The steel uprights had lost a substantial portion of their mass to rusting, though it was not structurally unsound since it was heavily overbuilt, and a $3 million repainting in 1975 stopped further oxidation.

[2][3]: 9  However, the stations were less solidly constructed, and with their narrow steel stairways and wooden platforms they would have required substantial renovations for continued usage and handicapped accessibility.

Addition of rapid transit to the corridor had been proposed as a branch of the predecessor BERy's streetcar network in 1926, and as a relocation of the Orange Line since 1966.

[5] Since the Southwest Corridor was located somewhat further to the west than the elevated had been, away from neighborhood centers like Dudley and Egleston Squares, the MBTA promised that a branch of the light rail Green Line would be built to provide continued rapid transit service to those areas.

[1] In 2002, the MBTA deployed bus rapid transit along much of the route from Dudley Square to Downtown Crossing in the form of Phase I of the controversial Silver Line, replacing the 49.

[6] The Silver Line has also been subject to neighborhood criticism, as it makes fewer stops than the 49, but nevertheless fails to sufficiently decrease travel times as compared to the previous conventional bus service.