Officials reassure, inspect after report raises T safety concerns

As a result of the report, Patrick ordered transportation secretary Jeffrey Mullan to review the MBTA's entire $3 billion backlog of maintenance projects to rank which ones are critical to keeping riders safe. But Patrick had no immediate answer for the major question raised in the D'Alessandro report: How to pay for them.

Many riders interviewed on the Red Line today were unaware and unconcerned about the report's findings. And even those who were worried said they had no choice but to use the public transit system and trust that managers and elected officials would keep them safe.

“It makes me a little more nervous,” said Nicole March, a 29-year-old graduate student from Medford who was riding over portions of track that were highlighted in the report and received an extra inspection today. “Especially considering we’re underground and we’re going at fast speeds.”

But without a car, March must rely on the T to take her to class at Brandeis and other appointments -- unless, she said, she wanted to "walk three miles in the snow like my great-grandparents."

Like other riders who were just learning about the report today, March was reconsidering past incidents, like the 15-minute delay she experienced on Tuesday, wondering whether they were the result of a deeper problem.

Robert Halperin, a 53-year-old consultant from Lexington, said T riders have to approach their commutes with a sense of fatalism, recognizing that all life's journeys carry a certain amount of risk.

"That doesn't mean they shouldn't address the problems," he said. "I'd rather have stations be a little dirtier and a little safer."

At a press conference this morning, soon after making his comment about the Red Line, D'Alessandro adopted a more measured tone, seeming to temper the safety concerns he had dramatically outlined in his report.

“There are not imminent safety dangers. That’s not to say there might not be an accident. There may be. But there are a lot of reasons with 1.2 million rides every day," he said.

The more certain safety problem will arise if more money is not spent on repairs "on a timely basis," he said.

In fact, the MBTA's internal statistics show the agency's subways and trolleys have been running with fewer speed restrictions in recent months than at any time since 2003, an indication that maintenance problems have been kept in check. The T restricts speeds when workers discover potential safety threats that require extra caution.

Still, the "critical" maintenance projects cited in D'Alessandro's report were derived from internal MBTA data, an indication that managers are well aware the system's age and lack of investment is catching up with it.

“We found the iceberg but we don’t yet know how deep the iceberg is,” said Christopher Hart, a local transit consultant and advocate who is very familiar with the MBTA's operations.

The report's delivery came at least a year too late to influence a high-profile transportation debate in the Legislature that ended over the summer with some dramatic changes in the transportation bureaucracy but no long-term solution for infusing more money into the system.

Patrick's plan to raise money for transportation through an increased gas tax failed earlier this year, and he repeated today that he had no immediate plans to revisit that debate. A sales tax increase passed over the summer will help defray some of the T's short-term operating deficit but will not be enough to balance the agency's books for more than another year or so -- a conclusion reinforced in the independent review.

And while the independent review recommended halting all expansion projects on the MBTA, Patrick refused today to put the brakes on two costly initiatives: the expansion of the Green Line into Somerville and Medford and the introduction of commuter rail to Fall River and New Bedford.

Despite disagreement over some of the report's findings, there was a strong sense among political leaders and advocates today that it would join a short list of other key reports that have altered the debate surrounding the state's struggling transportation system. The MBTA is an essential service to hundreds of thousands of riders every day, and a key cog in the economy.

“We’ve been very public about the T's problems for years but this report demonstrates that those problems are much greater than we imagined,” said Michael J. Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.

Both Mullan and MBTA interim general manager William Mitchell issued statements calling the report sobering. Patrick and Mullan both promised to step up efforts to find permanent professional leadership for the MBTA, which has several vacancies at the top of its operations management. The House and Senate co-chairmen of the transportation committee both said they would like further review of D'Alessandro's findings.

Senator Steven A. Baddour, the Senate chairman, said he was particularly concerned when he heard D'Alessandro said he would hesitate to ride the Red Line, where the MBTA has been unable to afford an $80 million project to remove and replace rail ties damaged by flooding. He made the comments on the Jim & Margery radio show, with Jim Braude and Margery Eagan, and to The Associated Press. The report stated that the corrosion and damage on the tracks between the Alewife and Harvard Square stations could lead to a train derailment.

The MBTA or the Massachusetts Department of Transportation "should be sending out engineers to determine whether or not his statements are accurate,” Baddour said.

MBTA workers were out today at Patrick's behest, banging and measuring the rails to make sure nothing had slipped out of place.

Andrew Ryan of the Globe staff contributed to this report.