MBTA needs independent safety management agency, former US transportation Sec. says
By Chris Lisinski, State House News Service
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, October 25, 2022 (State House News Service) -- Massachusetts lawmakers should strip state safety oversight of the MBTA from the Department of Public Utilities and assign that responsibility elsewhere, while also standing up a fully independent safety management agency, a former U.S. transportation secretary who previously studied problems at the T said Tuesday.
Ray LaHood, who in 2019 served on an independent panel that flagged many of the same troubling trends at the MBTA that the Federal Transit Administration identified this summer, told Transportation Committee members that he believes shifting the designated T state safety oversight role away from the DPU should be the top priority for the Legislature.
"If you don't do anything else, you need to do that. To me, that's very important," LaHood, a former Republican congressman who served as transportation secretary in the Obama administration, said. "The orientation of the SSO [State Safety Oversight] needs to be proactive, not reactive. The work needs to be transparent to the public. You have to have transparency. You just simply do."
While slamming the MBTA for persistent problems and ordering a slew of changes, federal investigators also called out the DPU for falling short of its oversight responsibilities. Officials at the DPU have said since then they are struggling to attract more professionals to expand their transit safety work.
LaHood also suggested that legislators create another fully independent "safety management agency" with staff paid well enough to attract and retain top talent, pointing to his own work chairing a board that Columbia Gas parent company NiSource created to examine its safety management in the wake of the 2019 Merrimack Valley natural gas explosions.
"You need outside eyes that pay attention every day," LaHood said.