It's Back: MBTA Looks At Blue, Red Line Connector Link, Again

BOSTON, MA — Why don't the Red and the Blue lines connect on the MBTA? The idea of connecting the only two trains in the MBTA system that don't link has been something the city has discussed on again off again since at least the 1970s.

Now it's back, baby, the MBTA announced this week. And thus begins a three-month study of just how that would work. The T hired an engineering firm called VHB to the tune of $50,000 to put together the study, which will begin next week, said MBTA Spokesperson Joe Pesaturo.

The connector project was even the subject of a lawsuit that required the Commonwealth to build a direct transfer connection as part of the Big Dig highway project. The Commonwealth promised to do just that. Then, well, didn't. After much back and forth about why (funding), a look at a possible public/private collaboration, and a lot of lobbying, the Federal Government gave them the all clear in 2015. And it never happened.

Until some companies started talking big about possible moves to the Hub. But it wasn't until Amazon came knocking that Boston started talking seriously about the project again, this time as part of what might sweeten that partnership.

The Boston bid to Amazon even called the Red-Blue connector a "clear goal" of the state.

The 2013 jointly funded Public/Private option put the estimated cost at some $750 million and drafts of those plans show a proposal to extend the Blue Line past Bowdoin Station and link it with the Red Line’s Charles/MGH stop a couple blocks down Charles Street.

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Photo by Jenna Fisher/Patch