MBTA officials shed little new light Thursday on the “unusual” rail problems that have slowed the nearly brand-new Green Line Extension almost to a halt, while a growing tide of public frustration is taking aim at Gov. Maura Healey and her hand-picked deputies.
Massachusetts would stand up a new agency, empowered with subpoena power and other regulatory muscle, to oversee public transit safety under a bill that has cleared the Joint Committee on Transportation.
The new head of state transportation safety thinks the T is “in a better place” than another major East Coast transit agency that suffered a safety meltdown, but it still has a lot of work to do.
The MBTA has until Monday to submit an updated plan for improving employee safety and preventing trains from striking workers after federal overseers, who still aren’t satisfied with the T’s staffing levels, deemed their initial proposal “insufficient.”
Calling for action to “stop the pain and suffering,” the parents of a Boston University professor who died when he fell through a broken MBTA station staircase made an emotional call Monday for strengthening safety oversight of the under-fire transit agency.
A former top safety executive at both the Washington, D.C. and New York City public transit systems will oversee safety issues at MassDOT, overseeing both the MBTA and the state’s highway system.
The eastern Massachusetts commuter rail network and its hundreds of thousands of riders would no longer be the responsibility of the MBTA under safety and management reforms targeted by the House’s transportation chief.
More than six months after the Federal Transit Administration concluded the Department of Public Utilities was falling short in its safety oversight of the MBTA, the DPU is still trying to bulk up its safety staff.
The Healey administration on Wednesday rolled out its refreshed roster for the Department of Public Utilities and charged the new trio with creating a “21st Century DPU.” But the new board still has no transit experts despite the DPU’s mission overseeing safety on the MBTA.
MBTA staff will remove ceiling panels at Harvard Station after a corroded panel fell about 10 feet and landed “very close to a customer,” Interim General Manager Jeff Gonneville said Friday.
Federal investigators identified a Green Line operator’s “loss of situational awareness” as the likely cause of a July 2021 Green Line collision, and their report about the incident published Thursday also appeared to reveal a lengthy delay to an overdue MBTA safety feature that could have prevented the crash.
.After studying the crisis at the MBTA for months, top lawmakers concluded the legislature should rethink the Department of Public Utilities’ role as the state agency responsible for overseeing MBTA safety and floated a few other ideas that do not yet appear to have much traction across both branches.
The MBTA is getting close to a fully staffed slate of subway dispatchers six months after federal investigators warned that shortages posed safety risks, though it’s still not clear when the transit agency will reverse service cuts triggered by workforce issues.
Massachusetts lawmakers are weighing how to fix years of problems at the MBTA while state government stands on the threshold of a major change, and in the opinion of a former U.S. transportation secretary, they should use that timing as an opportunity to “think very seriously” about dismantling and reimagining the entire transit system.
Beacon Hill has a clear transit to-do list for the coming legislative session, centered around setting the MBTA up for long-term success.
Lawmakers should expect to weigh legislation next year that would stand up a more independent MBTA oversight system, one senator said Thursday, contending that the existing approach by the Department of Public Utilities is part of a “mass failure” that allowed T safety issues to fester.
The MBTA defied some riders’ pessimism to reopen its Orange Line subway line on schedule this morning, with service provided by a fleet of all-new trains.
MBTA officials for months have projected that a sizable operating budget gap – between $240 million and $421 million, depending on ridership – will erupt in fiscal year 2024, then grow worse.
The head of the Department of Public Utilities mostly defended his agency’s approach to MBTA oversight, which drew criticism from federal investigators, while acknowledging Wednesday that DPU will “need to do more” to flex its muscle.
Lawmakers will formally return to the topic of MBTA safety failures next week when they convene a second oversight hearing to examine the transit agency.
