"Impossible to avoid chaos": MBTA and city scramble to make final Orange Line shutdown preparations
BOSTON – The 30-day Orange Line shutdown starts Friday night. The MBTA and City of Boston are busy making last-minute preparations.
General manager, Steve Poftak said Thursday the MBTA is in the process of "making sure everything is buttoned up" so work can begin right at 9 p.m. Friday.
"We've tried to plan very carefully so every project has enough time to get its work done and we've added in a little bit of a buffer," Poftak said while speaking during a virtual event hosted by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Thursday morning.
Poftak went into further detail about some changes to riders' alternatives in Boston being made in the final hours before the shutdown. Poftak said the changes were driven by feedback from the community and the city.
"Supplemental" shuttle buses will now run from Government Center to Tufts Medical Center to Chinatown every 30 minutes during the shutdown from 5 a.m.-7 a.m. and from 8 p.m.-1 a.m.
An outbound stop is also being added on the Silver Line at Chinatown.
Meeting with reporters inside City Hall on Thursday, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said the city has all hands on deck preparing for the closure, mapping out in multiple languages the range of options for riders.
"It will be impossible to avoid chaos altogether," Wu said. "The mere fact that this is the time of year when people are coming back to new routines in the fall, going back in person to work, getting started with school, adding this extra layer of disruption and uncertainty will mean that people's lives will be unpredictable, especially for the first few days as we figure out what the schedules are."
The city said some parking spaces will be removed to make room for shuttle buses. Pop-up bike lanes will be added where buses and bikes come close, and traffic will be monitored in real time to prioritize shuttle movements during the shutdown.