'We're not waiting': Top MBTA officials publicly chart initial response to federal safety directives
Chris Van Buskirk | cvanbuskirk@masslive.com
Top MBTA officials started to publicly chart an initial response Thursday morning to a series of federal safety directives released last week that take aim at track maintenance delays, uncontrolled train movements, staffing at a key department, and employee recertifications.
The state's public transit agency must develop corrective action plans to address a litany of issues the Federal Transit Administration outlined as part of a safety inspection into the MBTA. It's only the second time regulators have stepped in to address issues at a local transit agency, having last conducted a similar review of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority in 2015.
MBTA General Manager Steve Poftak said the FTA inspection has offered "a process to have a really extensive review of our practices here at the T, and to the extent that we have deficiencies, to be able to address them."
"We're not waiting to submit [corrective action plans] and get them back from the FTA before we take action; we are taking what we believe are the necessary actions now," Poftak said during an MBTA Board of Directors meeting. "We also will not hesitate to ask for additional resources if we feel that is what we need. But I do hope what's visible through this is we are already taking actions to address these special directives."
Each corrective action plan has its own due date, including one on unintended train movements due to the federal government on July 5 and another on track maintenance due July 15.
In a drastic move last week in response to FTA findings on staffing challenges at the Operations Control Center, which coordinates train movements across the entire system, the MBTA reduced weekday service on the Red, Orange and Blue Lines.
It was a decision that prompted instant backlash from commuters and transit advocacy organizations in the Greater Boston area who renewed calls at the outset of Thursday's meeting to restore full service by Labor Day.
Poftak said the staffing issue is "most acute" with heavy rail — Red, Orange and Blue Lines — dispatchers, and the MBTA has already taken "a number of actions" including implementing a fatigue management program for staff and a conducting "hiring blitz."
The agency's customer experience team held a meet and greet for potential dispatchers and Poftak said six prospective candidates came to the Operations Control Center on Wednesday to meet with existing staff. Poftak said there are another 12 applicants the agency plans to interview and train.
"We will be aggressively attempting to train new operators so that we can build up some resiliency in this area," Poftak said. "We're working hard to attract new people to the position. But I think we're also working hard to make the position attractive by limiting the number of hours, trying to have schedules that are less demanding than they were before."
Federal officials detailed seven immediate actions on staffing at the Operations Control Center that the MBTA must take by July 5 like ensuring certifications are up to date, staff have enough time off between shifts to recover, "develop and enforce policies that require OCC personnel to work in a rested state," and address challenges in recruiting new dispatchers.
"Taken together, MBTA has created a management process whereby OCC staff members are required to work without certifications, in a fatigued state, and often fulfilling multiple roles at once," the directive said.
A spokesperson for the FTA did not immediately respond to a request for comment seeking information on how many corrective action plans the MBTA has so far submitted.
Transit Matters Executive Director Jarred Johnson said his organization understands the service cuts came as a result of federal directives but the impacts of reductions will be felt disproportionately on low-income and minority riders.
"[It] has the potential to lower ridership and push the system into what many of us feared when this news was first announced about the FTA performing an audit and investigating the MBTA, which is putting the system into a death spiral," Johnson said at the outset of Thursday's meeting.
The agency pulled all new Orange and Red Line cars from service earlier this week after a "battery failure" caused damage "significant enough to warrant the decision to remove" the new cars while the incident is under investigation, MBTA spokesperson Lisa Battiston said in a statement.
The decision to sideline the cars will not impact service levels on the Orange and Red Lines, Poftak said, because the MBTA has enough older cars to make up for the loss.
The MBTA's response to the FTA's findings comes on the heels of top Democrats in the state Legislature announcing their intention to hold oversight hearings into safety at the transit agency. The two lawmakers charged with holding those hearings told MassLive they plan to take a broad look at spending and management decisions.
Decisions to delay track critical track maintenance also drew the ire of federal regulators, who said the MBTA "faces systemic challenges in maintaining its aging infrastructure in a state of good repair and managing the ongoing operations of its complex system."
An FTA safety directive said maintenance crews had limited time during the night to access tracks that were in need of repair. The directive pointed specifically to a portion of track on the Orange Line south of Tufts Medical Center where speed restrictions have been in place since 2019.
"FTA found that portions of track displayed evidence of excessive wear and defects," the directive read. "These conditions were, in turn, managed through gauge rods, some of which showed signs of corrosion."
Poftak said the MBTA is "working collectively across the organization" to find more time for crews to perform track maintenance, balancing capital projects that include track improvements with track maintenance needs, and addressing equipment needs.
"We are also taking a look at our procedures where we provide access to track in an effort to safely, and I emphasize that word safely, increase the availability of track time to our work crews," Poftak said. "So a number of important issues in flight."
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