to overcrowd which drastically cut down dwell times.

Yes, back then 8 minutes to Park St was not a problem.

I would raise the question today: Why is it taking so long to inspect the tracks and facilities?

And I would say they are not doing their best. Best would include running trains more frequently so some of the time spent in slow speeds would be made up by less time waiting for the train to arrive at your starting station..

Now, I was told that the maximum speed of a Type 5 (mainstay of the Green Line in the days of "8 minutes to Park St."? was a bit under 25 MPH. The Green Line also had "8 minutes to Park St" (or was it ten?) at either or both of the Blandford St. and St Mary's portals near Kenmore.

Think it was 10 min and located at St Mary's

How long is the typical ride today from Harvard to Park St.?

My normal Wood Island - Hynes route is about 35-40 minuets during rush hour. It took me 1 hour and 20 munities yesterday. The way home was worse.

Head-end View wrote: ↑Wed Mar 15, 2023 8:40 pm I'm not following this. Are these speed restrictions at specified locations each for a short distance or is it a system-wide reduction in speed on all parts of all the lines involved?

Currently, it is the former for all lines except the Green Line. For the Green Line, there is a "global" speed restriction, meaning that, unless a lower speed is posted or there is an existing slow zone, the line speed limit is reduced to 25 mph. The other lines had these restrictions at the time of the announcement, but they have since been lifted in favor of the slow zone segments that you describe (though perhaps they are not "short" distances).