April 15, 2010
By Eric Moskowitz, Boston Globe

Attempt alleged to avoid regular inspections

The MBTA yesterday alleged that eight of its managers doctored mileage records to avoid having to perform regularly scheduled inspections on a bus fleet that ferries hundreds of thousands of people around Greater Boston each day.

The transit agency immediately fired three of its six bus maintenance superintendents, and said it would seek to fire five union-represented managers, who help oversee the 600 mechanics tasked with inspecting and maintaining T buses.

State Transportation Secretary Jeffrey B. Mullan and MBTA General Manager Richard A. Davey Jr. told reporters yesterday that the scheme meant that more than 200 buses went as much as 35,000 miles without being checked for mechanical problems or getting routine maintenance such as oil changes.

The officials said the failure to inspect the buses did not cause any known safety problems — in part because the buses are visually inspected daily by drivers — but that it did contribute to poor performance and delays on some bus routes.

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The T’s 1,050 buses are a vital means of transportation for many people in Boston and its suburbs — the agency says that more than 350,000 people ride its buses along more than 190 routes every weekday.

Stuart Spina of Chelsea, a member of the T Rider’s Union, called the news of the inspection problems disheartening, and said it reinforced feelings that the bus system is treated as a “second-class service’’ within the MBTA. Spina said it also makes him reconsider the air-conditioning failures and other breakdowns he observed during last week’s record-setting 90-degree day, which he had previously considered an unpreventable byproduct of the unexpected heat.

“I don’t see how riders have much faith,’’ he said. “Hopefully nothing else shocking will be revealed, and this problem is going to be nipped in the bud and I don’t have to think twice before I get on a bus or a train.’’

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