THERE’S A NINE-DAY Green Line shutdown starting Saturday, and MBTA General Manager Phil Eng says it’s “essential” to welcoming in a new fleet of larger train cars in 2027.
The MBTA plans to work on signal upgrades within the central Green Line tunnel during the shutdown, which runs between North Station and Babcock Street on the B Line, North Station and Kenmore on the C and D Lines, and between North Station and Heath Street on the E Line.
Those upgrades beginning Saturday are “essential” to the success of the Type 10 cars that Eng said are on track to begin running in 2027. The cars have 50 percent more capacity than the T’s existing fleet, Eng added. The first Type 10s will be delivered in 2026, the T confirmed.
“Without these upgrades, those Type 10s can’t run,” Eng told the MBTA Board Thursday, adding that they’ll also create a better response and operations moving forward. “Imagine if we’re responding to an incident and our signal maintenance folks are digging into these cabinets and the old wiring — longer response times, more impact to the public.”
The T expects that all 102 Type 10 vehicles will be delivered by the end of 2031. The contract was awarded in 2022, with a $816 million budget.
During the upcoming shutdown, shuttle buses will running in place of trains. Riders should plan for “ample extra travel time,” according to the T, as trip times are expected to be at least 20 minutes longer than usual.
Shutdowns of complete sections of train lines have become the norm in recent years. MBTA officials say the shutdowns enable them to speed up repairs and riders have become accustomed to, but also frustrated by the service disruptions.
Green Line ridership has increased in the period between June 2023 and June 2026, according to Eng’s presentation. Weekday ridership on the line increased 50 percent while weekend ridership increased 32 percent.
The MBTA Board unanimously voted on Thursday to authorize a contract amendment with A Yankee Line, Inc. by $50 million to provide shuttle bus services. Yankee is the T’s core supplier for buses, which are often used during service shutdowns.
The amendment “will give us plenty of capacity to support diversion shuttles through the end of the Yankee contract, which ends in March of next year,” Director of Alternative Service Laura Riegel said. The original contract was awarded in 2021, with a base term ending in 2025. The T awarded two option years.
Riegel told the board that current amount approved is $259 million, and that Yankee has spent about $242 million, which they “expect to exhaust” at the end of next month. The amendment brought the total contract to $309.5 million, she said.
The T released a new third party bus RFP this month to begin in April 2027.
Eng told the MBTA Board on Thursday that the first six of the T’s “bus overhauls” are complete, and that those buses are now exceeding 100,000 miles per failure. Before the work, he said the buses were hitting 14,000 miles between failure.
