BOSTON (WHDH) - One day after customers were left in the dark, MBTA General Manager Phil Eng addressed those left stranded on the disabled train under Boston Harbor.
“From the perspective of the riders, we apologize to our riders,” Eng said. “These are not the things that they expect and we don’t expect that is the level of service that we want to provide.”
Eng says a steel cable fell onto a communications cable and then onto the track. The operator managed to see the cable in the tunnel.
“I want to give them a lot of credit for seeing the cable that was down because safety is still our top priority. They did exactly as they should do. They stopped the train,” Eng said.
Eng says engineers have seen more issues with this cable in the tunnel. More repairs will be made in the coming days during overnight hours. The cable is believed to be 50-60 years old.
“These deferred types of work replacements is leading to larger scale needs instead of doing them on a right cycle at the right time,” said Governor Maura Healey. “Spending now is the right thing to do to invest in the future. That will actually allow us to get back to where we can do preventative maintenance.”
Governor Healey acknowledged the need for this type of work.
“This is to me another example of the work we’re trying to do,” said Healey. “I told you guys a long time ago. This has been underinvested in for a long time, didn’t have the resources, hadn’t had the maintenance. I hired Phil, I empowered him with T, we’ve seen results.”
Eng pointed to track improvements along the green and orange lines, but was asked whether days like Tuesday, could drive customers away.
“Obviously, any incident is something that folks will remember as one of their last trips, but I also know when we’re upfront with the riders, many, even in my past roles, they know that when you’re dealing with aged infrastructure, when you’re dealing with four seasons and changing climate, there are things that sometimes outside of our control,” said Eng.
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