Two Boston City Councilors want the MBTA to scrap plans for a controversial center-running bus lane on Blue Hill Avenue and instead consider expanding the Orange Line subway from Ruggles Station to Mattapan Square.

The bus lane is part of a long-planned overhaul of Blue Hill Avenue, and has the backing of an $80 million federal grant to cover nearly half the total $162 million project. The project is in the design phase but faces growing community complaints that bus lanes would exacerbate the area’s traffic problems.

Extending the Orange Line would be a long shot — and would take years to complete even if it were to get a green light. But City Councilor Miniard Culpepper said residents in the area should have access to subway service.

“ There’s no train that goes through the Black community from Mattapan to Grove Hall, to Nubian to Ruggles. This is a train desert,” Culpepper said. The proposal would allow people in that part of Boston to “enjoy the same kind of transportation that everyone else in the state enjoys. We believe we’ve been excluded.”

Culpepper and fellow councilor Brian Worrell met with MBTA general manager and interim Transportation Secretary Phil Eng on Tuesday to discuss extending the Orange Line and connecting the subway service to the Mattapan Trolley.

Worrell pointed to a 1979 report that examined the feasibility of adding a subway line to the Blue Hill Avenue corridor.

“We think that this is a viable mode of transportation for that corridor,” he said.

Culpepper and Worrell want the MBTA to have the federal funds currently allocated to the bus lane to go instead toward the subway project.

“ We think that an underground train from Mattapan to Ruggles Street is the more efficient way for us to use our dollars,” Culpepper said.

The councilors said Eng made no promises about the future of such a project, but did agree to submit their proposal to the state’s Program for Mass Transportation, a 25-year, long-range plan for transit in the state, to be studied. A MassDOT spokesman confirmed the idea of extending the Orange Line would be submitted for consideration.

“It’s a successful first step in the process,” Culpepper said.

The pair vowed to continue fighting the current plan for Blue Hill Avenue.

“ We just want no center bus lane. Not only do we want it paused, we want it taken off the table,” Culpepper said.

This isn’t the first sign of protest against the bus lane. Earlier this month, former State Sen. Dianne Wilkerson joined a group of local business owners and residents in a letter to the Trump administration, asking the U.S. Department of Transportation to step in and kill the bus lane plan. The group complained that Boston Mayor Michelle Wu had ignored their pleas.

In a statement, the MBTA said the transit authority “and the City of Boston have been in active conversations” about technical updates to the bus lane design based on community input. The modifications are targeted at alleviating traffic congestion along the three-mile-long project corridor, while also improving parking access, particularly in commercial areas and near community centers.

The updated designs are to be presented to the public later this summer.

The MBTA has no near-term plans to expand the subway and officials have said publicly that they are focusing the system’s limited funds on getting to a state of good repair. The T has a long list of upgrades and improvements already on the docket.

This article was originally published on June 23, 2026.