Talking about MBTA GMs is making me think about to the GMs we had in the past - particularly the ones that was active while this forum been existing and thus we commentated and discussed about them.
Ordered by Most Recent (interim omitted)
Steve Poftak
Luis Ramírez
Beverly Scott
Rich Davey
Daniel Grabauskas
Well, I don't think any of us are liking Steve Poftak right now. But aside from calling him a Pioneer Institute lackey, he did served on the FMCB and I believe we viewed the board positively even though (at least personally) did not followed his actions as an individual. Though it is notable that while its existence is viewed as a positive (though we were also worried it was a way for Baker to gut the MBTA) with the constant reports and presentation of progress, I thought it would have lead to less incidents (and maybe it did, but it sure does not feel like that).
Luis Ramírez - Did we even talked about him when he resigned? I think his two most memorable thing about him was resigning being under fire from his past... and being hired while being under fire from his past
Beverly Scott - I think a lot of us remembers her. Her stay was short too but for much different reasons than Luis.
Rich Davey - His stay was shorter than I remembered. Though I guess part of the reason it feels longer is because he went on to the Dept of Transportation though he is gone now. I think his longest term impact is allowed us to access data so you can track trains and get time estimates on apps/websites. That was a big quality of life improvement for a lot of people.
Daniel Grabauskas - I remember this board dunking on this man a lot. How his policies seem to love running busses. A bunch of other policies we all hated. And there is no justice in all of this - he got "fired"... with full pay for the remainder of his contract and went on to work in the same field... in Honolulu.
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Where I'm going with this is looking back, the MBTA has been declining for decades - a more generous version is we've been turning around since 2015 or some other disasters incident - but still, my point is all these issues built up through all these tenures regardless of the person. As much as I like to imagine Maura Healey grabbing someone from Japan and imbue that person with enough power to pretzel the T into a system he came from, it seems the issues is more than just a lack of management.
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Also as I looked up the old GMs. I also found an old interview from Commonwealth with Beverly Scott that does say the
MBTA should be folded into the State. I'm not sure personally if that's the solution, but it's interesting she said that. Albeit, her picture of a State Takeover could be very different Rep. William Straus suggested and Baker says he is open to think about.