Banker & Tradesman file photo
Massachusetts would stand up a new agency, empowered with subpoena power and other regulatory muscle, to oversee public transit safety under a bill that has cleared the Joint Committee on Transportation.
Nearly a year after federal investigators said the Department of Public Utilities was falling short of its MBTA safety oversight responsibilities, the committee advanced legislation that would strip those duties from the DPU and instead assign them to a proposed Office of Transit Safety.
The new office would be an independent entity “not subject to the supervision or control” of any other state board, agency or department, according to a copy of the legislation provided by committee co-chair Rep. William Straus. Its executive director, who would need experience in “transit operations or transit safety,” would be appointed by a majority vote of the governor, attorney general and secretary of state.
That represents a shift from the DPU, which is a part of the executive branch and whose governing commission is selected entirely by the governor. The MBTA is also under the control of the executive branch.
Straus said his concerns with the existing structure were “crystallized” by revelations, reported last year in the Boston Globe, that officials at the DPU and MBTA prepared statements to inform the public about a series of construction vehicle derailments but backed down after corresponding with then-Gov. Charlie Baker’s press office.
“That pretty much nailed it for me that the DPU is too much under – no matter what the good intent and all the rest – too much under the thumb of any sitting governor,” Straus said.
He likened the proposed process to select an Office of Transit Safety chief to the existing model for the state inspector general, who is appointed by a majority vote of the governor, auditor and attorney general.
“We wanted the independence because from independence flows the ability to investigate, without any other motive, what is the reason that safety-related problems might be occurring at any of these transportation agencies,” Straus said. “It’s not independence just for the sake of independence, but independence drives the quality and outcome of what they do in the public’s interest.”
The committee filed the bill with the House clerk’s office after securing support from at least two-thirds of its members, according to Straus.
As is the case with all bills on Beacon Hill, where legislative leaders tightly control the agenda, it’s not clear when or if the legislation might emerge for a vote. Straus said he had discussed the bill with top House Democrats, but said it “competes with all kinds of other stuff” to get scheduled for consideration. He added it’s “hard to say” if the transit safety oversight measure will emerge before lawmakers take a traditional break in August.
A spokesperson for House Speaker Ron Mariano said there is “no definitive timeline” for bringing the bill forward.
The proposed office would oversee safety on all public transit in Massachusetts, including MBTA ferries, commuter rail and the state’s separate regional transit authorities.
To empower the new office, the bill would grant it the ability to issue subpoenas as part of its audits, inspections, investigations and tests. It could also compel transit agencies to comply with safety directives by pursuing legal action, ordering certain vehicles or infrastructure removed, and directing spending on safety-critical items, plus restrict or suspend service to address an “identified unacceptable safety risk.”
The bill would create a transit safety council, which would set the salary of the executive director and would need to give its approval to any subpoena action.
Each year, the proposed Office of Transit Safety would need to publish an annual report summarizing its oversight activities in the past year. It would also need to make available monthly reports about safety events and near-misses at transit agencies it oversees, correspondence with federal agencies, and corrective action plans.
Straus and his committee co-chair, Sen. Brendan Crighton, floated the idea of taking away the DPU’s T responsibilities at the end of the last two-year term, but the new bill represents a more formal legislative step responding to the crisis at the MBTA.
The DPU currently serves as the officially designated state-level agency in charge of MBTA safety oversight, and federal regulators would need to approve the bid to redirect that role to the newly proposed office.
Auditor Diana DiZoglio also wants the state legislature to give her office the authority to investigate the MBTA more frequently, citing “profound concerns” over the long list of safety issues that have plagued the agency.
DiZoglio, a former lawmaker, filed legislation with Rep. Christopher Worrell and Sen. Liz Miranda (H 3132 / S 2032) that she said would create a permanent audit division tasked with reviewing transportation agencies and the T in specific.
“Having that permanent MBTA audit unit would serve all of Massachusetts in the years to come by increasing accountability,” DiZoglio said last month. “Regardless of who the auditor is, regardless of who the governor is, regardless of who’s in the legislature, it would allow the Office of State Auditor to serve as a regular watchdog for public transportation funding and performance.”
Last summer, as part of a blistering investigation highlighting safety failures at the MBTA, the Federal Transit Administration concluded the DPU was not living up to its oversight duties. The department has made some changes since then, hiring more employees to focus on transit.
FTA officials ordered a bevy of changes at the MBTA to address safety problems, some of which – especially those that require staffing up – could take months or years to complete.
The T on Tuesday said the FTA closed the second of 39 corrective action plans after workers completed repair work on a section of Orange Line tracks between Tufts Medical Center and Back Bay, which eliminated a “major speed restriction along a 981-foot section of the track.”
Roughly 24 percent of MBTA tracks still cannot safely support full-speed travel, according to the T. While that rate has barely changed since the sudden springtime rollout of widespread slow zones, trip data tracked by advocacy group TransitMatters show some improvement in travel times in recent months, particularly on the Blue Line.
