The MBTA is starting limited service this afternoon and plans to have public transportation service fully restored in time for tomorrow morning’s anticipated post-blizzard, rain-soaked commuter crush, but General Manager Beverly A. Scott cautioned “it will be challenging” through at least Wednesday, and riders need to plan ahead.
“This is an ‘oh my God’ situation,” said Scott, who is advising anyone with a regularly scheduled bus, subway or commuter rail train to catch to show up at least a half-hour early.
“We’re going to take it a day at a time,” Scott said. “Plan for the worst and hope for the best. You have to be very, very nimble. It’s not going to be perfect. We’re going to be doing it our way, using good common sense judgement. You can either sit down and roll over and just let things happen to you, or you can have the attitude that this is the deck we’ve got, now let’s deal it.”
The T shut down at 4 p.m. on Friday ahead of the blizzard, and T officials say a disabled communications facility in Quincy thwarted an earlier re-opening.
Limited bus and subway service will be back on line as of 2 p.m. today, Scott said.
All subway trains on the Orange and Red Lines will be operational as of this afternoon. The Blue Line will run between Government Center and Orient Heights only. There will be no continuing service to stations in Revere.
The Green Line, the hardest hit of T services, will only run between Kenmore and Lechmere stations, she said.
Also at 2 p.m., the T will restore its 1, 23, 28 and 39 bus routes, which service Boston College, most hospitals and the Massachusetts Avenue corridor from Cambridge to Dudley Square in Roxbury. Scott said returning all bus service is dependent in part on what streets are clear enough for passengers to safely wait and board, and where buses are able to turn around.
The Silver Line will operate a 40-foot bus on Washington Street only.
“We know folks have to knit their lives around what we say we can and cannot do,” Scott said. She praised the vast number of T employees who have fought their own battles to get into work, but cautioned, “They’re not the Jetsons. They have to be able to get in, too.”
Furthering hampering efforts yesterday was that a radio tower in Quincy that Scott described as the T’s “central brain” was knocked out for most of the day by the same power outages plaguing everyone else.
Besides the obvious problems created by blizzard conditions on surface roads, Scott said one reason the T has been proceeding with caution is because she didn’t want to jeopardize tomorrow’s commute service.
“People in this community and this region, they depend on us,” Scott said. “We serve with pride - that’s the bottom line. This commonwealth won’t work if we don’t work. It makes you suck it up from inside.”
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Sunday, February 10, 2013
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