MBTA’s weekday service reductions begin in response to federal directives

Starting Monday, MBTA service on three of the busy subway lines will be cut to Saturday-like levels as the agency works to comply with recent directives issued by the Federal Transit Administration during a safety review. Because of new staffing requirements at the MBTA’s Operations Control Center, Line trains will operate every 14 to 15 minutes on the Ashmont and Braintree branches and seven to eight minutes on the main trunk. Orange Line trains will run every six to seven minutes during peak periods and seven to eight minutes during off-peak times.

Blue Line trains will run every seven minutes until 9 a. m. and then every eight to nine minutes for the rest of the day.

Officials said Green Line service will not be affected on any day and weekend service will not be changed on the lines that are affected. The recent federal inspection found the MBTA’s Operations Control Center “is not appropriately staffed,” which creates “an increased safety risk. ” An official said some employees were working 20-hour-long shifts with breaks of only 4 hours between shifts.

MBTA officials have described the OCC as “the nerve system of the T itself. ” Dispatchers are supposed to coordinate every movement of every train. In addition to improving staffing levels, the MBTA was also ordered to ensure all OCC staff members are properly certified and that supervisors are not simultaneously assigned dual roles.

The Federal Transit Administration’s review began in May in response to a series of derailments, collisions, fatalities and other incidents. That review was scheduled to end Friday with a final meeting involving FTA officials and the MBTA. On Wednesday, the FTA issued a series of directives to the MBTA and the Department of Public Utilities, ordering the Massachusetts agencies “to take immediate action on safety issues.

” Former Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation Jim Aloisi said the MBTA needs to recruit employees, but worries what will happen if they can’t. “If the gap can’t be filled, I don’t know how you go back to normal service in the fall, If you think the gap needs to be filled in order to run service that way it should,” Aloisi said. The weekday subway service cuts are expected to last throughout the summer but officials said they plan to return to full service once they have enough dispatchers to meet the federal requirements.

“The MBTA is exploring multiple options to add capacity at the Control Center, including an aggressive recruitment campaign, offering bonuses, and potentially hiring back former dispatchers,” officials wrote. Boston mayor Michelle Wu called the service cuts frustrating. “We need to be investing more in transit right now and seeing more accessibility, as opposed to it being rolled back.

” One exception to the revised summer schedule is for the afternoon and evening of Monday, Jul. 4, when the MBTA said regular weekday service will accommodate Independence Day festivities. Other problems highlighted by the FTA this week included backlogs of thousands of known defects related to rail infrastructure.

One example where the MBTA was specifically ordered to make repairs was a curved track section on the Orange Line between Tufts Medical Center and Back Bay Stations, which has been under a speed restriction due to excessive wear and defects since 2019. .