Boston transit history

Park Street Station, today one of the busiest transfer stops that connect the Green and Red Lines, was opened in Park Street was the first rapid transit tunnel in the country. The precursor to the Orange Line would open in , and the beginnings of the Blue Line — connecting East Boston under Boston Harbor — would come in The Cambridge Tunnel would open in , which would later become the Red Line, one of the most popular routes today.

Today, the MBTA consists of the four main subway lines, bus routes, 12 commuter rail routes, and a few other lines, including ferries connecting the South Shore and East Boston to downtown. Since this purchase, Keolis has made efforts to increase punctuality of trains, tested new schedules, and cracked down on fare evasion.

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More from the Newsroom. Storm forces delay of drive-thru flu shot clinic in Berks Bethlehem Twp. Trending Headlines. The special duty of collecting these remains was assigned by the contractors to two or three men who, I am satisfied, did their work faithfully; and, whenever practicable, they placed the bones of one body in a single box. In two instances the Lowell and Tuttle tombs , where the remains in tombs were identified, they were taken by representatives of the two families, and reinterred elsewhere.

During the progress of the excavations it was found that the line of buried tombs extended from a point near the entrance to the Common, at the south-west corner, to a point nearly opposite to the old Public Library.

Some of the tombs had been almost entirely destroyed, while others were in a fair or good condition. Nearly all contained coffins, which for the most part were so decayed that they could not be handled, and the enclosed bones were much decomposed.

In many instances the brick arches, that once served as the top of the tombs, had been broken in, and the tombs themselves partially filled with earth, bones, stones, and other matter, and then covered over with granite slabs. So confused were the contents that it was impossible to find out the number of original interments. It was evident that such tombs had been used for the reception of bones that had been disturbed in the surrounding ground when the mall was built. Green reported that at least 90 bodies were found in seven tombs, which had not been previously disturbed, and bodies were found scattered around in the ground, resulting in a total of bodies.

Some of the coffins and tombs were still intact and had legible inscriptions of the names and dates of the people buried there. The workers recorded the following names and dates from the coffins and tombs:. The undertakers chose a spot where the remains could be buried in a row by themselves without disturbing any of the other graves around them and a plaque was placed above the remains, which read:.

A few years later, on March 4, , another, much bigger problem occurred. Just as the subway construction was nearing completion, a large gas explosion occurred at the corner of Boylston and Tremont streets after a break in an old gas main on Boylston street wafted into the air above and also filled the large subway tunnel below.

Explosion in Boston on Tremont Street after a spark from a trolley ignited a gas leak on March 4, Although the gas had been leaking for months and complaints had been made to the gas company as far back as December, the source of the leak was never found or repaired. Then, on March 4, , at am, sparks from the wheels of a trolley turning the corner at Tremont street ignited the gas and set off a large explosion that killed 10 people, seriously injured 60 others and caused extensive damages to nearby buildings.

Despite the accident, the subway construction still went ahead as scheduled and was completed by the end of the summer. The subway line was a little over half a mile long and was a three minute ride. The underground stations were connected to trolley tracks on the city streets and later to elevated tracks above the city streets. The two-track subway line between Park Street and Tremont street and the four-track subway line between Boylston street and Park street was finished in the summer of and opened to the public on September 1, A four track triangle-shaped subway line from Pleasant street to Boylston street and a four track subway line from Tremont street to Hollis street and a two-track subway line from Hollis street to Boylston street was completed shortly after and opened on September 30, Construction on the Charlestown Bridge began in and was opened to the public on November 27, Additions were added to the Boston Subway after initial construction was completed.

In , construction began on the East Boston Tunnel which is now the Blue line. The tunnel ran under Boston Harbor, making it the first North American tunnel to run under a body of water. The tunnel opened on December 30, Bancroft, to members of Parliament in , the subway had only a moderate effect on reducing street traffic in the congested areas and may have actually increased foot traffic:.

The congestion of the streets by cars [trolley cars] has all been removed; the general condition is somewhat better since the construction of the subway…I think you can get on faster on Tremont Street than ever. The vehicular traffic is considerably less….

I think the sidewalks are more crowded; the street is not so much…I think there is a consequent increase of pedestrian congestion at times, through the number of people who travel now by the subway, where they come to the subway stations; many of them came into town by steam railroads years ago.

In addition, Bancroft felt that the elevated railway was a much faster and more efficient mode of transportation than the underground subway itself:. This Boston town bears out the tradition that its streets were marked by cows, they are so very crooked.

When the Boston Transit Commission undertook the construction of the subway, in order to build the thing economically they followed the lines of the streets, and they are so crooked that you cannot run trains fast in the subway.

In the six miles of road over which our elevated trains run only a mile and a half is in subway and with but two or three sharp curves, a train turns around nine times; in other words, there are something over 3, degrees of curvature and many grades, some of them 5 percent.

The elevated road runs on the structures outside of the congested district, and when it reaches the congested district it dives down into the subway. The sharp curves and all the grades are in the subway and very numerous.

The initial Boston Subway construction cost taxpayers a total of five million dollars. Sources: Puleo, Stephen. Beacon Press, City of Boston Statistics Dept.

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