MBTA’s GM wants ‘seamless’ Boston transit

Issues with tracks, signaling, and power are still plaguing the T, MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng said Thursday during this year’s Globe Summit, but slow zones are almost completely a thing of the past.

Speaking with Boston Globe editor Joshua Miller at the Harvard Club, Eng said his commute to the interview on the Green Line took “literally minutes.” He took the Blue Line to Government Center, where he transferred to the Green Line.

“Almost every day, there’s a Green Line train waiting there,” he said. “If I happen to miss one, literally, there’s another one in a minute or two. That is where it’s more of a seamless trip.”

MBTA speed restrictions almost gone, but more issues arising

That’s the seamlessness he imagines for the T, Eng said on Thursday. He said there’s just 57 speed restrictions left as of Thursday, which is 6 percent of the system. When the Red Line shutdown ends on Monday, there will only be about 30 speed restrictions left, system-wide.

“It’s about making our infrastructure more sound, more resilient, and built for the future,” Eng said. “It’s the tracks, signals are next, (and) we’ve been working on power.”

To fix the signal issues and power problems, Eng said, longer shutdowns in the future are most likely not necessary. The transit agency will instead consider overnight work, weekend work, or running one track of trains with supplemental bus service.

Eng came to Boston from New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, where he was the president of their Long Island Rail Road. When he joined the MBTA in April of last year, Eng inherited a slow, unsafe system, plagued by near-miss safety incidents and train derailments amid federal oversight. 

Eng said on Thursday that before he took over, the slow zones were system-wide and initially meant to be temporary.

“The first three to four months, we’d knock off a couple and then we’d see a couple pop up,” Eng said. “The conditions were such a state that you couldn’t keep up with the amount of repairs that had to be done.”

Now, he touted that the Blue Line runs without speed restrictions with more service than before the pandemic.

Funding the T, long term

Since hiring him, Governor Maura Healey has “100 percent” had his back, Eng said Thursday. As the MBTA heads towards a reported financial cliff, he said the state has made transportation a “priority” and has financially given the T stability through 2025. 

Healey’s administration also supported more hiring and the MBTA’s grant application that led to nearly half a billion dollars in federal money going toward replacing North Station Draw One Bridge, Eng praised.

“As we demonstrate the ability to deliver, it makes it easier to support our needs because my commitment is to show that we can deliver projects, we can deliver them on time, we can deliver them with quality, and we can manage our budgets well,” Eng said. 

Eng said there’s a $700 million hole from a lack of revenue to cover operating costs. For fiscal year 2025, the T is using their “rainy day fund,” Eng said, but next year, the transit agency and the state need to find other funding sources.

“It’s not just the MBTA that is facing this deficit,” he said, referencing transit agencies across the country. “We’re going to continue to deliver better service, reliable service, and make sound investments.”

When asked, Eng didn’t outright say that fare raises are off the table, but it’s something “that always is discussed.” He instead mentioned the T’s new Income-Eligible Reduced Fares Program and said any fare hikes would be “affordable for folks given the rising cost of everything in today’s age.”

“You cannot fund the T on the backs of our riders and the public,” he said. “No agency has been able to do that, and quite frankly, would be unaffordable if you tried to fund the T strictly on fares.”