Editorial: Privatization could give MBTA the boost it needs
If the MBTA is looking for a slogan, we suggest this: “It’s always something.”
The latest “something” is the revelation that tracks on stretches of the new $2.3 billion Green Line Extension are too narrow.
As the Herald reported, the speed in spots along the affected lines, which bring service to Union Square in Somerville and Tufts-Medford, has dropped to 3 miles per hour, according to the T’s slow zone dashboard. That’s the low end of what a mobility scooter can do.
This particularly expensive whoops moment raises the question: When will the powers that be hit the Pacheco point with the MBTA?
The Pacheco law restricts the MBTA from outsourcing work that its own employees could theoretically do. Then-Gov. Charlie Baker sought and was granted a three-year waiver from the law back in 2015, after a brutal winter saw bruising failures across the system.
During that time, the T contracted out a range of services such as fare collection, the call center, money transfer and renegotiated several contracts.
As the waiver neared its end, the Herald wrote that the move allowed the MBTA to save nearly half a billion dollars.
“The selective and careful use of the waiver has proved to be an important tool to help transform the MBTA,” the transit agency stated in a report to the Legislature.
There were reforms implemented at the T under Baker, but one would be hard-pressed to say that the agency is in better shape today than it was five years ago.
Granted, there was the COVID pandemic which laid waste to revenue and ridership, but the past few years have also seen a cycle of safety failures, safety panels, safety recommendations, yet more failures, derailments, fires, accidents, signal issues, and workers asleep on the job, to name a few.
Riders have heard excuses, management drubbing, promises, pledges and apologies.
There’s a new sheriff in town, MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng, but his brief tenure has seen him play whack-a-mole with a series of problems. Fix old utility boxes falling from station ceilings, then face the wrath of riders coping with a summer of slowdowns for repair work.
This week, Eng said the MBTA has “significant work to accomplish, not only to rebuild public trust as we remove speed restrictions but also to rebuild our workforce and reorganize our leadership team.”
We wish him the best of luck, but at this stage of the game, there needs to be a failsafe.
Set a deadline for key MBTA improvements – training, hiring, safety, maintenance – and if a benchmark for upgrades in these areas hasn’t been met in, say, a year to 18 months, another Pacheco law waiver is issued.
There have been calls for the Pacheco law to be eliminated altogether, but starting with another waiver of several years would give lawmakers and taxpayers the chance to weigh the effects both on cost saving and performance improvement that privatizing parts of the T could bring.
Eng should be given a chance, but the never-ending cycle of problems and the effect they have on commuters has to stop.
They spent $2.3 billion on the Green Line Extension, and parts of the track are too narrow. It’s always something.
