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A state Senate committee has opened an inquiry into delayed and cancelled trains on the new South Coast Rail line.
Disruptions have frustrated riders since the MBTA extension opened on March 24, including several canceled trains the weekend of April 19-20. Keolis, the company that runs commuter trains under a contract with the MBTA, has said it cancelled trains because it doesn’t have enough staff trained on the new tracks. Some riders say they were stranded for hours.
The Senate Committee on Post Audit and Oversight sent a detailed list of questions to the MBTA last week asking for information about staffing and cancellations. The MBTA has until Friday to respond.
“Stranding passengers late into the evening hours is an unacceptable error that presents a potential safety issue for older riders, young children, and those with medical conditions in addition to the obvious inconvenience inflicted upon all passengers,” wrote State Sen. Mark Montigny, who chairs the committee, in the letter to MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng.
Montigny declined to be interviewed about the inquiry because it’s ongoing. A representative for his office wrote in a text to The Light that they would provide more information “at a later date.” The Senate committee currently has no hearings scheduled.
Read the committee’s letter ⇢
Keolis spokesperson Jake O’Neill did not answer repeated phone calls from The Light this week.
Train conductors and engineers need to be qualified to work on specific lines, O’Neill wrote in an email on Tuesday. Trains were cancelled because there haven’t always been enough crews trained on the new South Coast Rail tracks to cover for workers who called out sick or missed their shift.
Keolis says it’s training more staff. It has 54 conductors currently qualified for South Coast Rail, and a plan to raise that number to 65 by early June, O’Neill said.
MBTA spokesperson Joe Pesaturo declined to make any agency officials available for interviews. In an email, he referred the Light to Eng’s comments at last Thursday’s MBTA board meeting, when Eng said Keolis officials had communicated to the T before the extension opened that “they were ready to deliver this level of service.”
Keolis replaced some trains with buses the weekend of April 19-20. It planned to do that again this past weekend, but it found enough crews at the last minute to run trains as scheduled, O’Neill said. The MBTA has fined Keolis $51,541 for the disruptions, State House News Service reported.
The MBTA is extending weekend free fares for South Coast riders through the end of May “as a show of gratitude to riders who have been utilizing this new service.” The promotion was originally planned to end this month.
The staffing shortages are disappointing to transit advocates who have watched the project stumble through decades of delays.
“Why wasn’t this thought of and prepared for?” asked Reggie Ramos, executive director of the advocacy group Transportation for Massachusetts.
She wanted a fuller explanation from Keolis on how the shortages happened and what the company was doing to mitigate them.
Ramos said launching the project two months early may have contributed to the staffing shortages, leaving less time for Keolis to train enough workers. Earlier this year, the MBTA moved up the opening date from May to March.
The disruptions rob riders of dignity and discourage ridership on public transit as a whole, Ramos said.
“South Coast Rail is a really pivotal first step to reconnecting those South Coast communities that haven’t been served by rail in so long,” said Janet Cheung, a program assistant at the advocacy group TransitMatters. “Obviously, this hasn’t instilled the greatest confidence in riders.”
Cheung said these early missteps could make it harder to bring more train service to the South Coast in the future. The MBTA has a long-term plan to bring faster, electrified train service to New Bedford and Fall River in the 2030s.
In a statement provided by New Bedford’s public information officer, Mayor Jon Mitchell said riders should be able to count on reliable train service. He said it’s important for Keolis and the MBTA to resolve the issue because “we are in a critical window in which public perception of the service is still developing.”
Paul Chasse, a local realtor and leader of the Rail to Boston Coalition, spent years pressing the state to make South Coast Rail a reality. He said his group is prepared to advocate to make sure the project delivers on its promises.
“It took a long time to get it here, and hopefully it only takes a little time to work it out,” he said.
Email Grace Ferguson at gferguson@newbedfordlight.org
