T slowdowns leave much of Boston running late: ‘It doesn’t matter what time you leave the house’ – The Boston Globe

It used to take Duzant, 40, about an hour to get to work. Nowadays, it’s closer to an hour and a half, a delay commuters across the troubled MBTA system know all too well.

“It doesn’t matter what time you leave the house, it’s just always an issue,” Duzant said. “People should be able to get to work. If they get to work late, it should be because they left their house late.”

Many of Boston’s subway lines slowed, to a crawl in some stretches, after inspectors found a slew of track defects and safety violations for which the MBTA was unable to locate inspection documentation, despite repeated shutdowns of the lines for construction and repair work. In late April, the T announced that it had completed a systemwide inspection of the tracks, identifying nearly 300 defects in need of repair.

Slow zones still cover more than a fifth of tracks, according to the MBTA’s Speed Restrictions Dashboard, up from about 8 percent in early March, the day before a brief systemwide slowdown.

As beleaguered riders attest in increasingly frustrated social media posts, a roundtrip on the Red Line currently takes more than 65 minutes longer than it would without any slow zones, while a round trip on the Orange Line takes nearly 10 minutes longer, according to data from TransitMatters, an advocacy group.

The Blue Line, which long had a reputation for being one of the system’s most reliable routes, in March charted its first substantial delays since June 2022, with round trips at times taking more than 20 minutes longer than they did prior to the delays. They remain delayed as of May 11, if only by around 5 minutes, according to TransitMatters’ data.

At times, it can feel as if the whole city is running late.

A woman named Kellyanne, who manages the Stillman’s Farm booth at Boston Public Market, said she and her staff are in “constant communication” about their commutes.

“It has negatively impacted my entire staff, entire, not one exception,” said Kellyanne, who declined to give her last name. “It costs money in productivity, it costs money in people’s paychecks.”

She plans to arrive at work first to make sure someone is there to greet customers when the store opens at 9 a.m.

“The second I open my eyes, I check the T,” she said. “I check their Twitter feed, I check Boston news.”

The latest news from the T includes shuttle buses replacing Red Line service north and southbound between JFK/UMass and Braintree stations weekday evenings through the end of May, according to the MBTA. Crews will replace around 5,000 feet of rail, which should alleviate speed restrictions, the T said.

Southbound, shuttles are running this weekend, May 13-14, and next, May 20-21, replacing Red Line service between the Broadway and Ashmont stations and the Broadway and Braintree stations, as crews replace over 2,300 feet of rail, according to the T.

At Park Street station, Meagan Gjojdeshi was waiting for the 7:30 a.m. Red Line train to Alewife. She said her commute from Eliot Station in Newton on the Green Line’s D branch to Charles/MGH on the Red Line usually takes about an hour.

“But, I mean, every day is different,” Gjojdeshi, 30, said. “It’s the T.”

A few minutes earlier, Sherona Bollinger waited for a Alewife-bound train at Downtown Crossing. The 30-year-old, who does not have a car, said her commute has gotten worse, sending her in search of alternatives.

“Definitely, I’m spending a lot more on Ubers, just because that is a quicker way to get around,” Bollinger said.

She said she hopes the MBTA will start running more trains, although “I don’t know if the tracks can support it,” and a return of consistent weekend service, which can be interrupted by repairs.

Byron Rodriguez, 32, is a manager at Fan Favorite, a sports memorabilia store at Faneuil Hall Marketplace, where his employees — mostly college students — all take the train to work. He said weekends can be a scheduling mess, with shuttle buses sometimes replacing trains.

“Throughout the week they [the MBTA] don’t want to work on it,” he said. “But apparently, on the weekends it doesn’t matter.”

Rodriguez said he and other employees warn each other about delays in a group chat. He tries to be understanding when workers run late. He grew up in Boston “so I know how it is,” he said.

In Dorchester, about 75 percent of students at Boston College High School take the train — either the subway, commuter rail, or both, said Colleen Carter, vice president of external relations.

Carter said the administration has “come to expect” delays, especially among students who take the Red Line. The first bell rings at 8:25 a.m., the middle of rush hour.

“If it’s supposed to get into JFK at 8:05 and it gets in at 8:25, well, school started,” she said.

Daniel Kool can be reached at daniel.kool@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @dekool01.