An MBTA Red Line train leaves Harvard Square station headed towards Boston. iStock photo
The MBTA is experiencing “a monumental comeback story” in the eyes of its leadership, as safety and ridership statistics continue to improve despite delays in new train deliveries.
Chief Operating Officer Ryan Coholan said weekend ridership is nearly back to 2019 levels. Overall ridership sits at 77 percent of 2019 levels, and weekday ridership is at 73 percent of 2019 levels, he added.
“It’s a testament to what we’ve been able to produce and the work that we’re doing and the work that we’re going to do,” Coholan said at the board’s final meeting of 2025 on Dec. 18. “More and more people are returning, it really is a monumental comeback story.”
Coholan said he thought rising weekend ridership could be due to the ease with which people in Boston can get around with improved train service and connection. Weekday ridership figures are “reflective of just how work patterns have evolved” since the pandemic, he said.
In a lookback video played Thursday, T General Manager and interim MassDOT Secretary Phil Eng – donning a T-inspired holiday sweater – called 2025 a year of “bold goals, complex challenges and meaningful progress.”
One of those challenges: delays in the delivery of new Red Line cars to replace dozens of trains past the end of their useful lives, and which are suffering breakdowns at increasingly frequent rates – sometimes multiple breakdowns on the line at once, as happened just before Thanksgiving.
Eng was not in-person at the Thursday meeting because he was attending funeral services out of state, according to T Chair Tom McGee.
Eng said in his video that the number of scheduled weekday trips on the Red, Orange and Blue lines have increased 55 percent , 50 percent and 16 percent , respectively, since the spring of 2024. The T is providing nearly one million trips each day, which he called the highest ridership since the pandemic.
Service in the core tunnel and all four Green Line branches has been suspended since Dec. 8 and reopened Dec. 23.
Coholan said that workers have been able to “tackle” all 13,000 feet of an aging, 130-year-old wooden trough with new composite fixtures. During the diversion, steel work was done at Boylston station, concrete and lighting work was done at Copley station, and work began on a radio replacement program, he said. Workers also began to install new messenger wire and cabling for upcoming signal upgrades.
The T is looking ahead to its role in major events in 2026, including FIFA World Cup, Massachusetts’ 250th anniversary and the return of tall ships to Boston Harbor.
“We installed a temporary platform, and are advancing the construction of permanent level boarding platform at Foxboro Station, positioning us to serve over 20,000 spectators for each FIFA Men’s World Cup game,” Eng said.
Later in the meeting, MBTA Transit Police Chief Kenneth Green said that there are 10 trains available to help transport the influx of people during the World Cup stint next summer. The agency is still trying to figure out how the “queueing” of trains will work during that period, he said.
