BOSTON (WHDH) - Mayor Michelle Wu spoke about what the city should expect with the upcoming month-long Orange Line shutdown claiming that the shutdown’s timing may be the biggest problem.
“It will be chaos,” said Wu.
The shutdown is expected to last from about 9 p.m. on August 19 through September 18, with service resuming on Monday, September 19. Boston Public Schools are scheduled to start on September 1.
Wu said the city is hard at work, putting in various measures to lessen the impact of the shutdown.
Some of the measures being put up by the city are:
- Getting more Blue Bikes ready and lining up funding for free or discounted passes.
- Finalizing bus shuttle routes and stops
- Securing more than a thousand traffic cones and putting up hundreds of plastic posts and message boards to mark off dedicated lanes and spaces for the shuttle buses.
Students are likely to take a hit from the month-long Orange Line shutdown happening during the start of school. Wu said to deal with this potential problem, she and her staff will be reaching out to students, teachers and residents to get them the information they need to make their travel plans during the shutdown.
“We are fighting to make sure this moment is one where we start to make right finally and that the unprecedented painful four week shutdown of the Orange Line and a partial shutdown of the Green Line as well actually results in the improvements and the changes so that we can count on this service when we come back on line,” said Wu.
The Governor and the MBTA announced the 30-day shutdown of the Orange Line to conduct the kind of overhaul that would take five years of work squeezed in on nights and weekends.
The Federal Transit Authority (FTA) is expected to release a sweeping safety review of the MBTA in August.
One of the state’s top lawmakers leading the committee overseeing the MBTA said maybe the Feds should take over the agency temporarily.
“I think enough has occurred, and continues to occur, that the FTA needs to have essentially a daily role in making sure what they order the T to do does get done,” said State Representative William Straus, Co-chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation.
However, Wu and Senator Ed Markey said they would rather see the FTA work with local leaders than replace them.
“The further away you get in terms of federal oversite of a local service, a complete takeover, I think, raises concerns about what that impact would be,” said Wu.
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