BOSTON — Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey is assembling a group of independent experts to assess ways to address the problems with manufacture of new rapid-transit railcars for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, the Boston Globe reports.
Healey said she was moving to address the problems with manufacturer CRRC during a visit Thursday to the MBTA’s operations control center. Spokeswoman Karissa Hand said the governor has put together a group including experts from LTK Engineering, other consultants, and lawyers to determine how to expedite the delivery of the 404 cars on order for the Red and Orange lines.
“We have instructed this team to take a deep dive into these existing challenges and think through our long-term needs and how we prioritize and make good on the expediting of the delivery of cars,” Healey said, according to the Globe. “We are already underway on this effort since we became aware of it just a couple of weeks ago.”
MassLive.com reports that Healey said the team will examining manufacturing processes, management operations, and contract terms between the state and CRRC, among other issues.
Just 90 cars have been delivered so far; the order was originally to have been completed this year, but the latest schedule has completion in 2026, and the MBTA’s acting general manager said last week that even that schedule is likely to be optimistic [see “CRRC won’t be able to meet schedule …,” Trains News Wire, Jan. 26, 2023].
CRRC spokeswoman Lydia Rivera told MassLive.com that the company “remains committed to delivering safe and reliable vehicles to the MBTA and continues to work cooperatively with T project staff to optimize performance and identify processes to accelerate delivery of Orange and Red line vehicles.”
The taxes in Massachusetts are insanely high, and yet the money never goes to anything that helps the taxpayers. Perhaps instead of upping those taxes, we elect some people to office not in it for the money or politics and FOR THE PEOPLE. We need audits and actual across-the-isle talks. BUT that will never happen up here. Cadillac Deval Patrick wasted money on rail, and now that Hold-It Healey is in, more will be spent and wasted on pipe-dreams instead of actual projects able to be completed within our lifetime… OH, and stop using the lowest bidder who is always Chinese or Korean…
Oops pressed the wrong button. The T is suffering from a generation of neglect by MassDOT and its predecessor the Executive office of Transportation and the politicians who wouldn’t be caught dead riding except maybe for a photo op. My State Rep here in Berkshire County once bragged that in all the years he’s been in office he’s never ridden. Folks dumped on former Gov. Charlie Baker(R) because he never rode. Well guess what? That self-proclaimed “man of the people”, friend of Barack from their days at the Univ of Chicago in MY former neighborhood, never rode either except for one well-publicized time he deigned to ride the Silver Line (trolley bus) from South Station to Logan. MassDOT still considers the T its bucktoothed unwanted stepchild. So who would want to step into the GM position? Meanwhile, the state is in a trifecta of transportation messes: 1) The CRRC situation, 2) The feds just gave ‘em the middle-fingered salute for funding replacements for the deficient Bourne and Sagamore Bridges and the MassPike Allston relocation/Commuter Rail West Station project. Looks like Boston’s luster for being a financial, biotech, and higher education hub is getting a bit tarnished.
Oh, Mark Mark Mark, don’t diss the Bourne and Sagamore Bridges. They’re genuine historic objects. They predate the beginning of time itself.
Good luck to Gov. Healey with this. She and her transportation folks are also looking to hire a new General Manager for the MBTA with the departure of Steve Poftak. Good luck with that too. I predict this will take a great deal longer than she thinks. Who in his/her right mind would want the job given how far down the T has spiraled after a generation of neglext
Charles, the Mass gas tax has not been raised for many years. Meanwhile costs have risen. A recent attempt to raise the gas tax failed. So you have experienced the result.
“Team of experts…” Remember kids, if you’re not part of the solution there’s good money to be made prolonging the problem.
Uncool 🙁
I hope SEPTA is tracking all this and finds a legal way to terminate the CRRC contract for the double deck cars.
Caveat emptor.
Charles, sounds like Seattle area freeways, particularly I-5. When I get slowed or stopped on the I-5, I look at the condition of the cement. That is the same concrete that was laid when the freeway was built in the 1960’s. I originally moved here in 1967, to Minnesota in 1998 and back here in 2016. With the exception of patches here and there, you can see the aggregate in the cement. Roads in terrible condition.
4 years late is nothing for transportation projects around here. Just as how long it took to repair the main road bridge from Springfield to West Springfield Former site of the massive B&A shops).
When I go home to Mass I point out to my wife that I drove on the same roads in Drivers Ed in 1962, and the roads haven’t been improved.