The MBTA is responding to growing pressure to include Chinatown in its shuttle bus plan after the Boston neighborhood was omitted from its original plan for shuttle buses to replace Orange Line service during the monthlong shutdown that starts Friday.
Residents had a chance to weigh in Wednesday during a meeting with local leaders and the MBTA. The meeting began at 6 p.m. at Josiah Quincy Elementary School in Chinatown. The MBTA announced the plan on Twitter while the meeting was still underway, saying it intended to add a stop to the outbound Silver Line route.
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The new plan also involves adding two more bus options to service Chinatown and Tufts Medical Center.
“We will be making an additional stop during shuttle service for the Orange Line in Chinatown,” MBTA Deputy Chief of Staff Angel Donahue-Rodriguez told a group of Chinatown residents who had gathered in the school's cafeteria.
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The announcement comes after backlash from the community following the MBTA’s plan to replace Orange Line trains with shuttle buses, while excluding four downtown stops -- Tufts, Chinatown, Downtown Crossing, and State Street -- because of potential traffic congestion with buses in that area.
“We’ve been pushing and working with the MBTA to come up with more creative solutions so that Chinatown and everyone going to Tufts and everyone in this downtown have the service that you deserve and that you need and depend on,” said Boston Mayor Michelle Wu.
Those solutions include the outbound bus stop on the Silver Line 4 route (SL4) at Surface Artery and Kneeland Street, and an additional Orange Line bus shuttle for Tufts and Chinatown, though details on the latter still needed to be ironed out.
But with the Orange Line shutdown set for Friday night, officials recognize the challenge in disseminating that information quickly to a community composed largely of immigrants, seniors and students.
“A lot of it will be door knocking, providing some brochures to them individually one and one in Chinese writing. So, there’s still a lot of work ahead of us,” noted Boston City Council President Ed Flynn, whose district includes Chinatown.
“Every time that there’s something going on, Chinatown is always the last to get information,” said Chinatown resident Cecilia Cordova, who is upset officials are scrambling at the eleventh hour and wishes information would be shared more effectively.
“Now they’re going to tell us ‘oh, tomorrow.’ Where are the buses going to stop? Near Chinatown? In Chinatown? How quickly are you going to be able to get that information out to these seniors, and how quickly is it going to take to get information to the community where they are going to know where to go to catch the shuttle bus?” she questioned.
The MBTA said more information on the additional Orange Line bus shuttle would be announced Thursday, at which point the transit agency will have just one day left to spread the word before the shutdown.
Wu and City Council President Ed Flynn, along with other state lawmakers, had called on the MBTA to include at least one shuttle to either Chinatown or Tufts Medical Center because many in the area use those stops to get to work, school and area businesses.
"The Chinatown T stop is always widely used, particularly for seniors and workers in Chinatown, and the lack of shuttle bus stops at either Tufts Medical Center or Chinatown will make travel extremely difficult for residents and workers in the area," a joint letter read.
There are also 2,000 doctors and stuff at Tufts that use the Orange Line every day, and that doesn't include patients going in and out.
Transportation officials had noted that some areas, including Chinatown, were not good fits for shuttle bus service due to the geography of the roads there. The T said the Coach buses hired to pick up passengers have a hard time trying to get around the congested streets near those stations. Instead, they asked riders to use alternatives like the Silver or Green lines to get to stations like Tufts. The Silver Line runs to both the Chinatown and Tufts stops, but access to the entire system is still limited.
The MBTA issued a statement to NBC10 Boston earlier Wednesday in response to the concerns being raised.
"There is an ongoing dialogue between the MBTA and the City of Boston regarding the impacts of the Orange Line work and alternative transportations options," the transit agency's statement read.
Orange Line trains are scheduled to stop running at 9 p.m. Friday and remain out of service through the end of the day Sept. 18 as part of an unprecedented end-to-end shutdown incited by a federal investigation that flagged delayed maintenance at the T as a significant safety issue. A chunk of the Green Line from Government Center to Union Square will also go dark starting Monday, Aug. 22 through Sept. 18.
