MA: MBTA opens renovated Foxboro Station, not without a few hitches

The MBTA finished a major project just before the buzzer this week, opening a renovated Foxboro Station with just nine days to spare before the World Cup.

Transit leaders have described the upgrades to the station, located adjacent to Gillette Stadium, as essential to their ambitious transportation plans for the tournament.

The MBTA has committed to transporting up to 20,000 fans to each of seven World Cup matches at the stadium this summer. Without the renovation and newly expanded boarding platforms, carrying that many fans — thousands more than the T has brought to the stadium for an event before — would not have been feasible, officials said.

“These upgrades at Foxboro Station will help thousands of fans safely and efficiently travel to World Cup matches and other major events while creating lasting transportation improvements for commuters for years to come,” Gov. Maura Healey said Tuesday while celebrating the reopening at the station.

The unveiling drew a crowd of state and local dignitaries, members of Boston’s World Cup host committee and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. Still, it featured some hiccups.

The event was called for 1:15 p.m., four minutes before a commuter rail train was set to arrive at Foxboro Station. Healey and interim Transportation Secretary Phillip Eng touted the smooth arrival of the train after it glided into the station, and they urged World Cup ticketholders to avoid stadium traffic and take the train to the matches instead.

But neither Healey nor Eng rode the train to the event. Both had other events on their schedule beforehand and arrived, as many others did, by car.

Had they taken the commuter rail, they would have been late. The train arrived more than 20 minutes behind schedule due to a malfunctioning switch near South Station.

After the event, Eng pledged that the T would be prepared for any curveballs on World Cup match days, with spare trains on standby and the Foxboro/ Franklin commuter rail line reserved for stadium trains.

“The operations team is all on deck,” Eng said in an interview with MassLive after the event Tuesday. “We have so many people working on it.”

Ahead of the event, Healey’s office also touted “the fastest permanent station construction project in MBTA history.” The project took less than a year and cost $33 million.

However, to move the project forward efficiently and finish construction ahead of the World Cup, the MBTA skirted state law and avoided a lengthy bidding process, Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office found last year.

Instead, the MBTA used a “change order” to add the work to an unrelated project occurring at Symphony Station in Boston, about 20 miles away. Campbell’s office did not penalize the MBTA, saying it recognized the agency’s position that the public would benefit from the project being completed ahead of the tournament.

“The AG weighed in. We took that very seriously,” Eng said. “And I would tell the public, going forward, we won’t be doing change orders like that.”

The World Cup begins on June 11. The first match held in Foxborough is on June 13, with six others scheduled over the following month. During the tournament, Gillette Stadium will be known as Boston Stadium, in keeping with FIFA sponsorship policies.

The MBTA said last year that without the station upgrades, it could have transported only 7,000 fans to each match, instead of the 20,000 it can now accommodate.

Boarding 20,000 fans after a match could still take over three-and-a-half hours, leaving some fans returning to Boston around 4 a.m. after the 9 p.m. match on June 13.

But without the upgrades, boarding could have taken as long as six hours, Rod Brooks, a senior adviser to Eng, told the MBTA’s Board of Directors last week.

“The Foxboro Station build was essential to allow the MBTA the ability to provide unprecedented service levels for the upcoming World Cup matches at Boston Stadium,” Eng said in a statement. “Not only did we accelerate the full construction of this station in under a year, but we found ways to progress work during a challenging winter with record snowfall, while still providing service to the station, and supporting many special events at Gillette in parallel with construction.”

The new station platform is 800 feet long and fully accessible, allowing it to hold more passengers and let them board without ascending a staircase to the train.

The station also has additional temporary platforms to further expand its capacity. They could be reinstalled for future large events, the T said.

“Foxboro Station represents what can be achieved when public and private partners work together toward a common goal,” Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots and Gillette Stadium, said in a statement Tuesday. “This investment will benefit fans, commuters and visitors to Gillette Stadium year-round while helping us welcome the world back to Foxborough for the FIFA World Cup.”

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