MBTA unveils new Blue Line cars

(John Tlumacki/Globe Staff)

By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff

Gleaming new plum-blue seats. Intelligible, automated station announcements. A smoother ride with maximum air conditioning.

Those are some of the features MBTA Blue Line riders can expect as the first four of 94 new subway cars, each costing $1.8 million, began operating today. They are the first new cars to ply the Revere-to-downtown line in 29 years.

By summer, T general manager Daniel Grabauskas promised, riders can count on not just nicer cars but more of them. Six-car trains, 50 percent bigger than now, will begin operating on the Blue Line during the morning and evening rush hours, giving commuters and luggage-laden travelers heading to Logan International Airport some badly needed breathing room. Although millions of dollars in renovations remain at Government Center, Maverick, and State, the critical work of extending passenger platforms to accommodate the longer trains has been finished at every Blue Line stop, T officials said.

All 94 new Blue Line cars will be in service by sometime in late 2009. As local, state, and federal transportation officials gathered this morning at the Aquarium station to snip a ceremonial blue ribbon and step on the inaugural run of the new Blue Line cars, Richard Doyle, regional chief of the Federal Transit Administration, which covered 80 percent of the price tag, said: "You're going to have a terrific experience.''

Riders generally had rave reviews for the new cars, with a few complaints about the seats, which are hard fiberglass instead of the black vinyl cushions of the existing Blue Line fleet. T officials were quick to boast that the seats on the new subways are each about 2 inches wider than the 1979 cars. What they left out was that's because there are fewer on each car -- 35 seats and a wheelchair space, compared to 42 seats with no wheelchair slot on the old.

"I think they're really nice,'' said Roger Pollard, who lives in Revere's Point of Pines and rides downtown from Wonderland every day. "The seats are a little hard, but the rest of the train is nice. I like the newness.''

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