The derailments, near-misses, and speed restrictions that accompanied MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng’s first week on the job weren’t a deterrent, but rather a reminder of why he was interested in a post that scared off other transit leaders.
It’s been a “whirlwind” of a week at the T, Eng told the Herald, “but it’s been one that reminds me and reinforces why I took on this challenge.”
“The issues just reiterate that we need to really dig down deeper into safety, how our workforce (policies) work, because at the end of the day, we want everyone to go home to their families,” Eng said. “And at the same time, getting the work done safely and efficiently is important to the public that we serve.”
Eng’s first day on Monday was particularly busy. The fourth “near-miss,” involving track employees who were almost struck by trains in the past 30 days, occurred on April 7, but wasn’t reported until Monday. And the first of two derailments involving work equipment took place late that night, with the second occurring early the next morning.
“It’s been everything I expected,” Eng said. “The incidents are not something that you want, but I know that they’ve been ongoing. What we need to do is eliminate those types of incidents and accomplish the work that we’re setting out to do.”
Turning around the embattled agency, which was the subject of a rare federal investigation last year that concluded the T was prioritizing capital projects at the expense of day-to-day operations and maintenance, is not only a matter of dealing with these safety concerns and near misses, Eng said.
He plans to evaluate how the MBTA performs and operates, “from top to bottom.” There are robust policies and regulations in place, he said, but everyone who works at the T needs to be aware of what they are and follow them every day.
Notably, a breakdown in safety communication between construction workers, their supervisors and subway dispatchers led to the four near-misses that occurred in March and April, Chief Safety Officer Ron Ester said this week.
“The things that are occurring should not be occurring,” Eng said. “Safety has to be ingrained in everything they do because the work environment they’re in is very challenging. If we don’t follow those, consequences are one mishap and it could be obviously devastating.”
Taking on a transit agency entrenched in long-standing problems is not new for Eng, who took the helm of the Long Island Rail Road in 2018, after years of rampant overtime abuse, pension disability fraud, and poor on-time performance at the agency.
He’s credited by his former boss and others for getting a handle on those issues, and turning around what was described by one author as “one of the most inefficient railroads in the United States” in a book published in 2006 — two years before the New York Times first revealed massive disability fraud there.
“It’s similar in the way that when I took over Long Island Rail Road, the public that relied on the mass transportation system was frustrated, and had no belief in the Rail Road’s ability to deliver safe, reliable service,” Eng said. “It had been the worst on-time performance in decades.”
Although there might have been a different set of problems at LIRR, he said the strategy to fix those problems was similar to the MBTA, which “was to really tackle those elements in the system in a manner that improves service — the infrastructure that was failing, that was resulting in delays.”
“It was identifying which ones were most impactful to be fixed, and the ones that caused the most repetitive issues, impacting the most trains and passengers,” he added.
Eng said work was also done to instill a culture change there, by turning LIRR into a customer service agency that focused on getting people to where they need to be, safely and on time, but also communicated pertinent information to the public.
He plans to incorporate a similar change at the MBTA, which will involve using technology “to ensure the public has information that allows them to make a real-time decision on whether or not to use the T or go a different route.”
Eng said this plan is being developed. It will also provide “alternative options” for commuters dealing with service disruptions brought on by track construction.
Once the culture begins to shift at the MBTA, he expects more people will want to work there. The fiscal year 2024 budget assumes the T needs to make 2,500 hires to meet its headcount goals next year. The agency is offering $7,500 bonuses for new employees, as part of its “all-out effort to tackle that hiring issue,” Eng said.
“Quite frankly right now, I understand why the public sentiment about the T is where it is,” Eng said. “And once we start to turn that around, I think people will also start to want to work for the T. I was told that it was once the premier place to work.”
He also addressed speed restrictions, which cover 24% of the subway system, saying that there is no time frame for when those will be lifted, but that he will likely provide an update at next week’s Board of Directors meeting.