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BY ABDALLAH FAYYAD
BY JOAN VENNOCHI
1979
A three-month investigation by the Globe Spotlight Team finds that the MBTA, mile for mile, is the most costly and least efficient major transit system in the United States. “The T stinks,” says the MBTA's chairman. “There is no discipline anywhere."
Why is the MBTA always
lurching from crisis to crisis?
Way back in 1980, The Boston Globe Spotlight Team won a Pulitzer Prize for an investigative series on the MBTA, packaged under the headline “Boston’s crisis in mass transportation: What’s gone wrong?”
Today, the image of panicked passengers fleeing an Orange Line train on fire in July has come to symbolize the T’s seemingly never-ending struggles. Before that, a series of derailments and other service disruptions, and the terrible tragedy of a man dragged to his death when a malfunctioning subway door closed on his arm, triggered a federal safety audit — and now, a month-long shutdown of the entire Orange Line. What’s gone wrong? And in a city that has transformed itself in almost every other way, how can we still be asking the same question about the T?
Boston is way cooler than it was in 1980, less parochial and more cosmopolitan, with a glittery new skyline and an ever-evolving workforce to prove it. How did core parts of the public transit system — and its hundreds of thousands of daily riders — get not only left behind but left to lurch from crisis to crisis?
In the Globe’s coverage from 1979 and ’80, when I was a researcher on the Spotlight Team alongside editor Stephen Kurkjian and reporters Sandy Hawes, Nils Bruzelius, and Robert Porterfield, we attributed the crisis to “a collapse of management authority at the MBTA,” aided by “a cozy, self-serving alliance of unions and State House politicians.” The symptoms of the crisis included low productivity, union intimidation, shoddy repairs, overtime abuses, theft, and weak managers. It all added up to “the most costly and least efficient major transit system in the United States.”
Edward J. King was governor when the Spotlight Team revealed his penchant for political interference, coziness with MBTA unions, and lack of interest in professional management. During King’s tenure, a one-day transit strike shut down the system and King activated the National Guard to protect MBTA property. King’s transportation secretary was convicted on bribery and extortion charges. There’s general agreement this was not a good era for public transportation in Massachusetts.
Dukakis, who was governor when he lost a 1978 primary to King, was reelected to the job in 1982. To disciples of public investment in the T, those were the golden years. Dukakis benefited from a 1980 Management Rights Law that allowed the T to determine staffing levels, hire part-time workers, and, most important, contract out services. Fred Salvucci, who served as transportation secretary under Dukakis, says MBTA general managers during that period used that contract right in a “judicious” way to encourage in-house employees to do a good job.
Dukakis was also committed to building a team of transportation experts who believed in the concept of public transit as a public good. The priorities were “to focus on the rider experience and invest in infrastructure,” says Salvucci. He credits Jim O’Leary, who served as the T’s general manager from 1981 to 1989, with overseeing such key projects as the replacement of the elevated portion of the T, overhauling South Station, extending the Red Line, and expanding commuter rail. According to Thomas Glynn, who served as MBTA general manager in the last two years of the Dukakis administration, a customer survey put rider satisfaction at 92 percent.
But this was also the era of the Big Dig, the massive public works project that buried the Central Artery beneath downtown Boston. In the final hours of the Dukakis administration, the state signed off on an agreement with the Conservation Law Foundation to use highway dollars to fund an array of public transit improvements, including the Green Line extension that’s being completed this year. Critics argue that the MBTA expansion came at the expense of maintenance and repair work, which haunts the T today. However, Salvucci stands by it, on the theory that if you build public transportation, people will use it, and that’s good for the economy and the environment.
Yet to really come through for the riders requires not only commitment to future growth but adequate investment in the existing system, and that has been lacking over the years.
In 2000, under Republican Governor Paul Cellucci, the state implemented what was called “forward funding.” Under that formula, the T got a penny on every nickel collected in state sales tax. In return, it would take on the debt the state had acquired from building MBTA projects. A 2009 report, overseen by former John Hancock chief executive David D’Alessandro, called forward funding “a great idea” but said the plan the MBTA developed to implement it “was unrealistic and destined to fail” and left the T with continuing operating deficits.
I work at Tufts Medical Center and I’m in anesthesia. At any point in the day, I could be called in to work, and I rely on the Orange Line. From the time we’re called in, we need to be there within half an hour, so I’m worried about that. It just doesn’t seem like there’s been much foresight. I feel like the MBTA is always reacting to problems. I’d like to see them catching these things ahead of time so that something like shutting down the T completely for a full month doesn’t have to happen.”
Delayed equipment upgrades, overdue maintenance, and safety problems contribute to a new crisis. Federal transit officials excoriate the MBTA for allowing critical issues to fester, putting passengers and workers at risk.
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Aerial view of Sullivan Station in Charlestown, Feb. 9, 1965.
Joe Runci/
Globe Staff
Above: Two Green Line trains collided in 2021 in Brookline. Barry Chin/Globe staff
Right: A Green Line train smashed into another train from behind in Newton in 2008, injuring multiple people and trapping a train operator in the wreckage. Dina Rudick/Globe Staff
Nearly everything about Boston has changed in the past few decades, yet the T has the same big problem — a failure to prioritize the rider experience above all.
Today, the answer to what’s wrong with the T has something to do with those old Spotlight Team findings. Over time, a succession of state leaders have tangled with similar issues — weak management, union influence, and politics — that affect the cost of running the MBTA, its productivity, and the quality of its service. There have been nine general managers since 2010, and the current one “does not possess in-depth transportation operations and safety knowledge,” noted a 2019 report by former US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. A state law that went into effect in 1993 makes it more difficult to outsource work today than it was in the early ’80s. As for politics, it’s still very much in play. When the T tried to outsource bus maintenance five years ago to improve efficiency and lower costs, the Massachusetts congressional delegation, led by Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, sent a letter of protest to Governor Charlie Baker.
Opinions vary on what the transit system could look like if it served riders first, ahead of politicians and other entrenched interests. But there’s broad consensus that the system should guarantee affordable, convenient transportation to jobs, education, and health care, with enough money to expand as needed while maintaining and repairing what’s there. More empathy for the everyday rider and better communication about problems and system changes would also be appreciated.
After the train went up in flames, Baker came to an unprecedented decision: Starting Aug. 19, he shut down the entire Orange Line for 30 days, during which he promises that five years worth of track repairs and replacements will be performed. When the Orange Line reopens — on Sept. 19, if all goes according to plan — Baker also promises that a fleet that up until the shutdown still included rickety old cars that entered service in 1979 and 1980 would finally be replaced by new ones.
If Baker delivers on that promise, it means government will have worked this time, at least for the T’s 100,000 daily Orange Line riders. Can government really save the T after years of failing it?
Governor Charlie Baker arrives at Wellington Station to provide an update regarding the closure of the orange line on Aug. 3. Erin Clark/Globe Staff
Jim Aloisi, who served as transportation secretary under Governor Deval Patrick, believes there’s no other choice. “No private company would come in and do this job. It would have to do what the government already does — subsidize it,” he says. Otherwise, to make money, says Aloisi, a private company would have to “abolish labor unions, reduce wages, and cut service.”
By the way, no one yet has said what the total cost of this 30-day shutdown will be.
On the plus side, the MBTA has successfully expanded service over the past half century. In the 1970s, there were about 300,000 daily riders. Pre-pandemic, the system served about one million daily riders on subways, buses, ferries, and the commuter rail. Post-pandemic ridership is about half that.
The entire system isn’t falling apart. But many of the same old problems persist.
According to the findings of a panel appointed to review the MBTA after record-breaking snowfall shut it down in 2015, the T’s operating costs are not the highest in the country — whew! — but the second highest. Still, the problems identified in that report have a familiar 1980 ring to them: “limited cost control, low labor productivity, and high maintenance costs.”
An MBTA train is pictured in December 1970 in Boston after a snowplow train derailed, making it necessary to run shuttle buses between North Station and Sullivan Square.
Frank Wing/
Globe Staff
Washington Street under the Orange Line tracks near the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Nov. 5, 1986.
David L. Ryan/
Globe staff
Train attendant Mike Greeley watches the doors on an MBTA Orange Line subway car at the Stony Brook station on April 16, 2008.
John Blanding/
Globe staff
Stranded commuters affected by the fire on the Orange Line on Aug. 23, 2019, wait for a bus at Bunker HIll Community College.
Matthew J. Lee/
Globe staff
Incorrect dates posted for the MBTA Orange Line at North Station. The sign should have read August 19 to September 18.
David L Ryan/
Globe Staff
Meanwhile, according to the latest report — this one from the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation — the T is now in “full-blown crisis.” The list of what the foundation calls “existential threats” includes the delayed delivery of new Red and Orange Line cars; the delayed opening of nine bus maintenance facilities to accommodate an electric bus fleet; the need for a modern fare collection system that is years behind schedule; and the absence of an updated capital assessment to protect infrastructure from climate change.
So, what’s the answer? What will it take to put the riders first as a matter of routine, not just as a response to crisis? Can the T get into sustainable financial shape while still investing in the staff, repairs, and equipment needed to give riders what they deserve?
To former Governor Michael Dukakis, a devoted Green Line rider and public transit advocate, it isn’t complicated. “It doesn’t require reorganization or some highfalutin plan. I’m a very strong believer in putting responsibility with the governor,” he says. “It’s one of the toughest jobs you have and you need excellent people who are leaders, the support of the Legislature, and effective implementation. There’s no magic to it.”
But Charles Chieppo, a senior fellow at the Pioneer Institute, a conservative think tank that believes in smaller government, has a less optimistic take: “What the T needs more than anything else is the one thing it will never get,” he says. That is, “the political will to make it accountable, and to change the culture that is there to one that serves riders, rather than serve the politicians who use it for patronage and to serve the people who work there.” To Chieppo, putting riders first means allowing the T to contract out noncore functions and those it doesn’t do well and developing “a real performance management system to hold executives and managers accountable.”
There’s merit in both perspectives. A governor who believes in public transit, makes funding a priority, and takes responsibility for the end product is the kind of leader the T needs. Taking out the politics and changing a culture that contributes to high costs and low productivity would also help the rider experience. But over the past several decades, politicians have spent a lot of time arguing over whose policies are most responsible for the T’s continuing fiscal instability. And that blame game is a big part of the T’s problem.
Governor Michael Dukakis speaks at the opening of the Davis Square MBTA station on Dec. 8, 1984.
John Blanding/ Globe Staff
Edward J. King in 1974. King was the governor of Massachusetts from 1979 to 1983.
Charles Dixon/ Globe Staff
Snowmaggedon
This year, for example, the T’s oversight board had to use pandemic relief money to plug a $288 million gap in the MBTA’s $2.55 billion budget. But by next summer, a new gap — $236 million — is predicted. A few years ago, Baker put $8 billion into a five-year capital investment plan, but as in a household that borrows from one account to pay bills in another, capital investment sometimes comes at the expense of the operating budget.
The D’Alessandro report also predicted the safety crisis that emerged at the beginning of the Baker years after decades of maintenance neglect. To deal with it, Baker got the Legislature to sign on to a three-year reprieve from the 1993 Pacheco law, which makes privatizing aspects of state operations nearly impossible. That waiver has expired, but the Baker administration says it made headway in some areas, such as a change in how bus routes are assigned. Before, drivers walked in and handpicked routes based on seniority. Now, the route assignments are automated. Private contractors are operating the shuttle buses that are replacing the shut-down Orange Line.
But more broadly, according to the LaHood study of 2019, fiscal controls and staff cuts at the MBTA have “resulted in the inability to accomplish required maintenance and inspections, or [have] hampered work keeping legacy system assets fully functional.” Strip away the bureaucratic lingo and bingo: That helps explain the train on fire, the derailments, and other safety issues that have arisen over the past year.
After years of finger-pointing, can policy makers find common ground? It’s hard to be optimistic after 40-some years of intermittent crisis. But the T’s current troubles could provide an opening.
Salvucci, a big believer in public investment and service expansion, says MBTA management should have the right to outsource more work, and he thinks the way to sell it is not a pitch about saving money but one about getting more work done.
Chieppo, of the Pioneer Institute, says, “I don’t know how you have a great city without a working transit system.” Although he’s a believer in smaller government, he says he still believes it’s up to government to deliver the service riders deserve.
By definition, crisis is a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger. If only this latest crisis at the MBTA could lead to a recovery that finally puts the riders first.
In 2015, a series of snowstorms brought Boston to a standstill. All MBTA rail service was suspended from 7 p.m. on a Monday through the next day. “We are disappointed, we are apologetic, we are sorry, it is all of it in spades,” said Beverly Scott, general manager of the MBTA. “We’re trying to do the best we can.” Scott resigned soon after.
Kayana Szymczak/Getty Images
Lane Turner/Globe Staff
Lane Turner/Globe Staff
Kayana Szymczak/Getty Images
Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff
— Jack Nickles, Jamaica Plain
When this is over, hopefully there will be no more trains catching on fire. That would be a good start. But mainly, I’d like to see fewer delays. In the big picture, I’d also like to see more options for getting across town on the train. If I want to go somewhere in Cambridge, I have to go all the way downtown first, just to go back out, even though Assembly [Square] is just a few miles from Cambridge!”
— Chris Goluszka, Somerville
I’ve been on the Montreal metro and there’s just no comparison. So I’d like to see more professional service on the MBTA, and fewer delays. The train and bus connections are so limited, and when you’re on the Orange Line standing by, with the doors opening and closing, and you’re trying to get to Malden to get the 137 bus, it really bothers me. I remember, they used to advertise on the Red Line, ‘8 minutes from Park Street to Harvard Square.’ Now if you get there in 15 or 20 minutes, it’s a big deal.”
— Alan Apakian, Wakefield
Wu’s stubborn optimism is exactly what this transit crisis needs
If I’m late to work, I’ll constantly have to let my team know on a case-by-case basis, and since I have to be in-person, every day is going to be a battle of ‘Will I make it on time?’ I don’t own a car and I rely on public transportation. People at work rely on me to be there on time. So I need to be able to rely on the city to provide safe public transportation.”
— Laura Black, Dorchester
I had two visceral reactions to the closure — absolute fury that the system has gotten this bad, and hopeful resignation. Like, if this is what it’s actually going to take to fix the system, let’s just get it done. The T workers are amazing, they put up with so much, and the state has just left the T to flounder.”
— Edward Henry, Jamaica Plain
I’d really like to see fewer delays and more accuracy with when the next train is coming.”
— Lucy Aronoff, Roxbury
BY ALAN WIRZBICKI
What is the T for, anyway?
BY doug most
Born broken:
The deep history
of the T
BY SAGE STOSSEL
Scenes from the shutdown
MORE
MBTA BREAKDOWN
Wu’s stubborn optimism is exactly what this transit crisis needs
What is the T for, anyway?
Born broken: The deep history of the T
Photo by Jennifer Thomson-Sullivan
Joan Vennochi is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at joan.vennochi@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @joan_vennochi.
Two Green Line trains collided in 2021 in Brookline. Barry Chin/ Globe staff
After the train went up in flames, Baker came to an unprecedented decision: Starting Aug. 19, he shut down the entire Orange Line for 30 days, during which he promises that five years worth of track repairs and replacements will be performed. When the Orange Line reopens — on Sept. 19, if all goes according to plan — Baker also promises that a fleet that up until the shutdown still included rickety old cars that entered service in 1979 and 1980 would finally be replaced by new ones.
If Baker delivers on that promise, it means government will have worked this time, at least for the T’s 100,000 daily Orange Line riders. Can government really save the T after years of failing it?
On the plus side, the MBTA has successfully expanded service over the past half century. In the 1970s, there were about 300,000 daily riders. Pre-pandemic, the system served about one million daily riders on subways, buses, ferries, and the commuter rail. Post-pandemic ridership is about half that.
The entire system isn’t falling apart. But many of the same old problems persist.
According to the findings of a panel appointed to review the MBTA after record-breaking snowfall shut it down in 2015, the T’s operating costs are not the highest in the country — whew! — but the second highest. Still, the problems identified in that report have a familiar 1980 ring to them: “limited cost control, low labor productivity, and high maintenance costs.”
But Charles Chieppo, a senior fellow at the Pioneer Institute, a conservative think tank that believes in smaller government, has a less optimistic take: “What the T needs more than anything else is the one thing it will never get,” he says. That is, “the political will to make it accountable, and to change the culture that is there to one that serves riders, rather than serve the politicians who use it for patronage and to serve the people who work there.” To Chieppo, putting riders first means allowing the T to contract out noncore functions and those it doesn’t do well and developing “a real performance management system to hold executives and managers accountable.”
There’s merit in both perspectives. A governor who believes in public transit, makes funding a priority, and takes responsibility for the end product is the kind of leader the T needs. Taking out the politics and changing a culture that contributes to high costs and low productivity would also help the rider experience. But over the past several decades, politicians have spent a lot of time arguing over whose policies are most responsible for the T’s continuing fiscal instability. And that blame game is a big part of the T’s problem.
Edward J. King was governor when the Spotlight Team revealed his penchant for political interference, coziness with MBTA unions, and lack of interest in professional management. During King’s tenure, a one-day transit strike shut down the system and King activated the National Guard to protect MBTA property. King’s transportation secretary was convicted on bribery and extortion charges. There’s general agreement this was not a good era for public transportation in Massachusetts.
Dukakis, who was governor when he lost a 1978 primary to King, was reelected to the job in 1982. To disciples of public investment in the T, those were the golden years. Dukakis benefited from a 1980 Management Rights Law that allowed the T to determine staffing levels, hire part-time workers, and, most important, contract out services. Fred Salvucci, who served as transportation secretary under Dukakis, says MBTA general managers during that period used that contract right in a “judicious” way to encourage in-house employees to do a good job.
Yet to really come through for the riders requires not only commitment to future growth but adequate investment in the existing system, and that has been lacking over the years.
In 2000, under Republican Governor Paul Cellucci, the state implemented what was called “forward funding.” Under that formula, the T got a penny on every nickel collected in state sales tax. In return, it would take on the debt the state had acquired from building MBTA projects. A 2009 report, overseen by former John Hancock chief executive David D’Alessandro, called forward funding “a great idea” but said the plan the MBTA developed to implement it “was unrealistic and destined to fail” and left the T with continuing operating deficits.
Salvucci, a big believer in public investment and service expansion, says MBTA management should have the right to outsource more work, and he thinks the way to sell it is not a pitch about saving money but one about getting more work done.
Chieppo, of the Pioneer Institute, says, “I don’t know how you have a great city without a working transit system.” Although he’s a believer in smaller government, he says he still believes it’s up to government to deliver the service riders deserve.
By definition, crisis is a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger. If only this latest crisis at the MBTA could lead to a recovery that finally puts the riders first.
But more broadly, according to the LaHood study of 2019, fiscal controls and staff cuts at the MBTA have “resulted in the inability to accomplish required maintenance and inspections, or [have] hampered work keeping legacy system assets fully functional.” Strip away the bureaucratic lingo and bingo: That helps explain the train on fire, the derailments, and other safety issues that have arisen over the past year.
After years of finger-pointing, can policy makers find common ground? It’s hard to be optimistic after 40-some years of intermittent crisis. But the T’s current troubles could provide an opening.
