Climate Change Resiliency

While we work to reduce our GHG emissions, climate change will continue to impact public transit in Greater Boston.

Extreme weather events—heavy rain, storm surge, and sea level rise—can delay or disrupt service, threaten the health and safety of our customers and employees, and raise the cost of repair, maintenance, and operations. These events are expected to increase in both frequency and intensity in the next 50 years.

Our Plan to Address Climate Change

We are committed to mitigating the risks of climate change and investing in a more sustainable transit system.

Vulnerability Assessments

Vulnerability assessments aim to understand which parts of the system are at highest risk for damage due to climate change. These assessments inform our transit asset management program, our five-year Capital Investment Plan (CIP), and our system-wide modernization projects.

Assessment and Design Standards

We’ve developed a set of standards to assess climate change impacts and ensure that resilience is built into each project from the earliest stages of design.

• The inclusion of Vulnerability Assessment Scores in the Capital Needs Assessment, which is conducted every three to four years, to evaluate the condition and age of our capital assets, and the approximate costs to replace or repair them. These scores will help us prioritize projects with resiliency benefits, to address vulnerability even earlier in project planning stages.
• A climate resiliency score helps evaluate the climate focus of projects being proposed for the five-year Capital Investment Plan (CIP)
• New design standards, developed with the Office of the Chief Engineer, help set standards for flood protection,  stormwater management, and other forces that can affect the infrastructure
• Mandatory consideration of climate-related risks is part of the design and construction of new projects—all new designs will apply new engineering practices according to Leadership and Environmental Energy Design (LEED) standards and the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure's Envision standards

Resiliency Projects

While many of our capital projects include some form of climate resiliency, some of our work is primarily focused on mitigating the impact of natural disasters, particularly flooding and rising sea levels.

• Fenway Portal Flood Protection Project (Complete): Included the construction of flood doors at the Fenway Portal on the Green Line D Branch
• Aquarium Station Flood Proofing Project (Complete): Included the installation of a new flood door at Long Wharf and flood barriers at Aquarium station
• Charlestown Sea Wall (Complete): Reconstructed the sea wall near the Charlestown Garage to protect the facility from waterfront erosion and future sea level rise

View the May 2022 board presentation on the MBTA climate change overview