The first branch of the Green Line Extension opened one year ago to much fanfare, providing riders a long-anticipated route directly from Huntington Avenue all the way to Somerville. But you wouldn’t know it by looking at many of the MBTA maps in trains and stations across the city that have not been updated to reflect the GLX.
Instead, some maps, including one at Haymarket Station, feature updates drawn on in marker, suggesting some riders took the job on themselves.
“You do certain steps of construction on the Green Line Extension. Replacing all the signage should be part of that checklist,” said rider Kirk Hardy. “It shouldn’t be, ‘Oh shoot. We finished all that work, I guess we’ve got to do this other thing that should be factored in to the cost, timeline, planning, delegation of labor.”
MBTA spokesperson Lisa Battiston estimated that “hundreds — possibly even thousands” of maps exist across the system, according to a Cambridge Day report. Officials told the Globe that onboard Green Line vehicles, 216 of 221 maps have been updated. But, plagued by an onslaught of other troubles, including a series of alarming safety issues, ongoing slow zones for track repairs, and cuts to bus services, the MBTA’s progress updating maps inside non-Green Line trains and stations has stalled.
Some riders say the out-of-date maps are emblematic of widespread rider frustration with the MBTA’s failure to address seemingly small issues before they balloon into system-wide concerns.
“Every piece of actual communication they’ve given has kind of had this veneer of ‘yeah, yeah, we’ll get to it,’” said Hardy, 27, who lives between Porter Square station on the Red Line and Magoun Square on the GLX. “Maybe somebody keeps trying to prioritize this and they just can’t because everything else is breaking. But it’s so low-hanging that it feels like ... everyone’s kind of asleep at the wheel.”
Incidents and disruptions in recent months include a utility box that fell from a column at Harvard Station Monday, injuring a woman; a system-wide speed restriction March 9 following a state oversight agency’s discovery that the MBTA could not account for track defects; trouble hiring bus drivers, leading to service cuts; and more.
Hundreds of the MBTA’s “spider” maps exist within the system, Battiston wrote in an email to the Globe Thursday, “and it can take some time to update all of them due to competing priorities of staff.”
“The MBTA’s Sign Shop is prioritizing core downtown stations ... and terminus stations for installation first, and will then install system maps line by line with the Green Line prioritized first,” Battiston wrote. “This installation process is expected to be completed over the next few weeks.”
But it’s been a year since the first part of the Green Line Extension opened, and although updated map installation is “almost complete” on Green Line vehicles, according to Battiston, Hardy finds it frustrating it wasn’t done sooner.
“You just have to put a sticker on it,” Hardy said.
According to Battiston, the MBTA is moving towards a system of printed maps applied directly to sheet metal as a part of a “station beautification effort.” But, she acknowledged, ”the process to procure the appropriate related materials did take some time to finalize.”
Hardy and other riders, like Mattew Dezii, 30, took to Twitter to point out inaccuracies and dated maps.
“Any time I see a Green Line train with an outdated sign, I tweet at the MBTA,” said Dezii, who rode the Green Line Extension on its opening day. Dezii said he wished maintenance workers could simply update maps during regular inspections if they notice the maps are outdated. “It seems like such a low-hanging fruit to me.”
As weather gets warmer and an influx of tourists descend into MBTA tunnels, Dezii worried inaccurate maps will confuse new passengers as they try to navigate the subway system for the first time.
“We’re coming into tourist season in the city,” Dezii said. “I know that wayfinding is really important. It’s such a simple thing to get right, and it bugs me when it’s wrong.”
At Government Center, Vinny Magalhaes, 41, a first-time T rider visiting from Brazil, stared at an out-of-date system map. “Inside the station, it’s more difficult to identify the right line,” Magalhaes said.
Hardy recounted helping a confused pair of riders at Copley trying to reach North Station.
“Their phones were telling them get on the Green Line train to Medford/Tufts,” Hardy recalled, though there was no such station on the map. “Having the phone tell you one thing but have the map tell you another thing? You get very confused.”
For some riders, the outdated maps were low on their list of worries about the transit system.
“I think the fact that the trains are running 10 miles an hour is more important than to fix than some out-of-date maps,” said Pat Meaden, 20, a student at Wentworth Institute of Technology.
But as the MBTA continues to do damage control on a barrage of major problems, Dezii said he wished commuters had a more direct line of communication with the T to help draw attention to the smaller things.
“I would love for there to be a mechanism to flag things like this for the MBTA that don’t require a public dragging on Twitter,” Deziii said.
Sonel Cutler can be reached at sonel.cutler@globe.com. Follow her @cutler_sonel.