City councilors propose extending Orange Line beneath Blue Hill Avenue

Politics admin June 23, 2026 0 Comments

City councilors propose extending Orange Line beneath Blue Hill Avenue

As they fight the plan for a controversial center-running bus lane along Blue Hill Avenue, two Boston city councilors on Tuesday proposed an alternative: extending the Orange Line subway beneath the street for what they said would be superior rail service.

At a press conference Tuesday morning outside the state transportation department, Councilors Brian Worrell and Miniard Culpepper pitched the Orange Line extension as a matter of equity. Why, they questioned, should the diverse communities they represent be stuck with shoddy bus service, while white neighborhoods elsewhere in the city can rely on the train?

“We believe we’ve been excluded,” Culpepper said, noting “there’s no train that goes through the Black community from Mattapan, to Grove Hall, to Nubian, to Ruggles.”

Blue Hill Avenue is one of Boston’s main arteries, traveling from Milton into the city through predominantly Black neighborhoods. Situated between the existing Orange and Red Lines, the neighborhoods are predominantly served by bus service, not rail.

“What we are proposing is to remedy this train desert … so that we can enjoy the same kind of transportation that everyone else in the state enjoys,” Culpepper said.

Worrell and Culpepper said they met with State Transportation Secretary Phil Eng on Tuesday morning to present the idea. They said Eng committed to studying the proposal. A spokesperson for Eng said state officials are committed to looking at the proposal through the Program for Mass Transportation, the MBTA’s long-range capital plan.

Culpepper also said he had presented his idea to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who he said “does like it,” though sees it as “a long-term plan.”

A spokesperson for Wu said the mayor was “open to discussing potential future rail options with residents and transit partners, while staying focused on delivering the improvements currently supported by existing federal and state funding.”

Culpepper and Worrell did not present a timeline or a cost estimate for their proposal, saying they want to work with state transit experts to determine both. In a mock-up the councilors distributed Tuesday, they proposed adding a branch of the Orange Line that would head south from Ruggles Station and make several stops along Blue Hill Avenue, including Grove Hall, the Franklin Park Zoo, and Mattapan Square.

The pitch for a new, longer Orange Line that would bring rail service to more Black Bostonians comes as many in the Mattapan, Roxbury, and Dorchester neighborhoods that branch off Blue Hill Avenue reject a longstanding plan to add dedicated bus lanes up the center of the congestedstreet, alongside trees, lighting, shortened crosswalks, and bike lanes. Proponents of the plan say it will speed up bus travel and bring critical safety improvements, while critics argue it will add to traffic and threaten small businesses along the corridor. Earlier this month, some neighbors who oppose the plan went so far as to ask the Trump administration to rescind $80 million that had been allocated for the project.

Decades ago, a street car ran down Blue Hill Avenue all the way to Mattapan Square, but it was ripped out in the mid-20th century. In 2009, the state proposed, and residents rejected, an earlier plan for “bus rapid transit.”

Worrell and Culpepper said they did not explicitly discuss the bus lane proposal with Eng on Tuesday, but they have been clear that they oppose it.

The energy in fighting the bus lane proposal makes now a good time to pitch something else, Worrell said: “We’ve always needed it, and I think this is the time.”

With the Orange Line idea, Worrell said, “we are trying to bring a new idea and a new proposal to the table.”

“And a better proposal,” Culpepper added. “A more efficient proposal. It might cost a little bit more, but this is the best way the community will get the best and efficient transportation, just like the rest of the state.”