It's Not Just Inconvenient: Repeated MBTA Failures Put Us in Danger

Texting drivers. Fires. Drivers who don't stop in emergencies. Deadly crashes. And now, power outages. The MBTA is one big failure. Accidents are obviously inevitable, but the T has shown a distinct inability to deal with them effectively. The organization left thousands of Bostonians stranded underground this morning when the system's power went out. A power failure in itself should not happen: there should be backup power available for the system. But when such an incident does occur, there must be a plan for getting riders out of the T effectively. What if someone had had a medical emergency? And not to be alarmist, but isn't the subway an amazing place for a terrorist attack? If the T can't deal with a power outage that its own workers caused, how can it deal with larger, more serious events? Richard Leary, the T's chief operating officer, told the Globe "We're going to put practices in place to make sure this never happens again" and admitted "Our process has to be reviewed for preventive maintenance." But that's just not good enough. The fallout from T failures hasn't been major yet, but it seems only a matter of time until disaster results from the T's consistent inability to handle crises quickly and effectively. Boston needs to better fund its public transportation system, and the system needs to create a better plan for dealing with emergencies. Failure to do so puts citizens in danger every day.