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Aging MBTA Cars Need $100M In Upgrades

The head of the MBTA says the transit agency needs to spend $100 million to upgrade aging Orange and Red line cars in order to maintain service, and perhaps 10 times that to eventually replace them.

General Manager Richard Davey said Wednesday that a review of the two lines confirmed that train cars that in some cases are 40 years old are causing longer waits for riders and more frequent service interruptions.

The Boston Globe reports that although all 120 Orange Line cars and one-third of the Red Line cars are well past their intended lifespan, their replacement — at a cost of $1 billion — is a decade away.

Neither the total replacement nor the temporary solution was included in budgets approved in April.

This program aired on June 9, 2011. The audio for this program is not available.

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