MassDOT News Updates

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Ok, I'm super curious what folks here think of this news. So I'll throw out my total outsider take and maybe someone here knows better....

This looks bad, right? This is Healy's second Transportation Secretary to leave suddenly with no explanation. The first left in under a year. Tibbits-Nutt took over, and from the outside it was hard to say that was going well. Now she's out, effective immediately, and the guy taking over already has a pretty big job. Eng has been doing good work at MBTA. I think I would actually like him to keep doing good work there. It's been great having a serious, competent leader running and advocating for the T. General Manager of the MBTA really does seem like a full time job, and I don't really buy it that it's good him to keep that role while also taking on Transportation Secretary.

Am I way off base here?
 
ritchiew said:
Ok, I'm super curious what folks here think of this news. So I'll throw out my total outsider take and maybe someone here knows better....

This looks bad, right? This is Healy's second Transportation Secretary to leave suddenly with no explanation. The first left in under a year. Tibbits-Nutt took over, and from the outside it was hard to say that was going well. Now she's out, effective immediately, and the guy taking over already has a pretty big job. Eng has been doing good work at MBTA. I think I would actually like him to keep doing good work there. It's been great having a serious, competent leader running and advocating for the T. General Manager of the MBTA really does seem like a full time job, and I don't really buy it that it's good him to keep that role while also taking on Transportation Secretary.

Am I way off base here?
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Since Eng isn't taking a pay increase to add Secretary to his portfolio and is keeping his full GM duties, it's likely that this is a *highly* interim position for him. He's 64, already retired once with LIRR before quickly un-retiring to come here. He doesn't need this as a resume-builder like a much younger Rich Davey did when he ascended from GM to Secretary.

I want to know what finally pushed Tibbits-Nutt out of the job. She's certainly been...erratic...in the role from the get-go. Healey denies that the Pike rest stop contracting fiasco had anything to do with it, but that seems to be the most newsworthy MassDOT thing of late. Maybe something is about to get worse with that whole story.

Justbuildit said:
Building an Engpire. He should run for governor in 2030.
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If he can un-stick the Pike Allston project that Tibbits-Nutt's people so thoroughly fumbled, I'll nominate him for Pope.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
I want to know what finally pushed Tibbits-Nutt out of the job.
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I mean, the death sentence was practically pronounced as of last April; it was merely a question of finding one additional justification to heap upon the monumental debacle that was:

Gov. Maura Healey thinks her top transportation deputy used a “very poor choice of words” during her recent candid remarks about wielding her policymaking power and exploring controversial tax, fee and toll options, but suggested she’s ready to put the matter in the past.

Can anyone on this board recall a prior instance where a gubernatorial Cabinet chief embarrassed the Corner Office so badly that such an exceptionally harsh public reprimand/chastisement got issued in the aftermath? I certainly can't... without serving as a Healey apologist, you don't do that to governors.
 
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F-Line to Dudley said:
Maybe something is about to get worse with that whole story.
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Should we be intrigued that the legislative paladin pushing to expose the full sordidness of whatever took place with the Pike plaza vendor procurement fiasco is, per AI, the "key champion" of South Coast Rail? That is, if Montigny uncovers something that is so thoroughly grotesque, would he actually have significant leverage over MassDOT to help achieve Phase II?

Of course I could be completely mistaken in such speculation, but I think it's interesting to think about...
 
DBM said:
Can anyone on this board recall a prior instance where a gubernatorial Cabinet chief embarrassed the Corner Office so badly that such an exceptionally harsh public reprimand/chastisement got issued in the aftermath? I certainly can't... without serving as a Healey apologist, you don't do that to governors.
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Or governors shouldn’t undermine their employees like that. All the secretary did was indicate roadway pricing is a good idea, which is the truth. Healey neutered the transportation funding task force because she couldn’t take the two days of bad press over the idea of expanded tolls. Any MassDOT leader that doesn’t support expanded tolls is driving us to bankruptcy.
 
In a perfect world expanded tolls would pay for their intended purpose. Won't they promise the world and then they will just take the toll money and use it for something else? For example, the cigarette tax was supposed to go to a robust anti-smoking campaign, because the children, now it goes in the general fund.
 
Scott said:
In a perfect world expanded tolls would pay for their intended purpose. Won't they promise the world and then they will just take the toll money and use it for something else? For example, the cigarette tax was supposed to go to a robust anti-smoking campaign, because the children, now it goes in the general fund.
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I mean...we had a robust anti-smoking campaign, it worked and smoking has been on a consistent decline for going on 60 years.

Badusername said:
Or governors shouldn’t undermine their employees like that. All the secretary did was indicate roadway pricing is a good idea, which is the truth. Healey neutered the transportation funding task force because she couldn’t take the two days of bad press over the idea of expanded tolls. Any MassDOT leader that doesn’t support expanded tolls is driving us to bankruptcy.
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Yeah. I don't disagree with the takes that MTN wasn't a very effective secretary, but I think she was handcuffed by an administration that has little interest in having an effective secretary.
 
Badusername said:
Or governors shouldn’t undermine their employees like that. All the secretary did was indicate roadway pricing is a good idea, which is the truth.
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Yeah, that was always my take on the incident. Tibbits-Nut was only saying that the task force would look at everything, including that. If a task force charged with making recommendations won't look at the entire world of choices under their charge, then what is the point? Honestly, the Secretary should have resigned after that, because it was clear that Healy wasn't going to let her do the job.
 
HenryAlan said:
Yeah, that was always my take on the incident. Tibbits-Nut was only saying that the task force would look at everything, including that. If a task force charged with making recommendations won't look at the entire world of choices under their charge, then what is the point? Honestly, the Secretary should have resigned after that, because it was clear that Healy wasn't going to let her do the job.
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Yes, this. She could have resigned, or alternatively just studied tolling anyway. She could have come out and said "The Governor doesn't want to do tolling. But we've been tasked with solving a funding gap and were told everything is on the table, so this is on the table."

Instead it looked like MTN had that losing combination of "Talk Big" and "Instantly Capitulate."
 
One thing that kinda rubbed me the wrong way with Secretary Tibbits-Nutt was her assertion that "expansions of the system just aren't gonna happen anymore. We just don't do those levels of projects. In the United States, especially places that have these legacy systems, they don't do these projects anymore. So I think spending too much time focused on a particular expansion project, I think can be very distracting."

It's one thing to say that we don't prioritize transit expansion anymore, but claiming that we don't do them at all right after the GLX opened was a very odd thing to say. Greater Boston needs extensions like Red-Blue, Blue to Lynn, and Orange to West Roxbury in the next decade or two. I want a Transportation Secretary who treats these extensions like the urgent priorities they are, not someone who dismisses them as a "distraction."
 
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themissinglink said:
One thing that kinda rubbed me the wrong way with Secretary Tibbits-Nutt was her assertion that "expansions of the system just aren't gonna happen anymore. We just don't do those levels of projects. In the United States, especially places that have these legacy systems, they don't do these projects anymore. So I think spending too much time focused on a particular expansion project, I think can be very distracting."

It's one thing to say that we don't prioritize transit expansion anymore, but claiming that we don't do them at all right after the GLX opened was a very odd thing to say. Greater Boston needs extensions like Red-Blue, Blue to Lynn, and Orange to West Roxbury in the next decade or two. I want a Transportation Secretary who treats these extensions like the urgent priorities they are, not someone who dismisses them as a "distraction."
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I don't disagree with you, and I'd certainly prefer a DoT secretary who can sell a transit vision to the public. But... she's right. These projects can't be done with local tax dollars alone, they need federal assistance. The MAGA movement has destroyed any possibility of federally funded infrastructure projects for the next several decades. Trump voters have fucked America six ways to Sunday, and this is just another casualty of their ignorant nihilism.
 
BronsonShore said:
These projects can't be done with local tax dollars alone, they need federal assistance. The MAGA movement has destroyed any possibility of federally funded infrastructure projects for the next several decades. Trump voters have fucked America six ways to Sunday, and this is just another casualty of their ignorant nihilism.
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It's true that MAGA has ruined any chance of federal funding for public transit in the foreseeable future, but her comments are from 2023, when Biden was president. Her comments were not accurate at the time, especially considering how the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill was signed by President Biden less than 2 years before she made those comments. Massachusetts could've and should've tried to get federal funding for Red-Blue while Biden was president.
 
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themissinglink said:
It's true that MAGA has ruined any chance of federal funding for public transit in the foreseeable future, but her comments are from 2023, when Biden was president. Her comments were not accurate at the time, especially considering how the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill was signed by President Biden less than 2 years before she made those comments. Massachusetts could've and should've tried to get federal funding for Red-Blue while Biden was president.
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The state can and should self-fund Red-Blue. It should also be getting a slate of projects shovel ready for the next transit-friendly administration so we don’t keep making the same mistake of getting projects ready just in time for the next Republican administration. While Eng deserves endless praise, he also has not been successful at getting the Governor to increase transit funding beyond kicking the can on the fiscal cliff. I don’t think any transportation Secretary will change this about the Governor. We just have to hope whoever we get in 2030 actually cares about mode shift, or Healey changes her tune about new taxes after what will be an uncompetitive 2026 election.
 
The state should also be working up expansion plans that omit the showy goodies. Focus on the transportation. GLX shows the perils of both extremes: First, it larded up with place making stations (Magoun with a bus loop on Lowell St?). Second, it stripped out a usable bike path for the 10’ width.
 
Something that we've massively gotten away from that should be brought to bear is that in most cases these infrastructure projects should more than pay for themselves, the question then becomes capturing that value. Filling in the Back Bay was a profitable enterprise for the state. Red-Blue connector provides very obvious value, so capture it to pay for it! Create a special tax district or, heaven forbid, institute a land value tax.

I'm not saying in all cases a project should fund itself, some things are worth providing as services at the expense of others, but many of these are layups. No one is asking how we're paying for the I-90 interchanges.

EDIT: Basically, if it's not paying for itself there needs to be massive justification of why it's worth doing at all. If it can pay for itself, this should be simple. We over-complicate it. Largely, imo, because we're so used to paying for large highway and arterial projects that are economically unjustifiable.
 
themissinglink said:
One thing that kinda rubbed me the wrong way with Secretary Tibbits-Nutt was her assertion that "expansions of the system just aren't gonna happen anymore. We just don't do those levels of projects. In the United States, especially places that have these legacy systems, they don't do these projects anymore. So I think spending too much time focused on a particular expansion project, I think can be very distracting."

It's one thing to say that we don't prioritize transit expansion anymore, but claiming that we don't do them at all right after the GLX opened was a very odd thing to say. Greater Boston needs extensions like Red-Blue, Blue to Lynn, and Orange to West Roxbury in the next decade or two. I want a Transportation Secretary who treats these extensions like the urgent priorities they are, not someone who dismisses them as a "distraction."
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"We just can't do transit system expansion," I say on my way to the ribbon cutting. "It's not possible, and we shouldn't try."

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