Nov 4, 2009 7:10 pm US/Eastern
I-Team Uncovers Several Costly MBTA Problems
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
Glaring problems have been screaming down the tracks at the MBTA for years, but those huge problems have just been passed from one administration to the next.
Last year the I-Team found the
MBTA running bus routes which almost no one ever used -- questionable management at a time when the T was actually borrowing tens of millions of dollars just to pay its workers.
And while many were talking about the MBTA going bankrupt, the I-Team also revealed last fall that board members were still enjoying
lavish catered lunches just beyond the locked doors of the board room.
The practice
stopped after our report.
Unfortunately, T board meetings became a joke – with screaming matches. Gov. Deval Patrick tried to pin the problems on former general manager Dan Grabauskas. Despite the T's dire finances, the governor
paid Grabauskas more than $300,000 to leave.
The new man at the helm of the state's massive transportation agency now known as "MassDOT" says who ever is selected to head the MBTA will have a major task.
Jeffrey Mullan said today "We will need someone to drive home the mission of MassDOT which is to focus as one organization... to work together... to stop the nonsense... and to prove we are proper stewards of the system."
A public transit system now burdened with more debt than any other system in the country. David D'Alessandro, who wrote today's report, says times running out, and that the mismanagement of the past has to stop. "They can not continue to push off this debt and these problems because we are going to end up with an infrastructure that deteriorates so quickly and so vastly as to cause tremendous chaos."
Now it is safe to say in order to fix problems, you need dedicated managers in place for a period of time. But a former high ranking transportation official told WBZ at last count there have been seven state transportation secretaries in the past ten years. The most recent "top" guy didn't last a year.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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