Which leads me to the question: is that a limit imposed because of the track quality, vehicle design, signaling system, or something else? Probably a poor comparison but I never understood why high speed rail can go 160+ over a switch but the Green Line has to go so slow.
www.wcvb.com
From what I heard in his remarks, I'm not actually sure we know for certain the inspections were done. He spoke about "after having reviewed the quality of that I documentation, I made the decision [to impose the speed restrictions]", which suggests that in at least one case the documentation did exist but was somehow concerning. Obviously we don't know why it was concerning, but what I heard did not seem to rule out the possibility that the inspections weren't done, or were done improperly.
Wow, so yeah. This is gonna be rough.
I mean, I dunno how often these inspections are made, but probably the only inspection report that "matters" is the most recent one. So if the inspection is supposed to be every 2 months (for example), that would be enough potentially to impact even though that section is very new. But also, it sounds like the "systemwide" restrictions still in place on the LRT lines probably are more reflective of a paperwork/organizational thing while they continue their investigation.
I've traveled to all 3 cities you mentioned and apart from SF, NYC's MTA and Chicago's CTA is miles ahead of the MBTA. The idea that people would be "stoked" about having a public transit like the MBTA is such a YMMV, that declaring that has zero value. All I can say is, in the past year, the MBTA has made headlines on national news for the wrong reasons more than any other transit agency, save for maybe the MTA (due to the assaults on passenger which really doesn't have anything to do with the agency operating it)