MBTA closings on weekends: community meeting.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

For 17 weekends, the Red Line between Harvard and Alewife will be shut down and replaced with shuttles.

On Nov. 2, three days before the T starts conducting underground work on the Red Line that will close off portions of the tracks until March, riders will have the opportunity to sit and listen to project details and discuss them.

The MBTA has scheduled a Community Meeting where a project team will discuss temporary changes in service and ongoing construction.


Meeting Details:

Wednesday , November 2, 2011
6:00 PM—8:00 PM
Somerville Armory
191 Highland Avenue, Somerville

For more information, please contact Donny Dailey at 617-973-7638, or at donny.dailey@state.ma.us

Comments

[koloratur.livejournal.com]

How nice that they're giving the community a chance to respond.

[lizzielizzie.livejournal.com]

I see what you did there.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

and in a timely manner, too.

(something I noticed about the announcement posters; they went up the day after the boston.com article that mentioned it was starting in ten days, causing an outrage of people asking when they were planning on telling us. If you look at it...it was printed on an inkjet printer. Copied to the sticky paper after at the printer, but when you compare it to the Porter elevator advisories, that went up a month before, they have a very definite 'oh, crap, I knew we forgot something' feel to them.)

[molyflogs.livejournal.com]

I'd honestly rather they just shut it down for a few weeks and get it over with, rather than drawing it out to ALL WINTER LONG.

[infinitemorning.livejournal.com]

I'd really rather they didn't. This is going to suck for the people who need to get places on Saturdays and Sundays, I realize that, but it would suck even more for the daily commuters trying to get back and forth during the regular work week. The buses are a piss-poor substitute at the best of times. Rush hour is an absolute nightmare.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

it is going to smack the hell out of somerville and much of cambridge for Christmas shopping. It is going to be an ongoing nightmare for restaurants, whose busiest times are the weekends and who rely on alcohol sales. I will not be surprised to hear that a local business or two that might have squeaked through with seasonal sales is smacked to the ground by this ongoing *third of a year* nibbling at their customers.

That is in addition to the fact the costs to the T are heavily increased by using union labour over the weekends and at night, the increased cost because they are needing to use a special quick drying cement so that it can be ready for use on Mondays. Bus drivers also get increased weekend pay, so all those shuttles will cost more than if they ran weekdays, too. The estimate I saw the other day is that the cost of this is just shy of doubled because of the 4 month timeframe, as opposed to spending the same amount of time doing it in a continuous job for 16 days.

It makes no sense financially to do it this way. It puts people out for months, in a particularly damaging fashion. It makes no sense to do it at this time of year; they have known of the problems for a year now, and it could have been done over the summer, when rush hour traffic is lessened, students are fewer, and people could wait more comfortably for buses.

[koloratur.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why this wasn't done over the summer. While there is probably *some* tourist traffic between Somerville and Harvard during the summer, it is absolutely nothing compared to the winter. This is going to be a nightmare for anyone who relies on public transportation, especially if they have any mobility issues.

[charolastra00.livejournal.com]

Yup. This. I have a hidden disability (recovering from chemo) and look like a normal, healthy young woman. I won't take buses because I am nervous about asking people to move from their seats (not to mention half the time they won't do it anyway, even when I drop the cancer bomb) and really don't have the upper body strength to hold myself steady on a bus. Last time I tried, I ended up on the floor.

I only go into the city on weekends. It looks like I won't see anything outside of Davis for the next 5(in my dream world) months.