MBTA staying on the right track
Ahead of schedule, spending amid shutdowns, GM says
The MBTA has used the coronavirus shutdowns to end up ahead of schedule and spending expectations for its infrastructure projects, General Manager Steve Poftak said as he left the door open to more.
“We’ve been able to take advantage of this period of lower ridership,” Poftak told the Herald in an interview this week. “We’re been able to do a lot more accelerated work.”
Poftak said the goal for the fiscal year that ended in June was to spend $1.4 billion on capital projects — and preliminary accounting says the T actually ended up spending $1.65 billion.
The T over the past few years has had issues getting money spent. As the state pours in billions more — Gov. Charlie Baker authorized $8 billion over five years — administrative and staffing issues have held the T back in using the money to deal with its longstanding issues. The system has built up a huge backlog of work that needs to be done — last year officials estimated a $10.1 billion backlog — and the crumbling infrastructure has led to frequent delays and other issues, including derailments.
Coincidentally, the T already had set out a very accelerated plan to begin shutdowns on all of its subway lines, including shutdowns of Green Line branches and the Blue Line to facilitate repairs. Poftak, the governor and other officials held a press conference at the Riverside train yard in front of one of the shiny new “Type 9” Green Line trains, telling reporters that the T would be doing five times as much work this calendar year as last, including work on 29 miles of track.
“We had rolled out what we thought was a pretty aggressive schedule,” Poftak said.
But that was temporarily derailed by the pandemic, which caused the T to shut down much of its work. When it started back up, officials realized they could speed up the planned shutdowns given the incredibly low ridership amid the peak of the virus surge. So they replaced portions of the the Blue Line, Green Line and Red Line with buses — leading the T, Poftak says, to catch up and surpass where the transit agency expected to be.
And, he said, they’ll reassess in the fall if the they should further accelerate work with shutdowns.
“September strikes me as an inflection point,” Poftak said.
He said the T continues to spend $750,000 a week on anti-COVID-19 measures.
“We have a pretty extensive decontamination and cleaning regime,” he said.
He said the T will consider continuing a pilot program it had started with giving out masks to riders. He said the riders in general have worn protective gear.
“We’ve seen pretty good compliance from people on the T,” Poftak said.
He touted the fact the T — and transit agencies in general — haven’t been the vectors of coronavirus that many feared.
“To my knowledge, there has not been anything that is like a super-spreader event,” Poftak said.
He said 10 of the T’s 6,400 employees currently have the virus. He said they regularly have access to their own testing.