MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng hopped on the Blue Line after a news conference at Orient Heights in East Boston and got out at State station with T colleagues downtown – the ride went smoothly, free of slow zones.

For the first time since Eng took the helm of the beleaguered transit agency last April, at least one of the lines is completely restriction-free. He’s expressing confidence the entire network will be up to speed without any slow zones by the end of the year.

“That will be completed by the end of this year,” Eng said Wednesday, the first day the T restored full service on the Blue Line after a two-week shutdown. “We are on schedule right now with all of the planned track diversions.”

More than 200 workers from five contractor groups worked alongside MBTA forces for 14 days to lift 19 safety-related speed restrictions across 5 miles of the Blue Line, shortening travel times by more than 3 minutes, as of Wednesday.

With the Blue Line crossed off the checklist, crews will head to the Red Line on Thursday to begin work along the line with the most restrictions across the network with 54, or roughly 8.3 miles worth.

Shuttle buses are set to replace train service between JFK/UMass and Park Street stations for the next nine days, and then between Broadway and North Quincy May 11-12 before rounding out between Broadway and Braintree May 18-19.

There are now less than 100 speed restrictions across the MBTA system for the first time since March 2023, officials said.

The Blue Line project replaced 22,500 feet of rail, over 9,000 feet of overhead catenary wire, and more than 10,000 ties, and repaired stairways at Wonderland, Orient Heights and Wood Island.

“It truly is a coordinated effort,” Eng said. “The workforce is really working around the clock. With each one of these diversions, we’ve demonstrated we can do more work than we’ve done before.”

“These 14 days that we’ve done this Blue Line work is more work than this line has seen in years,” he added. “It just shows that we try to be effective and efficient and use taxpayer dollars wisely.”