Train desert: Two Boston city councilors propose extending MBTA’s Orange Line

BOSTON — Two Boston city councilors are making a new push to extend the Orange Line through Mattapan.

Their proposal would create an extension line off Ruggles through Mattapan Square under Blue Hill Ave.

Councilors Brian Worrell and Miniard Culpepper have said people of Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan have been promised better transit for nearly four decades.

“The orange line is critical to the future, not just to now, to the future of the economy and the Black community,” said City Councilor Culpepper. “In 20 years, what happens with the bus lane. It’s going to be absolute, and they’re going to be trying to do something else...”

They point to a 1979 report that promised a better connection.

Instead, they say residents have only seen changes with the Silver Line bus opening, when a Green Line rail replacement was promised, and with the Blue Hill Ave station opening in 2019, years after the other promised Fairmount Stations.

Councilors Worrell and Culpepper’s proposed extension would start at Ruggles and make stops at Nubian Square, MLK Blvd, Grove Hall, Franklin Park Zoo, Harvard Street, Wellington Hill, Walk Hill, and Mattapan Square, then continue to the existing Mattapan Line.

They said the connected corridor could deliver:

Frequent, reliable transit
Faster trips across the city
Better access to jobs and schools
Stronger neighborhood connections

City Councilor Worrell said, “The promise has changed over the years, but the need never has. Our residents deserve a connected transit future that finally delivers on decades of commitments.”

A spokesperson for the MBTA commented, “The Secretary affirmed that the MBTA can incorporate this proposal into the Program for Mass Transportation (PMT) process that evaluates the many major infrastructure projects proponents wish to see built in the future.”

“An overhaul of digging underground and adding many miles of subway, you know, all for trying to find the resources to do that in the long run, but we know that when the North-South rail line was proposed, that project was anywhere from a mile and a half to three miles long, proposed between twelve and 20 billion dollars of cost,” said Mayor Wu. “This would be a project maybe seven, eight miles long, it would be in the range of likely billions and billions, like tens of billions of dollars to do this, and a decades-long planning process to figure out how to get the property rights to the roadway to add subway and all of that.”

Right now, they are working on Focus 250, a long-term plan for transit investments.

“Something that the city can definitely pursue in the long-term time frame, but while we have federal funds now to make immediate improvements that have been desperately needed for so long, I think it’s important that we use every dollar that we have and make those improvements even as we’re trying to figure out big ideas and what’s possible,” said Mayor Wu.

Boston 25 News has reached out to both city councilors for comment.

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