MBTA riders on the Red Line's Braintree branch were greeted with the fastest commutes in years Monday, after a 24-day closure to remove slow zones on the line. It's the first time in at least a decade that there were no Red Line slow zones south of JFK/UMass.

The MBTA’s Red Line is back in business. A three-and-a-half-week closure of its Braintree Branch ended on schedule Monday with 18 miles of tracks freshly repaired. For the first time since Sept. 5, the subway system can take riders between Braintree and Boston in one smooth ride.

By eliminating dozens of slow zones, the T expects the typical round-trip on this segment of the Red Line to run 24 minutes faster than it did a month ago.