Massachusetts Senate President, House Speaker want hearing on MBTA problems
BOSTON --Massachusetts lawmakers want to take a closer look at the growing problems at the MBTA and they're putting some of the blame on Governor Charlie Baker.
Senate President Karen Spilka and House Speaker Ron Mariano released a joint statement Tuesday saying they want to hold a legislative hearing to review what federal inspectors recently discovered about the T.
The Federal Transit Administration launched a review of the subway system back in April following a series of accidents that led to injuries or death.
The FTA released its review last week and included several directives to immediately address "longstanding issues" with the MBTA's "overall safety program and safety culture."
Among the issues the FTA noted were subway dispatchers working excessively long hours - some even doing 20-hour shifts.
The agency ordered the MBTA to bolster its control center staff, improve track maintenance and ensure that all employee training certifications are up to date, among other things.
This week the T began running fewer trains on the Red, Orange and Blue lines for the summer because it doesn't have enough dispatchers to run the normal train schedule.
"The FTA's findings and the MBTA's subsequent service cuts don't inspire any public confidence in our transit system," Spilka and Mariano said in their statement Tuesday. "Since 2015, at his request, Governor Baker has had control of the MBTA. It has since been the Administration's responsibility to keep up with maintenance and manage an efficient system that customers can rely on."
"Given the FTA's interim findings and alarming directives, there is an increased need to better understand the agency's shortcomings and help restore public confidence. Therefore, we will work with the Joint Committee on Transportation to conduct such a hearing in the coming weeks."
The governor's office issued a brief statement to WBZ-TV.
"The Baker-Polito Administration supports the MBTA's immediate actions to implement the FTA's findings, including an aggressive hiring campaign to recruit more dispatchers. The Administration shares the Legislature's goal to make the T as safe as possible and has invested nearly $8 billion into new tracks, cars and signals to make up for decades of deferred maintenance by state government," said Baker spokesperson Anisha Chakrabarti.
"When we have a state-run agency often run by people who don't ride the T, who aren't connected, who aren't living the realities – things get kicked down the line. It's time we make sure we have more input and say," Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said.
"At its heart, we can't have an MBTA that runs on crisis to crisis," said Rep. William Straus of the Committee on Transportation. "More important to me, in this case, is that we fix the problem and that broadly speaking, there's a culture in which we put safety as the question every day before every train rolls out of the station."
Some commuters say they have no choice but to take the T, despite the safety concerns.
"I really have no choice. I really need to take the T, so I feel confidence that the service will be good," said commuter Linda Beardsley.