A collection of close to misses between MBTA employees and trains on the Red Line over the previous two weeks are “unacceptable,” Gov. Maura Healey mentioned Wednesday as she expressed confidence within the company’s basic supervisor to handle security considerations.
Workers performing repairs on northbound tracks between Harvard and Porter Stations advised MBTA officers {that a} prepare approaching at 25 mph didn’t cease Monday when workers signaled the motive force to take action, in keeping with inside stories obtained by the Herald. It adopted the same incident every week earlier involving the identical prepare driver, in keeping with the paperwork.
Speaking to reporters at an unrelated occasion Wednesday, Healey mentioned MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng has been “empowered and has hired multiple new individuals” to handle security considerations. Healey mentioned she met with the pinnacle of the Federal Transit Administration Tuesday.
“We know what we need to do and we will work day in and day out to make sure that we are getting the resources in place to address these issues, long standing issues, unacceptable, unacceptable, but long standing and we’re working every day to rectify that,” Healey mentioned.
No one was injured through the Monday incident and the prepare’s driver “is out of service” whereas an investigation performs out, MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo mentioned. Federal officers and the Department of Public Utilities, which offers security oversight of the MBTA, had been notified of the incidents, Pesaturo mentioned.
The Red Line operator concerned within the Monday incident was “given a signal to stop her train while the crew put themselves in an area in which the train could safely pass,” one inside report obtained by the Herald mentioned.
“But she did not acknowledge the signal and proceeded past them at approximately 25 mph,” the report mentioned.
As the MBTA employees had been speaking to investigators, one observe employee mentioned one other close to miss befell on Sept. 11 on the identical stretch of observe involving the identical prepare driver, in keeping with one other inside MBTA communication obtained by the Herald.
“They did not report the incident because they felt they were in a safe location,” the second MBTA communication mentioned.
The inside paperwork and close to misses had been first reported by The Boston Globe.
The close to misses on the Red Line come only a week after the Federal Transit Administration admonished the MBTA, charging {that a} “combination of unsafe conditions and practices exist such that there is a substantial risk of serious injury or death of a worker,” in a letter to Eng.
In that Sept. 14 letter, FTA Chief Safety Officer Joe DeLorenzo mentioned MBTA employees have skilled a collection of close to misses the place “active train movements nearly collided with transit workers on the [right of way],” together with 4 within the month previous the letter.
Federal officers required the MBTA final week to take a lot of actions in response, together with reporting close to misses inside two hours, conducting an evaluation of close to misses, and stopping lone employees on tracks.
The prohibition on lone employees prompted push again from Eng, who requested the FTA to rethink the restriction in a letter this week.
A senior official near the MBTA and FTA who requested anonymity to talk candidly mentioned the MBTA is within the strategy of adopting a “more confrontational mode with the feds than ever.”
The official, pointing to the lone work prohibition, mentioned restrictions on how the MBTA can place employees on tracks makes it laborious to conduct upkeep.
“It makes things less safe if we can’t do anything,” the senior official mentioned. “If we can’t do anything and we can’t do track maintenance, the tracks fall apart. It makes things less safe. And so there is a sense that we are going to be confronting the feds.”
A spokesperson for the FTA didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
In a letter to the FTA, Eng argued the prohibition “creates the risk that the MBTA will be unable to have a timely response to emergency situations or situations that have the potential to become more hazardous if they are not responded to and resolved quickly, which can have impacts to safety.”
The intent is to proceed to permit workers to shortly reply to emergency conditions or conditions which have the potential to grow to be extra hazardous, corresponding to disabled trains, failed energy switches, and conditions requiring the institution of a guide block,” Eng wrote within the letter.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”