BOSTON (WHDH) - The first weekday morning commute of the 30-day Orange Line shutdown is off to a smooth start for riders.
“Not bad so far,” said commuter Christian DeJesus, “I mean, it is what it is, we just gotta do what we gotta do so they can finish up the Orange Line.”
“We left about 10 minutes early this morning in case there was traffic and there was nothing on the road,” said Allison Brown, another commuter. “It wasn’t backed up until Assembly.”
“We are seeing what we expected so far so we feel pretty confident we know what we are going to see,” said Transportation Secretary Jamey Tesler.
Tesler said navigating the roads in and out of Boston will be difficult, especially in the hotspots highlighted by MassDOT. These areas include Sullivan Square in Charlestown and Leverett Circle and Charles Circle in Boston.
“As always we’re gonna be watching very closely from our operations center what we see, and if it’s as expected we have plans in place to adjust and accommodate those,” said Tesler. “If there are other hotspots we’re gonna focus on those.”
MassDOT cannot predict how many additional cars might be put on the road due to the shutdown, but it does expect for the shuttle bus routes to shuffle roughly 25 thousand cars a day to other roadways. Drivers are advised to give themselves extra time and to avoid these high congestion areas and explore any alternative options.
“This is a challenging time and this is going to inconvenience all of us,” said Tesler, “but if we are patient during the first few days we’ll adapt and we’ll continue to grow together and get through this.”
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