A prime transportation-focused lawmaker desires handy management of the state’s commuter rail providers to the Department of Transportation, a transfer he says would enable the MBTA to concentrate on subway and bus service.
Rep. William Straus, a Bristol County Democrat, stated it’s “fanciful to think” that high-level choices for the commuter rail are being made by prime MBTA officers when Department of Transportation officers have typically led the cost for the transit service.
“So why don’t we just end the fiction that the MBTA operates, or makes the key decisions regarding commuter rail? The other policy reason is commuter rail, and daily subway and bus service are very different kinds of operations in terms of how you deploy equipment, and schedule,” stated Straus, the co-chair of the Legislature’s Transportation Committee.
The proposal is a part of laws scheduled for a Monday Transportation Committee listening to, the place advocates are anticipated to weigh in on Straus’ invoice and others coping with the commuter rail, MBTA, Western Massachusetts rail service, and East-West rail.
But not everyone seems to be on board with altering up the commuter rail.
“This is a terrible idea,” stated Stacy Thompson, govt director of LivableStreets. “… From the goal of trying to get more people onto a seamless transit system, the idea that you would chunk this out and put it under different leadership, just makes it less usable from a very practical perspective. So I just really, truly do not understand.”
Ever since Robinson Lalin was dragged to his dying by a Red Line practice final yr, which partially prompted a federal security inspection of the MBTA, the company has been grappling with slowed-down trains, harmful security failures, and elevated public scrutiny.
The Federal Transit Administration issued a prolonged checklist of mandates geared toward fixing security issues on the MBTA final summer season, and T officers have been working to adjust to these.
And the Healey administration has reworked prime management on the company — putting in new common supervisor Phillip Eng in addition to new MBTA Board of Directors members, and hiring a chief security officer reporting each to the secretary of transportation and to Eng.
But Straus says the transit company has too broad of a mandate.
“The approach here is to end up with an MBTA which is smaller in scope, in terms of its responsibilities, so that it can focus on what really, to me, should be its core mission of Boston subway service in the immediate metro area, in a safe, reliable and efficient manner,” Straus stated.
Splitting off the commuter rail from the MBTA may have an effect on the convenience at which individuals can switch to subway or bus providers, stated Brian Kane, govt director of the MBTA Advisory Board.
“I just don’t think it makes sense to have another public transportation entity operate that so that you couldn’t have things like transfers to the bus system in places like Newton, or to the Orange Line in places like Oak Grove, or Forest Hills or Quincy,” Kane informed the Herald. “To me, making it easier to transfer is where we should be headed.”
Another provision within the invoice would convene a gaggle of stakeholders to give you a plan to switch security oversight of the MBTA from the Department of Public Utilities to the Office of the Inspector General.
Inspector General Jeffrey Shapiro is predicted to testify on the matter throughout the Monday listening to, Straus informed the Herald.
Thompson stated one other concept is to create an impartial fee to supervise security on the MBTA just like the Massachusetts Gaming Commission or the Cannabis Control Commission.
“Maura Healy hired a really good safety officer,” Thompson stated. “It’s great that she hired really wonderful DPU commissioners, but it doesn’t solve this core problem of independent oversight that we have models of in the state and that the federal government is encouraging us to do.”
Straus stated he’s open to altering the invoice after he listens to testimony on Monday.
“There isn’t one answer to the T’s problems. We could give them all the money in the world, but if they’re inefficient and don’t manage themselves, or aren’t managed well, we haven’t solved anything,” he stated.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”