MBTA says large portion of Green Line Extension track needs to be fixed
BOSTON - The MBTA says a large portion of track on the Green Line Extension needs to be fixed because they are too narrow.
General Manager Phillip Eng said 50% of the tracks on the Union Branch and approximately 80% of the tracks on the Medford/Tufts Branch need to be widened.
The $2.3 billion Green Line Extension project opened in December 2022. Eng believes the track issue stems from the fabrication of the ties and the pre-installed plates. He only found about the problems recently, but revealed MBTA staff first noticed the error in April of 2021. The MBTA at the time made a decision to continue with the project.
Eng said the trains are currently running safely, but the MBTA has instructed the construction companies who built the Green Line Extension to come back with a proposal to address the issue.
"This is not something that the public should be paying for, and is not going to be paying for," Eng said.
"Two individuals with senior roles on the project are no longer employed by the MBTA," an agency spokesperson told WBZ-TV in an email Friday. The MBTA would not identify the two employees or confirm if they were fired.
In an interview with WBZ's Jon Keller, Gov. Maura Healey called the defects "absolutely unacceptable."
"This is something that happened under the prior T administration," Healey said. "It happened last year. This line, the Green Line Extension opened even though senior T officials, it appears, knew that there were some issues, didn't disclose that, didn't address that."
"The governor's office was never informed of the gauging issues with GLX and Governor Baker hopes the MBTA and the contractors involved will address these issues as soon as possible," Jim Conroy, a spokesperson for former Governor Charlie Baker told WBZ-TV in an email Friday.
"The Green Line Extension project was on track to never get built when the Baker-Polito Administration first took office and while these setbacks are massively inconvenient for riders, the project itself will deliver enormous benefits for the greater Boston area for decades to come."
The tracks are off by an eighth of an inch. To bring the track back to the appropriate width between the running rails, crews will remove the spikes that hold the tie plates in place and shift those plates over.
"It's not going to be years, it's not going to be months, the proposal that we have is weeks," Eng said. "It is something that we are still reviewing. Because as I mentioned, whether it's this type of repair or others, you know how do we do it while minimizing the impacts to our riders."
Commuters have been frustrated by slow zones on the Green Line for months. In some areas, the trains are dropped down to 3 mph.
"One would have thought they would've thought it through a little bit before they built it. So, it goes everything is always under construction," said Melanie Maria of Somerville.
Jarred Johnson, Executive Director of TransitMatters, said he is upset the tracks need to be repaired, but is more concerned that this information was withheld from the public for years.
"It really shows in the last administration the culture of austerity and the culture of not having accountability and secrecy has really led us to this place," Johnson said.
Once a plan is in place to fix the tracks, Eng said it will be shared with the public.
"The goal is to make sure that we do that in the least impactful way, most efficient way and put this behind us," Eng said.