Call it a holiday miracle. The MBTA’s keeping to its New Year’s resolution, and riders are celebrating the long-awaited end of slow zones on the transit system.
Transit officials expect trains on all lines to be running at full speed starting Saturday after crews complete maintenance work on the Green Line. Once the MBTA’s final planned closure comes to an end Friday, the transit agency will have fulfilled General Manager Phil Eng’s promise of eliminating speed restrictions by 2025.
The process of ridding the system of slow zones has been long and arduous. The MBTA first announced its track improvement plan in November 2023. The project included a series of staggered, multi-day closures on portions of every subway line in order to lift nearly 200 speed restrictions and replace more than 140,000 feet of rail.
During the shutdowns, the transit agency paid private bus companies millions of dollars to shuttle passengers to their stops. The service interruptions frustrated riders across the region, particularly people with disabilities, and caused traffic jams and delays within the T’s bus network.
But after more than a year of closures, many T riders say the pain was worth it.
“They’re doing a good job,” said Deborah Prentice, who relies on the Orange Line, where slow zones were finally eliminated last month. “It’s nothing like it used to be. It’s way faster. We have more trains. They come at a quicker, faster pace. Everything is just better.”
Other riders are celebrating the news with cautious optimism.
“Keep up the good work,” said Charlie Honig, a native of the Boston area who’s been taking the T for decades. “I think I didn’t realize how bad they [the slow zones] were until they started going away. I’d sort of been resigned to the T’s slow decay.”
His biggest problem? Now, he sometimes misses his stop because he’s not used to arriving at his destination on time.
Honig added that, while he’s excited the system is getting rid of slow zones, he hopes MBTA officials keep their eye on the future.
“There’s obviously a ton more to do. The tracks and the slow zones work is great, but we need more,” he said. “Like I’m standing here at Mass Ave. Station where [water] is dripping through the concrete. It would be cool if we could repair the stations a little bit.”
Transit advocates agree. The nonprofit Transportation For Massachusetts just released a report urgently calling for funding to improve and expand transit options across the commonwealth.
The group’s executive director, Reggie Ramos, said she’s concerned the MBTA’s nearly $800 million budget shortfall for 2025 — which experts have dubbed a “fiscal cliff” — could lead to service cuts.
“We’ve gotten so used to to the T not being able to deliver us quality service that right now with the speed restrictions gone, we think everything can be rosy, but that’s not the case,” she said.
“To plug in an $800-million deficit doesn’t happen every day,” she added. “We are looking at long-term effects of being continually underinvested in.”
Gov. Maura Healey has convened a Transportation Funding Task Force to come up with new ideas to help stabilize the state’s transportation budget. The task force is expected to release its highly anticipated report by December 31.
