Time off
The project will involve closing the west headhouse at Park Street station, which leads riders to Green Line trains outbound to Boston College, Cleveland Circle, Riverside and Heath Street, for 39 days.
Updated 22:29, August the 24th, 2008
Wintertime repairs scheduled for Park St.
Riders will be forced to use single stairwell at busy T station
This winter, the MBTA will shut down the Park Street station’s outbound headhouse to replace its deteriorating stairwell, which has already had temporary footing installed but officials say is in desperate need of long-term repairs.
The project, expected to cost $1.4 million, will include demolishing and replacing the cast iron stairs and risers, which have become “severely corroded and cracked,” according to Charles O’Reilly, the MBTA’s assistant general manager of design and construction.
“This will cure a potential public safety hazard,” O’Reilly told the MBTA Board of Directors earlier this month.
The new stairwell will be comprised of three sections, making any future repairs easier and giving the T the option to not close the headhouse to riders again during those repairs.
Park Street station is the T’s fourth-busiest in the system, with an average of 19,350 customers entering the station on a typical weekday. The work will involve closing down the headhouse to riders for more than a month starting in early January, and Transportation Secretary Bernard Cohen asked whether the station’s other stairwell to the street could handle the increased volume closing down the other headhouse would bring.
But O’Reilly assured the board the stairwell could, adding that extra staff would be designated at the station to direct riders around the work and keep a safe flow to customers in and out of the station.