MBTA Sees 'Opportunity' For Change After Damning FTA Inquiry

BOSTON, MA — A wide-ranging Federal Transit Administration report on the MBTA released Wednesday says that the transit agency developed troubling safety problems due to a focus on completing capital projects, and a workforce that's too small to run the subway system.

As of result of the report, the FTA has ordered the T to address a set of special directives covering areas like safety communications and balancing the funding of new projects versus day-to-day operations.

In response to the FTA report, the MBTA said it will create a new department — the Quality, Compliance and Oversight Office — to oversee safety issues.

"We see this as an opportunity to learn how we can improve and have already begun to rectify the issues raised," the transit agency said hours after the release of the 90-page FTA report, which got underway in April.

The new directives come after the FTA in June ordered the MBTA to address four other safety issues like aging infrastructure and staffing in an operations control facility. Federal officials got involved after a series of derailments and deadly incidents, ranging from a college professor's fall through a rusted staircase at the JFK-UMass station to the April dragging death of a man at the Broadway Station along the Red Line.

"Transit riders shouldn’t have to question whether they will get to their destinations safely," FTA Deputy Administrator Veronica Vanterpool said in a news release. "Safety is FTA's top priority, and our role is to hold transit agencies and state safety oversight agencies accountable on behalf of transit riders and workers."

The report found an "increase in severity" of incidents in the subway system dating back several years, according to a copy of the document released Wednesday.

"Safety data show that, from Jan. 1, 2019, through April 2022, MBTA experienced a higher overall rate of reportable safety events, particularly on its heavy rail mode, and a higher rate of derailments on both heavy and light rail modes, than its peers and the total rail transit industry average," the report said.

The increase in safety incidents coincided with the MBTA focusing on system upgrades and expansions while not investing in personnel, the FTA said.

"Over the last four years, the MBTA’s capital budget has grown four-fold, yet MBTA is still recovering from the impact of funding cuts from 2015 to 2019 to the MBTA’s operations and maintenance budget which resulted in a reduction in hundreds of millions of dollars and hundreds of positions," the report said.

The FTA also faulted the state Department of Public Utilities' oversight of the MBTA. Federal officials found issues of noncompliance dating back to 2019, the report said. The federal agency also issued directives Wednesday to DPU to improve oversight.

"Despite MBTA’s recent safety performance, FTA determined that DPU has not been actively engaged in overseeing the MBTA’s Safety Management System (SMS), including safety risk management and safety assurance activities," the report said.

The report noted 24 "findings" of problem areas the MBTA should solve to improve safety. Those findings range from staffing levels not "commensurate with the demand for human resources required to carry out current rail transit operations" to a lack of a mentoring program as the T replaces subway motorpersons.

The FTA report was released shortly after Gov. Charlie Baker on Wednesday morning filed a supplemental $1.6 billion budget proposal, which includes $200 million for the MBTA.

The FTA report only covered the MBTA's subway system. Commuter rail and bus service were not audited.