After introducing himself to Massachusetts at a Riverside Station press conference on Monday March 27, 2023 – and making clear that he's a Mets fan, not a Yankees fan – incoming MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng hopped aboard a Green Line train to head into Boston for more meetings with T staff. Photo by Chris Lisinski | State House News Service
Incoming MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng is walking into an agency where slow zones cover more than a quarter of subway tracks, service cuts persist on heavy rail and buses, and the chasm of a budget shortfall in the hundreds of millions of dollars looms just a couple of years away.
His bet is that a focus on the “basics” and empowering the agency’s stretched-thin workforce — plus a healthy dose of what Gov. Maura Healey called a “spirit of optimism” — will begin to turn the tide.
But some transit advocates caution against expectations that Eng’s appointment alone will be a game-changer.
Reliability, Trust Shortfalls Acknowledged
Eng, an engineer and longtime transportation executive who led the Long Island Rail Road for four years, made his introduction to Massachusetts on Monday hours after Healey’s office announced that a months-long search settled on him as the best choice to lead the agency.
He described himself both as a “people person” who would give MBTA staff the support and tools they need to improve from within and also, because of his background in engineering, as someone who has a “need” to solve problems whenever he sees them.
“The status quo is not acceptable, and moving forward, we will be innovative, open to new ideas, and think of outside-of-the-box solutions, but this is also about bringing back the basics,” Eng said. “Our job starts with making sure the T is safe and reliable, especially when it comes to communication. As a commuter myself, I know how frustrating it is when you can’t get accurate information about when your train is arriving, when it’s delayed and how long that delay may be.”
Eng leaned on his specific career experience during his inaugural press conference, pointing out that he started his tenure as LIRR president shortly after that commuter rail agency posted its worst on-time performance in decades and departed having achieved its best-ever performance.
“It had the similar kinds of concerns from the riding public, a lot of distrust of the workforce, a lot of distrust of the service, and people were taking their cars and driving,” he said. “Little by little, we invested in the key things that were causing the most delays to the public. We were not only fixing them, we were addressing the root cause of what created those issues. Sometimes, you need to spend some money to save some money, and we were doing that.”
“It was not just a list of things to fix,” Eng added. “It was a culture change with a new sense of urgency that became embedded in the management, in the workforce.”
During the nearly four years with Eng at its helm, the LIRR achieved its best-ever stretch of on-time performance in 2020 and then broke that record again in 2021, according to Newsday. Both of those years saw significantly reduced ridership due to COVID-19.
Healey, who on Monday called Eng “probably the most important appointment” of her nearly three months in office, said his success at improving the LIRR’s performance and a previous stint as interim president of the New York City Transit agency are “why we have picked him.”
“He recognizes and understands the challenges that we face. He understands the urgency with which we must act, and he’s ready to take on the challenge as he has throughout his career,” Healey said.
Plus, she added, Eng is himself a commuter who rode the Green Line to the afternoon press conference at Newton’s Riverside Station. And after addressing a wall of cameras and fielding questions, Eng and Transportation Secretary Gina Fiandaca hopped aboard one of the newest Green Line trains to head into Boston, where they toured the MBTA’s operations control center and met with staff.
$470K Per Year
Healey’s office said Eng will earn a salary of $470,000, plus an annual retention bonus of $30,000 and potential performance bonuses of 10 to 20 percent each year.
Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce President James Rooney praised the full package Healey provided Eng, describing himself as “pleased the governor was bold enough to take whatever criticism comes with that because we need this in this moment.” He pointed out that, before Poftak’s four-year tenure, the T churned through eight different general managers in about 10 years. The chamber had previously urged the Healey administration to pay up for the next leader of the T, recommending a base compensation between $450,000 and $500,000.
“The lack of leadership stability is part of the reason we’re in the position we’re in. Locking someone in through a retention bonus is important, and I’m glad that’s in there,” Rooney said in an interview. “It gives me the sense it’s not a person that’s going to stick around for a year or two and then be gone.”
“I hope a year from now, two years from now, we’re paying every penny of that performance bonus because that means the business community and commuters are getting what we deserve,” he added.
Don’t ‘Expect a Miracle’
Some T-watchers cautioned against putting too much stock in the arrival of a new general manager, no matter how impressive Eng’s or anyone else’s resume might be.
Brian Kane, executive director of the MBTA Advisory Board that represents cities and towns with T service, said he does not “expect a miracle from Phil Eng.”
“Any change or improvements are going to take a long time,” Kane said. “We cannot dig our way out of 30 years of deferred maintenance in one, two or even three years.”
Still, Kane said he heard from former MTA and LIRR employees that Eng’s reputation “is one of really delivering projects on time and on-budget.”
“That’s really what we critically need right now — Red and Orange Line cars, getting this Quincy electric bus garage off the ground, literally, figuring out how to fix the Blue Line, figuring out how to electrify commuter rail, and I would add ferry boats,” he said. “These are the projects, the kind of day-to-day, back-office, really mundane in some ways infrastructure projects that we need, that the T needs, that riders need, that the region needs, that the economy needs, that our climate needs.”
A day before Healey unveiled her long-awaited GM pick, TransitMatters Executive Director Jarred Johnson penned an op-ed calling for the governor to pause her search and give Interim General Manager Jeff Gonneville — who will remain at the T in a still-unannounced role — time and resources to get service back on stable footing.
The onboarding process for a new top leader, Johnson wrote in CommonWealth Magazine, presents “a recipe for stasis and further dysfunction.”
“Riders deserve a usable, safe, reliable system. A new GM will not magically restore any bus and subway trips, fix any slow zones, decarbonize our buses or trains, or make any meaningful difference to riders’ lives,” Johnson wrote, taking aim at Gov. Charlie Baker appointees who remain on the agency’s board of directors. “Replace the board members with actively involved people who have first-hand experience with the system and who will hold the T accountable. Provide the interim general manager with the resources he needs to address the myriad of issues facing the agency and prioritize staffing the front-line roles that keep our system moving.”
Now that the months-long question of who has been answered, attention will turn to how much longer commuters need to grapple with the crushing frustration many feel today.
“There’s no question that the challenges before us are great, and we will tackle them together with a strong team, a sense of urgency and an unwavering commitment to customer service,” Eng said. “It’s not going to happen overnight, but my pledge to the people in Massachusetts is that you will see meaningful, measurable steps being taken and progress made in short order.”
