What's next for the T? 'A long slog to get this system up to speed,' transportation reporter says

MBTA riders continue to have a lot of frustrations: Slow zones on both the Orange and Red Lines; hearings on Beacon Hill, putting T management in the hot seat with state; and federal lawmakers calling for big changes at the top of the agency. GBH's Bob Seay joined GBH’s Morning Edition co-host Jeremy Siegel to talk about the latest. This transcript has been lightly edited.

Jeremy Siegel: First, let's talk about the hearings. Former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood testified before state lawmakers this week. He is no stranger to problems at the T. What did we learn?

Bob Seay: Three years ago, he headed up a panel that looked into safety issues at the T, and they released their report. And three years later, we have the Federal Transit Administration's report. And according to Representative William Strauss of the Legislature's transportation committee, you can't tell the difference between the two, meaning not a lot of progress has been made. So when LaHood appeared before lawmakers, he had a very simple message.

[Previously recorded]

Ray LaHood: The current system is not working. It simply is not. The FTA said that, we said it, and the people that are riding the trains have said it over and over again.

[Recording ends]

Seay: Now, LaHood pointed out that he wasn't blaming people in charge. Right now, he says there's just not enough being done. And he feels that Steve Poftak, the general manager, was actually making some progress until COVID hit. And actually, I think sometimes we underestimate the effect of COVID has had on transportation not only in Boston, but around the nation. So he gave Poftak a bit of a pass there, but he did call for dramatic change from what he called ground zero. You might say change from scratch, but ground zero is the term he used. And of course, that conjures up an image of, you know, total devastation.

Now, the T, I must admit, has really hit kind of a low point. Its performance is not good. And if you follow the Twitter feed — and I know there are a lot of unhappy people naturally taking to Twitter — you can see the frustration that people are feeling every day about delays: Trains that don't come, long wait times between trains at rush hour, 15, 20 minutes or more. And you can feel the frustration building.

Siegel: Two places where you really see that frustration are the Orange and Red Lines, which have both been experiencing some extreme slowness lately. We'll talk about both. Let's start with the Orange Line. You used the term 'ground zero' that state lawmakers were using. I feel like you could refer to the Orange Line as ground zero of some of the turbulence that the T and riders have seen this year. We had that shutdown not too long ago. T officials promised better service afterwards. But some riders, like Brian McKenna are now complaining that it's worse.

[Previously recorded]

Brian McKenna: It was actually easier when there were the shuttle busses, because the trains just move so slow from a certain point. It's difficult. People have lives and work and are used to a routine.

[Recording ends]

Siegel: So, Bob, what do you tell Brian? What's going on there?

Seay: Well, you know, I have to agree. I mean, the riders are telling the T what they're experiencing. And for a couple of weeks at least, there was silence from the T about why travel wasn't improving. And frankly, any good will that they had garnered from the public during the shutdown — and I believe there was, I believe people were willing to go along with the shutdown knowing that improvements were ahead. But when the improvements didn't materialize and then there was no message from the T, the frustration just built even more. And I think it hurt their credibility tremendously.

So even now, when they're predicting that by the end of December things will get better, people justifiably can be skeptical about that. What happened? I mean, didn't the T know when it began this project how much work was going to have to be done? It makes you wonder: when they were scoping out the project in the beginning, did they really know what they were getting into? Because what Steve Poftak says is a lot of the work they're doing now is work adjacent to the work that they had planned. They're finding more things wrong that have to be fixed. And so this is somewhat troubling for sure.

Siegel: Let's turn quickly to the Red Line. What do we know about how significant problems with slowness on that line are, and what's at the root of that?

Seay: Well, that's another example where the T really hasn't been very clear about what's going on. They did issue a statement last week that routine inspections have uncovered problems that have to be fixed, necessitating these slow zones. But once again, explaining it after the fact, after people have experienced it, saying, hey, what's going on?

One bright note is a notice from Transit Matters, which keeps a really good dashboard about T performance. They said that service from Central to Harvard Square apparently resumed to almost normal speed yesterday, but that was a surprise too. And maybe the T is justified in not wanting to say anything at this point to get people's hopes up, considering what has happened. But clearly, throughout the system — it's an aging system, and as I've said before, they're trying to fix it faster than it's falling apart. And that's a real challenge.

Siegel: We were talking about Ray LaHood's calls for big change on Beacon Hill. Calls like that aren't only coming from him. Some of the details we got on the Orange Line slow zones came from a letter to Senator Ed Markey who's been critical of the T; also from Senator Elizabeth Warren, holding a hearing on issues at the T. All of them are calling for big change at the MBTA. What could big change actually look like?

Seay: First of all, Ray LaHood suggested they need a complete outside independent agency to oversee safety. It was his feeling they could not do it internally. They have set up an office of compliance, but he feels something completely new is needed. He said you should go do a galactic search for the best people you can find. Bring them to Boston. Pay them what they need to be paid to help fix the system, because that's the kind of help you're going to need.

It's got to be a full-court press. It can't be done, unfortunately, with the people you have on staff now. It's not they should all be fired, but they need help. They need a lot of help. And that was his suggestion. And the lawmakers, I think they are mulling over what changes could be made, especially as a new administration will be taking office in January. LaHood said this is the perfect time for you to totally rethink how this transit system is being managed and to make changes. So I think you're going to see some big changes ahead in 2023. But it will be a long slog to get this system up to speed, pardon the pun, but it's not going to be easy. And I think we've seen that. So people are going to, unfortunately, continue to be frustrated, but there's not much we can do.