That light at the end of Red Line’s tunnel? It’s another shuttle bus | John L. Micek (2025)

(Scene: The MBTA’s JFK/UMass station on a rainy day in early April. Commuters huddle under the shelter of a train platform. Others stream toward shuttle buses that will take them to the stops that lead to Dorchester’s Ashmont neighborhood. Sad, Ken Burns-y violin music swells, and we hear a narrator’s voice.)

My dearest ones,

I feel like I have been on this Dorchester shuttle bus for days and days now. If it’s possible, the distance between the Red Line’s JFK/UMass and Fields Corner stops seems to grow greater and greater.

And I wonder if we will ever arrive.

The signal lights blink from green to red in seconds. All driving is done by horn and brake. And as this bus lurches, I am grateful I decided to skip that late afternoon snack.

We are six days into a month-long test of the collective patience of thousands of commuters as the nation’s oldest subway system conducts some badly needed track repairs.

Stops on the Ashmont side of the line are shuttered and replaced by these lurching buses.

Officials have warned us that a ride between Park Street station in Downtown Boston and Mattapan would take “at least an additional 45 to 60 minutes” with time spent on the shuttles factored in.

They weren’t kidding.

And my fellow commuters largely have taken the experience with good grace. They are Bostonians, after all. And they spent all of last summer riding shuttle buses. But the eye roll in solidarity I get from another person on the bus tells me all I need to know.

Still, I cannot help but envy Sisyphus, who at least reached the top of the hill before the boulder rolled down the other side. Most days, it feels like we’re flattened before we even get going.

On Friday, I decided to conduct an experiment: Would it be faster to walk from my house to JFK/UMass, which is more or less a straight shot down Morrissey Boulevard, than crossing to Fields Corner and hopping on a shuttle bus?

The answer, I can tell you, is a resounding yes.

It was a little chilly. But the view of Malibu Beach on one side and the Bay on the other was nice. The extra couple thousand steps didn’t hurt either.

I have a feeling there may be more of those strolls before April becomes May. Train service on the Ashmont side of the line will be limited through the end of the month to allow for further repairs, the MBTA has said.

Transit officials have encouraged riders to catch the Commuter Rail’s Fairmount Line, which will be free of charge in the affected areas.

I really do need to try that one of these days ... Or maybe a Blue Bike. Those look fun.

The pause in train service will allow for “critical track renewal work on the Ashmont Branch and Mattapan Line,” the MBTA said. The agency planned to “maximize” its time by also making a variety of other repairs to other Red Line stations and tracks during the shutdown, it said.

And I’ve seen the crews. They’ve been jackhammering away at the platform at JFK/UMass. And they’ve been replacing the shin-eating, crumblings steps at Fields Corner on the Alewife side of the platform.

And I pause to remind myself that the T has gotten dramatically better in the nearly 18 months that I have called Boston home. The trains. on balance, are faster. The operations, under MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng, are smoother. The folks who have been around for a while have told me so.

We’re stopped in traffic now, somewhere around Savin Hill Avenue. The bus has lurched forward for the 20 minutes it’s taken to get here. I’ll pause from writing. I am seriously considering once again getting out and walking.

So perhaps it’s timely, my friends, that the state House is set to vote as early as Wednesday on a $1.3 billion spending bill that will pump hundreds of millions of dollars into the T as it tries to fill a massive budget gap.

The money, with $828 million earmarked for transportation, comes from the state’s “Millionaire’s Tax.” In case you’d forgotten, the cash from the extra 4% levy can only be used for transportation and education programs.

Democrats who control the chamber want to provide the T with $400 million to continue workforce and safety investments, $300 million to replenish the agency’s emptied savings account, $60 million for “physical infrastructure” at the T and $20 million to cover costs of reduced fares for low-income riders, State House News Service reported.

“I think we’re pressing from a financial standpoint because we, for the first time in a long time, feel that we are getting good value for the dollars that we’re spending because of who’s in charge now, with the work that Phil Eng has been doing,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairperson Aaron Michlewitz, D-3rd Suffolk said.

I am quite certain he did not take the bus to work.

House Republicans, meanwhile, are backing language that would move money away from the T and spend it on local roads instead.

If one of them is Dorchester Avenue, which now feels 1,647 miles long between Columbia Road and Park Street, I think the bus people would probably be here for it.

But we’re rolling up to Fields Corner now. And today’s commute soon will be over, with just a few blocks to walk to get home. I’ll close for now. May your days be sunny, and filled with as few buses as possible.

(Violin music fades.)