MBTA rides the re-set train once again

With the regularity of an appearance by Punxsutawney Phil, the MBTA is getting another do-over.

The troubled transportation agency has landed in Gov. Maura Healey’s lap, and one of the first orders of business is hiring a new general manager. There’s an outside firm on the case, and the requisite nationwide search.

As it is with most new management, the outlook is optimistic and determined.

New Transportation Secretary Gina Fiandaca vowed Thursday morning that Healey’s administration will improve the beleaguered MBTA “from the top down,” according to State House News. Fiandaca said her team is working to identify “changes that need to be made immediately” at the T as well as changes that can be made in the coming months. “And from the top down, we’re going to improve the system,” she said. Godspeed.

The T has hit the re-set button before, with similar high hopes. Back in 2018, then-Transportation Secretary and CEO Stephanie Pollack was gungho on a brand-new GM “Steve Poftak is the right person to facilitate a smooth transition and continue the important work to reform the MBTA for customers,” Pollack said in a release. “Steve knows the personnel, he knows the issues, he knows the system, and most of all, Steve knows the importance of accelerating progress toward fixing the MBTA.”

Unfortunately, much of Poftak’s tenure consisted of apologizing for a myriad of T mishaps — derailments, accidents, fires and the like.

In 2019, after two vehicles driven by MBTA contractors collided, ultimately delaying service on the Orange Line, Poftak vowed “We will figure out what happened, and we will make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”

“I know these incidents are disturbing,” Poftak said after a Green Line crash last June. “To no one is it more disturbing than those of us who work here at the T who are committed to keeping the system as safe as we can be.”

It was clear that the wheels were coming off the bus (sometimes literally), as the agency was called out for safety failures, staffing issues and training protocols.

There were studies, panels, reports, the injection of funding and promises to tackle the todo list.

By July of last year, a co-chair of the legislative committee conducting safety oversight hearings of the MBTA was ready to throw in the towel.

“The T, as an organization, isn’t necessarily worth saving,” said state Rep. William Straus, D-Mattapoisett, co-chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation.

Yikes.

To be fair, there have been track and signal improvements, new stations and the Green Line extension was completed.

We expect that when Healey names the new MBTA GM that he or she will come in on a tide of accolades for skills and savvy, as Poftak did.

There will be undoubtedly be house-cleaning, efforts to infuse yet more cash in a bid to boost staffing and safety, and plenty of photo ops as improvements are unveiled.

But will there be substantive change?

Healey’s got to stick the landing. We’ll be watching, and waiting.