![]() The federal response mandated MBTA General Manager Steve Poftak and MBTA Chief Safety Officer Ronald Ester to submit signed forms by Friday attesting that all workers scheduled for dispatcher and supervisor shifts next week have "sufficient time off to recover between shifts" and are not stretched too thin across multiple responsibilities. "MBTA's failure to ensure that personnel within the Operations Control Center (OCC), including train and power dispatchers, are trained and certified, properly rested, and concentrating on one role at a time is a significant safety risk - one that is compounded by inadequate procedures." "Taken together, MBTA has created a management process whereby OCC staff members are required to work without certifications, in a fatigued state, and often fulfilling multiple roles at once," the FTA wrote. Several dispatchers and supervisors also failed to renew certifications after they expired, though MBTA officials say they addressed that problem in May. Insufficient staffing at the MBTA's operations control center, where crews monitor and manage the movement of subway vehicles through the system, was one of four major areas of concern for the FTA.įederal inspectors said the operations control center was so shorthanded in April that dispatchers were regularly required to work 16-hour shifts and sometimes 20-hour shifts followed by only four hours off. The announcement landed two days after the Federal Transit Administration ordered the MBTA to take immediate action to address "continuous safety violations" inspectors found since they launched a probe of the agency in mid-April. The new schedule will not change plans on the Green Line or weekend service for the Red, Orange and Blue Lines. ![]() and then eight or nine minutes for the remainder of the day. Those headways will jump up to seven minutes from the start of weekday service until 9 a.m. Orange Line weekday service will slow from every six to seven minutes during peaks and every seven to eight minutes outside of the peak to every 10 minutes in the morning, 11 minutes in the evening, and gaps of about eight or nine minutes in the middle of the day.īlue Line trains usually run every five minutes during the morning and evening rush in the summer, close to that fast in the afternoon, and a slower pace of every nine to 10 minutes in mid-morning. The new schedule will increase those "headways," or gaps between trains, to about every seven to eight minutes on the Red Line trunk and roughly every 15 minutes on both the Ashmont and Braintree branches. Red Line trains today run every nine to 10 minutes during morning and evening peaks, every 10 to 12 minutes during off-peak hours, and every five to six minutes on the central "trunk" between Alewife and JFK/UMass stations. Officials said they plan to return Red, Orange and Blue Lines to full service levels "as soon as sufficient dispatch capacity exists." The dramatic reshaping of the system, which is likely to slow down travel for the tens or even hundreds of thousands of commuters who use the trio of subway lines every weekday and create more crowded conditions on vehicles and platforms, will continue "through the summer," the T said. On each of the three lines, the changes will effectively implement a Saturday schedule every weekday. MBTA officials announced Friday that a new weekday schedule on the Red, Orange and Blue Lines would take effect with the start of service on Monday, adding several minutes of wait time in between each trip. In a dramatic move, the MBTA plans to slash train trip frequency across most of its main subway system for the summer, downscaling service in response to a staffing shortage that federal overseers this week said poses a safety risk for riders and workers. ![]() Facebook Email An MBTA Blue Line train at Orient Heights Station.
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