MBTA Passengers Brave Rain, Delays
BOSTON (CBS) -- Busloads of passengers deal with the rain and delays on the MBTA on Saturday as five separate bus shuttles replace rail service.
"It's quite an inconvenience and its not the first time I have experienced this on the Orange line but I lived here long enough to get used to it," one rider said.
The diversions are due several infrastructure improvement projects taking place throughout the MBTA system.
"These customer diversions are a fact of life but what you get out of them is a more reliable and more robust MBTA," Interim MBTA General Manager Steve Poftik said.
One of the big projects underway is the $23 million replacement of the Beverly Drawbridge.
"We are replacing 120 year old bridge with new structure. We appreciate our weekday customers we had to bus them down to Salem and we look forward to providing them a better service," Poftik said.
New MBTA drawbridge being installed in Beverly part of $7.4 million overhaul. This project is $23 mil #wbz pic.twitter.com/9jDRjJyHxi
— Paul Burton (@PaulWBZ) August 5, 2017
The T began accommodating its customers back in July with replacement shuttle bus service to all stations. This weekend, work crews were busy on the drawbridge and track upgrades on the Orange line and Green Line.
"This is just one of five service diversions this weekend because of the scope and number of projects we have going on," Poftik said.
Luie Garcia of Revere grabs a seat at the Medford Orange Line waiting for the right bus to take him back home.
"Sort of inconvenient because I had to go to work and it took an extra hour. It made me late to work," Garcia said.
The Beverly drawbridge project is expected to be completed soon and weekday service will resume on August 14th.
"I want to thank our customers for bearing with us. We know when we interrupt service it's an inconvenience, but by having a full closure we've been able to get this done in 3 weeks," Poftik said.
Services are expected to be back to their regular schedules by August 14.