Given the beleaguered state of the MBTA, many in the region are hanging their hopes for a fix on the feds’ final safety management inspection report. But those who have done this dance before in Washington say federal involvement did not vastly improve that transit system.
“It has been a mixed bag,” Maryland State Delegate Marc Korman said about the safety management inspection, or SMI, process for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which lasted from 2015–19.
The Federal Transit Administration’s final report on the MBTA is planned for release by the end of the month, and what was seen in Washington could provide some insight into what will occur in the months, or years, ahead in Greater Boston, which is only the second U.S. subway system to undergo an SMI.
“WMATA seems to have gotten a firmer grip on its capital plan since then, but there are still a concerning number of significant safety problems such as third rail power issues,” Korman said, adding that the system “still doesn’t have that ever-elusive safety culture,” like what’s been cited as a major issue with the MBTA.
After four years, and a near-federal takeover of the system, the FTA relinquished its direct safety oversight to the Washington Metrorail Safety Commission, or WMSC, in April 2019. That’s after the program was certified by the feds, following a lengthy legislative process between lawmakers in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia.
Korman said that a recent report from the commission, the equivalent to the MBTA state safety oversight office in the Department of Public Utilities, said the WMATA “has organizational dysfunction.”
Three years after Washington’s SMI report, WMSC spokesman Max Smith said Metrorail is continuing to work on corrective actions, as required under state oversight and federal regulation.
“Metrorail has made substantive improvements due to WMSC findings and required corrective actions,” Smith said, but added that there remains “more work to do” in specific areas like the rail operations control center.
For both subway systems, a transit-related fatality sparked the FTA to investigate. In April, a man’s arm became trapped in a faulty train door and he was dragged to his death in Boston, and in January 2015, a woman was killed after smoke filled a Metro tunnel in Washington, D.C.
Prior to the SMI’s launch, both systems had been plagued with derailments, train collisions and other safety incidents, which for both, have only continued after federal involvement, as have long-term subway line shutdowns in Washington.
A person familiar with the D.C. Metro SMI process said the same “lip service” was given to the people there prior to a long-term line shutdown, in terms of what’s been said by MBTA officials about the 30-day Orange Line closure allowing for five years’ worth of work.
“I basically rolled my eyes,” said the source, who requested anonymity based on their position. “It’s not that it’s invalid, but the takeaway from people in the D.C. area was, we can do this and we won’t have to do it again. Doing maintenance work does make the system safer, but you don’t stop doing the work.”
In Massachusetts, several lawmakers, including House Transportation Committee co-chair William Straus and U.S. Reps. Stephen Lynch and Seth Moulton, have called for federal receivership.
However, the idea is unpopular among transit advocates, who say it would mean spending that would otherwise go to planned programs needed to improve the system, such as rail electrification and the fare transformation system, would instead be redirected by the feds.
MBTA Advisory Board Executive Director Brian Kane said D.C. Metro struggled financially for a long time because it had to dedicate a lot of its resources to safety.
“That’s the concern,” Kane said. “You could see the feds come in and direct money to certain projects and away from others.”
