BOSTON (WHDH) - Thursday’s Orange Line fire that sent passengers scrambling out of harm’s way occurred during a period where the MBTA was already aiming to meet higher safety standards set by the Federal Transit Administration.
The FTA slammed the MBTA in June, calling the safety issues that have spawned instances of runaway trains, exploding batteries and train collisions “unacceptable.”
Transportation safety experts told 7NEWS that Boston’s transit system has an abnormal amount of safety issues.
“The MBTA has significantly more issues than any other system,” said Keith Millhouse, a transportation and infrastructure safety expert.
According to Millhouse, the path to a safer transit system requires intervention by those outside the MBTA.
“They need an independent third party to come in so you don’t have to worry about politics,” said Millhouse. “Bring in a team of experts and look at this operation top to bottom and make recommendations to the legislature or the governor and then those need to be implemented.”
Although MBTA officials said that the 42-year-old train car passed a safety inspection under than a month prior to the incident, Carl Berkowitz believes that may not be enough to ensure passenger safety.
“The first question is: ‘How did they inspect it?” Berkowitz said. “What supervision was provided?”
According to Berkowitz, all MBTA employees need to undergo updated safety training, including how to inspect the equipment and implementing emergency protocol.
“Everybody needs to be on board to have a safe system,” Berkowitz said. “If there’s one break in the link or the chain, the system breaks down.”
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