What The Orange Line 30-Day Shutdown Means For North Shore Riders

SALEM, MA — It will be a long, hot end of the summer and early fall for North Shore residents who rely on the Orange Line to get to work or school in Boston.

Beginning Aug. 19 at 9 p.m. and lasting through Sept. 19 at 9 a.m. all subway service on the MBTA's aging line will cease due to what MBTA General Manager Steve Poftak called the "unprecedented circumstances" of long overdue maintenance, frequent delays and disruptions, and the dangers of recent derailments as well as the car that caught fire during a trip over the Mystic River.

Gov. Charlie Baker said on Wednesday that the 30-day shutdown will allow crews and contractors to make safety and speed upgrades that would have taken five years only closing on nights and weekends.

This will be the longest complete shutdown of any subway line in MBTA history.

(ALSO ON PATCH: Orange Line 30-Day Shutdown: 'We've Never Had To Do This')

"We know that any diversion — particularly one like this — will be frustrating to riders," Baker said. "We appreciate their patience as the T implements the short-term work that can result in long-term benefits on a much shorter time frame. And get to the place we all need to get to a lot more quickly."

Baker said that when the Orange Line reopens in September it will do so with primarily a new fleet of subway cars replacing the oldest cars in the MBTA.

"Sadly, the Orange Line shutdown is necessary, but it should never have come to this," U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton said. "Simply taking the T to work should not be a gamble. We need many years' worth of MBTA maintenance backlog solved in about 30 days."

The MBTA plans to run about 160 shuttle buses — with the capacity to run up to 200 buses — along existing routes during the month-long closure.

Orange Line riders who must commute downtown are strongly encouraged to use the Commuter Rail as an alternative.

All Zone 1A, 1 and 2 fares can be paid by simply showing a CharlieCard or CharlieTickets on all commuter rail lines — including the Rockport/Newburyport line — essentially making them free for commuters with access to those cards.

Riders can use other existing MBTA bus and subway services to complete their trips.

MBTA officials also "strongly encouraged " Orange Line riders who can work from home to do so during the 30 days, and encourages employers near Orange Line stops with hybrid work policies to allow employees to work from home for the month as much as possible.

"We've taken the time to listen to riders and sympathize with their frustrations," Poftak said. "We've heard them loud and clear that they want bold action to improve the MBTA at the pace that they deserve and we know that we can't wait.

"Part of this shutdown is about not waiting. It's about making the necessary improvements and making them now."

The MBTA will continue to charge for parking at MBTA lots and facilities at Orange Line stations and will communicate lost-parking impacts related to staged shuttle buses in advance if necessary.

As part of the work, the MBTA is also implementing an Automatic Train Control signaling system on the Newburyport/Rockport and Fitchburg lines. The ATC system alerts the train engineer of potentially unsafe conditions. If the crew does not respond to the ATC alert, the system will automatically slow or stop the train.

"There is a constant tension that always exists between hours of operation on the tracks and hours available to do work on the tracks," Baker said. "Over the course of the past five or six years, we've pushed the envelope pretty hard on that one in terms of finding the time and opportunity to do the work on the tracks.

"There is always a push and pull about whether you are going to get enough out of the work that you are doing to justify taking away from ridership availability to be on the system during those renovations. ... With the number of initiatives that the T had planned over the course many years to deal with track issues on the Orange Line we began a conversation with the (Federal Transit Association) about whether we should just go ahead, take the 30 days, get 24-hour access to it and go for it.

"And to try to do it in the summer when, to some extent, there is slightly less volume on the T than at other times of the year."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)