#Youtube heads will roll upgrade#

T officials say the shutdown is enabling them to replace tracks and upgrade systems to improve safety ASAP instead of over five years of nights and weekends, an unprecedented move that Mayor Michelle Wu had been calling for. SMITH: The Federal Transit Administration is now investigating T's safety. SMITH: Commuter Robert Thomas says he had his own scare when two trains collided last year. ROBERT THOMAS: It's psychologically damaging because you think, is this the day that something's going to happen because it's happening so often?

Last month, riders had to jump from a train that caught fire on a bridge. SMITH: Safety concerns came to a head recently after a spate of crashes and accidents, two of them fatal. REPPUCCI: They just got a bunch of banana heads running the transportation.

SMITH: Mark Reppucci is one of many commuters frustrated by long-deferred updates of Boston's aging transit system. MARK REPPUCCI: Since I was a kid, they're still using - I'm 50 years old - they're still using the same Orange Line. TOVIA SMITH, BYLINE: Boston loves to boast about all its firsts - the nation's first public park, first lighthouse and first subway system built in the late 1800s. As NPR's Tovia Smith reports, that's created confusion and delays. The Orange Line's closed for repairs after a series of accidents. The second busiest line on the T, as it's called, has stopped running. A partial shutdown of the subway system in Boston is challenging commuters.

Youtube heads will roll