Gov. Patrick seeks state review of Green Line crash, MBTA hiring policies

Transportation Secretary James Aloisi Jr. and MBTA General manager Daniel A. Grabauskas plan to announce details Wednesday morning of a new cellphone policy that would be the nation's strictest, banning all transit drivers from carrying their cellphones while they are operating a vehicle.

Patrick said he was "outraged" that Quinn was text messaging before running a red light.

"These drivers have the public safety in their hands," he said. "And we want the absolute best, most conscientious performance all the time."

Last week's accident was the second major crash on the line in the past year involving a 24-year-old operator. Patrick said that he wants the review of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's safety procedures to examine both crashes to understand whether there are "patterns there we ought to be paying attention to."

In both cases, officials said the operators ran red lights before crashing into the trolley ahead of them. The T allows drivers as young as 18 to run subways, buses, and trolleys after six or seven weeks of training, though only a handful of operators currently employed on the Green Line are under 21 years old. The young operator in last year's May 28 crash in Newton, Ther'rese Edmonds, lost her life as a result of the accident.

Aloisi has been "in full communication" with MBTA managers since Friday night, said spokesman Colin Durrant. He and MBTA officials will research training and qualification standards with other transit agencies as part of the review, Durrant and MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said.

Durrant said Aloisi is also urging the state's 15 regional transit authorities to consider a similar ban. But some of the regional bus operators may have trouble adopting the same policy, because they operate in rural areas and may not have the same onboard communications systems that T operators use to contact dispatchers, managers, or safety officials in case of emergencies, Durrant said.

Durrant did not say when Aloisi would complete his review. His office has yet to release a review of Massachusetts Turnpike Authority policies that Patrick ordered last month following an Easter Sunday traffic snafu.

The MBTA also received results yesterday from drug and alcohol tests given to Quinn and three other trolley operators at the time of the crash, according to an official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the tests are supposed to remain private. None of the four employees had drugs or alcohol in their systems, according to the official.