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Feds to MBTA: No, you can't wait until next year to finish making tracks safer for subway workers
By adamg on Mon, 05/29/2023 - 1:18pm
A plan submitted by the MBTA earlier this month to reduce the odds of its workers getting injured or killed while working on subway tracks needs to be redone immediately because it includes fixes not scheduled until next year, the Federal Transit Administration says.
In a letter to MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng, an FTA safety official said it's done with dawdling and that the T has to figure out how to accomplish all its proposals in two months - not over the next year - or risk having the administration ban all MBTA workers from Red, Green, Blue and Orange Line tracks.
In a separate letter, the official - Joe DeLorenzo, chief safety officer for the FTA's Office of Transit Safety and Oversight - said the MBTA has made good strides to addressing safety issues found last year, but that it needs to "develop an urgent hiring plan and strategy" immediately for hiring new safety managers and engineers, because it doesn't have enough to do all the required work on time.
In his letter demanding a two-month timeline for making tracks safer for workers, DeLorenzo writes:
Given the immediate risk to worker safety on the ROW, FTA requires direct and focused actions. Please resubmit the Work Plan by June 5, 2023,
with revisions that address and implement ROW safety processes and procedures within the next 60 days.
The threat to ban workers from tracks is similar to one DeLorenzo issued in April, after a worker was injured around 1 a.m. on April 13 while working on overhead power lines on the Blue Line at Revere Beach. Following that incident, the FTA required detailed plans from the T on how it would fix everything from its radio systems, to how it schedules workers on tracks to creating a system that would let workers report possible safety problems without fear of retribution.
In a separate letter, DeLorenzo did approve the T's plan for dealing with a series of safety issues the FTA found last year - which led to the current reduced number of trains because there weren't enough dispatchers, among other problems - but added:
FTA remains concerned about the staffing levels within the Safety Department. MBTA must expedite action to staff the Safety Department, including detailees and embedded contractors, if necessary, and conduct weekly staffing updates with FTA. We believe this focus on safety staffing will help alleviate the capacity challenges the MBTA is facing and enable the agency to better to address the safety issues identified in the Safety Management Inspection (SMI) and implement Safety Management Systems
In a third letter, sent earlier this month, DeLorenzo approved the T's plans for securing disabled subway cars in yards, so that they would no longer simply roll onto the tracks.
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Comments
T Inferno
"Abandon hope, all ye who enter here"
Having said all that, my ride
Having said all that, my ride from shawmut to central was 8:46 to 8:17. Fastest in months
8:46 to 8:17? Time machine?
It took negative time to get from Shawmut to Central? I'm impressed.
Ooops. 7:46 to 8:17.
Ooops. 7:46 to 8:17.
My cue to post my favorite Marvin 'Bad News' Barnes story
Bad News was a basketball star for Providence in the early 70s - great player but Bad News wasn't an ironic nickname. Bob Costas started out his career broadcasting the St Louis ABA team's games and tells this story:
"We were playing in Louisville against the Kentucky Colonels. Now, Louisville is only about a five-hour drive from St. Louis, but it's on Eastern time. So we play the game and lose, and the next morning we gather at the airport.
"And the traveling secretary hands out the itinerary and it says: 'TWA Flight No. 305. Depart Louisville 8 a.m. Arrive St. Louis 7:55 a.m.'
"Well, Marvin looks at the paper and beckons me and says, 'Bro, I don't know about you, but I'm not getting on any time machine.'
ban all MBTA workers from Red, Green, Blue and Orange Line track
That'll go over big, since it will mean shutting down the whole system.
It might even piss off enough voters to flip Massachusetts red next year.
Uh, sure
Look, Massachusetts voters may be morons, but I think they might be smart enough to know that electing Trump or DeSantis is not going to magically fix the T.
Or fix anything else, either
Unless it's the crushing, inhumane tax burden of the very wealthy ...
And ...
The horrifying non-problems of no-fault divorce, women getting reproductive care and not dying from pregnancy, kids learning that gay people exist and slavery happened and poverty and racism are problems, and a tiny fraction of the population that doesn't dress they way certain people think they should.
Dunno about that
When Braintree voted overwhelmingly for Scott Brown for the Senate back in 2010, we learned that brains do not, in fact, grow on trees.
Times have changed
Today's MA Republican Party is so bought into MAGA madness that they are running as fast as they can away from what the vast majority of voters here value. If Brown were to endorse their Trump agenda and be nominated today, he'd be humiliated in a general election, just like most of their candidates are.
Now, if we could only replace those Right-wing Democrats ...
Baker
How dare you talk about Charlie Baker and his livelong vendetta against public services that way!
EDIT: this should have threaded under Swirly's comment.
Uh ... what?
Oh gees, something isn't working because a Republican went on a lifelong vendetta and was then elected Governor and nearly finished his decades long tantrum.
So let's elect MORE DESTRUCTIVE nihilist Republicans!
That makes ... sense?
You seem to forget that part where we are a highly educated state.
Is it just me or does it sort
Is it just me or does it sort of read like a catch-22 or a similar dilemma? They need to make it safer fast, but the work required to make it safer is just not possible within the timeframe? Like trying to demand to finish a pregnancy in 4 months vs 9 months?
Not exactly
Some of what they're requiring to have expedited are safety procedures, which have been sadly lacking.
As for the rest, I read it less like demanding the impossible and more as saying "You can't do that work until you have the staff, procedures and equipment to do it safely. If that means shutting things down until you aren't risking workers' lives, we'll shut you down until you're ready to do things correctly."
The FTA has had enough with the T's stalling
Since the T is dragging its feet doing these repairs and keeping all modes on quasi-permanent slowdown, the Feds will disrupt that "just the way we like it" attitude at the T and take it over - hence, banning T workers and forcing a total shutdown of all subway lines. And I'm betting this time the FTA will send out plenty of their own manpower to ensure that the T is doing the repairs.
Manpower
Shutting down the T would be a regional disaster. Does the MA National Guard have any of the required skills? If they do, the Governor could act.
The National Guard?
I'd bet the ones with the appropriate skills are already working for the T. Not uncommon for state workers to also be national guard - like a bureau level comptroller I know who ended up accounting for and securing the PPE stockpile.
And the ones who illegally stop, detain, and board buses because "might be refugees!" and the tech whiz leaking documents to impress his odious terrorist-adjacent bros? Don't count on it.
Anecdata aside,
The Guard certainly has safety specialists and engineers. If calling some of them up to work at the T would satisfy the FTA and avert a system shutdown, the Governor should consider it.
Yes, there are some idiots in the Guard. Not unlike any other group. That's not a reason to reject the group's possible contributions.
It's been more than 40 weeks for this to gestate
I could look up the date in 2020 that the FTA said that the T needed to get its house in order safetywise, like hiring new dispatchers (not accomplished, from what I've seen) and getting safety plans in order. Let's be honest, this is work done by career people at the T, so the head being Eng or Poftak doesn't really matter. All of this should have been done by now and it hasn't.
I guess my only hope is that come June 5, more commuter rail trains will be stopping at Forest Hills to make up for the Orange Line being closed.
Get an e bike my friend
You won’t look back.
And get a good lock.
I’ve considered one. But safe storage is a problem for lots of people who don’t have it.
I love mine
But I have secure storage, insurance, and budgeted for a high end Kryptonite New York series lock.
I won't likely take it out today because of the hazardous air conditions due to wildfires in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. I do ride in most other conditions except ice, and it extends my ability to deal with wind and extreme heat.
E-bikes beat the pants off of cars for urban travel, but they are not a complete MBTA replacement and certainly not for those who can't ride at all.
I wish I could
The T isn't entirely accessible to people with disabilities, but it's much better than bikes for a lot of us. The electric assist of an e-bike might help with some of the hills, but it won't solve my or anyone's balance problems (just for example).
I take the red line to my doctor's office, and a bus to my dentist. By T, I can do things like stop at the grocery store on the way home, which seems unexciting until you can't do it. According to the MBTA, there is secure storage for "between 50 and 150" bikes at the Davis red line station. There's no secure bike storage near my dentist's office, and only a little near most grocery stores, library branches, etc.
We need better bike infrastructure, but you can't handwave it into existence immediately, just like they can't just wave a wand and fix all the MBTA safety problems.