The two Democrats who chair the Legislature’s transportation committee chided Gov. Charlie Baker for returning what they mentioned was a “watered-down” MBTA security reporting modification within the transportation bond invoice he signed into regulation this week.
The $11.3 billion regulation had initially included a provision from the Legislature that will have required the T to submit a month-to-month report back to the Office of the Inspector General that incorporates a listing of all of the “incidents, accidents, casualties, and hazards,” which might be made publicly accessible on-line.
Baker’s returned modification would, as an alternative, require the MBTA to submit a month-to-month “safety data analysis report” to the inspector basic’s workplace that incorporates “safety performance indicators for bus, heavy rail and light rail.” The info could be publicly accessible on the T’s web site inside three days of the submitted report, the governor wrote.
“The governor has returned a watered-down requirement, proposing a safety data analysis instead,” state Sen. Brendan Crighton and Rep. William Straus, who co-chair the Joint Committee on Transportation, mentioned in a joint assertion. “This doesn’t permit the ridership to see the total image of what’s occurring on the T.
“Given the Authority’s abysmal track record of delayed notification to both the Legislature and the public, stronger reporting requirements are an essential component of regaining the people’s trust in their transportation system.”
Crighton and Straus mentioned that along with the invoice allocating $400 million to the MBTA to deal with “ongoing safety concerns identified by the Federal Transit Administration’s safety management inspection,” the Legislature’s proposal to make the info publicly accessible on-line would have helped to “restore trust in the system.”
Baker wrote in a letter to the Legislature that he helps “the transparency and oversight provided for in this section, but believe the requirements should be streamlined to align with existing reporting requirements.”
“I am therefore proposing an amendment that will streamline and align this monthly safety reporting requirement with reports made to the Department of Public Utilities, the Federal Transit Administration, the board of directors of the MBTA, the national transit database and the Office of the Inspector General,” he continued.
The two had been additionally sad with the governor’s modification to take away a provision from the Legislature that will have prevented the MBTA from coming into into an settlement to buy diesel-powered commuter rail trains after Dec. 31, 2030.
“This bill makes crucial investments in electrifying our transportation system, but the governor’s shortsighted veto of diesel procurement provisions will allow the T to continue to waste critical capital resources on inefficient and outdated diesel locomotives,” Crighton and Straus mentioned.
“This goes against the underlying intent of the legislation, to make forward-thinking, long-term investments in a transportation system that is safe, reliable and energy efficient.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”