The four branches are the remnants of a large streetcar system, which began in 1856 with the Cambridge Horse Railroad and was consolidated into the Boston Elevated Railway several decades later. The branches all travel downtown through the Tremont Street subway, the oldest subway tunnel in North America. The Tremont Street subway opened its first section on September 1, 1897, to take streetcars off overcrowded downtown streets; it was extended five times over the next five decades. The streetcar system peaked in size around 1930 and was gradually replaced with trackless trolleys and buses, with cuts as late as 1985. The new D branch opened on a converted commuter rail line in 1959. The Green Line Extension project extended two branches into Somerville and Medford in 2022.
^O'Hara, Mary Ann; Turners, Pat (August 22, 2024). "History of Funding Update"(PDF). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. p. 2.
^Cite error: The named reference bluebook was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Ian Yearsley (December 21, 1972). "Trams are coming back". New Scientist. Reed Business Information Ltd. Archived from the original on January 17, 2023. Retrieved August 28, 2023. ... San Francisco and Boston, both with semi-metros and independent plans for new tramcars.
^"Curiosity Carcards"(PDF). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. Archived from the original(PDF) on February 18, 2017. Retrieved January 21, 2016.