Misapplications Reviews: The Parable of the Red Line

For several years, the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) has been expanding its rapid-transit Red Line northward from Cambridge. The required excavations have caused much pain: traffic jams are even worse than before, large numbers of people have been uprooted from their homes, and a hideous ditch has dominated Harvard Square for almost half a decade. Many suspect that the benefits of the extension—even if extrapolated through T = ∞—cannot possibly outweigh the agony that accompanied its construction.

For a long time, however, the project had no effect on service on the existing Red Line. But that situation changed in the fall of 1983, when the tracks were diverted to include a short stretch in the new tunnel. At once, major troubles with the automatic signals and train-turnaround facilities induced all kinds of delays. The disruption once confined to a section of Cambridge spread quickly to the heart of Boston and the city's southern suburbs; now 125,000 daily riders joined the earlier victims of the Red Line's improvements.