The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has closed its final directive to the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU), which now takes over MBTA safety oversight for seven open federal directives.

An inbound MBTA Orange Line train approaching Roxbury Crossing on wet tracks.
An inbound MBTA Orange Line train approaches Roxbury Crossing. Photo: 4300streetcar / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0.

A letter to the regulator dated September 11, 2026 sets out the decision, and Governor Maura Healey’s office announced it on September 18.

What the FTA closed

The directive, Special Directive 22-13, dates from August 31, 2022, when the FTA released the findings of a 2022 safety management inspection at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA). It set the DPU nine required actions under four findings. They covered the regulator’s use of resources for field inspections and its independence from the MBTA. The findings also dealt with its review of MBTA fatigue management and its ability to act on the inspection’s results.

Over the past four years, the FTA closed four of the nine actions. The DPU then asked it to close the remaining five. Those concerned its enforcement powers, its supervision of fatigue management and working hours at the MBTA, and coordination with the FTA on the directives issued to the MBTA. After regular coordination meetings, document reviews and joint site inspections, the FTA ruled that all five had been met.

The letter credits the DPU with hiring 13 full-time staff between 2022 and 2025 and with a technical training plan that qualifies its people for safety oversight work. The regulator also changed how it tracks the MBTA’s corrective actions, investigations of safety events, rules compliance, fatigue and safety management.

This is the second directive the DPU has cleared. The FTA closed Special Directive 22-8 in September 2024. That order had required the regulator to oversee the MBTA’s work on the first four directives issued to the transit agency.

Seven MBTA directives remain open

The closure does not cover the directives addressed to the MBTA itself. Seven of them are still open, according to the FTA letter: 22-4 on track maintenance, 22-5 on securing disabled trains, 22-6 on the Operations Control Center, 22-9 on workforce demands, 22-10 on safety management information, 22-11 on safety communication and 22-12 on operating conditions, procedures and training.

MBTA autonomous track inspection car 533 on a train near Boston.
MBTA autonomous track inspection car 533 travels on a Lowell Line train near Boston. Photo: 4300streetcar / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0.

Oversight of the MBTA’s progress on those seven now rests directly with the DPU. Under a separate FTA amendment to the open directives, the MBTA must now report its compliance to the DPU, which will review, approve and track the remaining actions. The FTA will keep monitoring safety metrics and compliance at both agencies. State officials described the outcome more broadly. DPU Commissioner Staci Rubin said the FTA’s role in overseeing the special directives had ended. The letter itself confines the closure to the directive issued to her department.

Phillip Eng is MBTA general manager and interim state transportation secretary. He acknowledged that the agency’s own work is unfinished, saying that “while we know we have more work to do, 99% of our CAPs have been submitted”.

CAPs are the corrective action plans written to meet the directives. Under the FTA process, a plan is closed only after the agency requests closure and federal staff verify its implementation. Submission alone does not close a plan.

FTA special directives issued during and after the 2022 MBTA safety management inspection: status on September 11, 2026
Directive (issued) Addressed to Subject Status on September 11, 2026
22-4 (June 15, 2022) MBTA Track maintenance Open; DPU oversees progress
22-5 (June 15, 2022) MBTA Securing disabled trains Open; DPU oversees progress
22-6 (June 15, 2022) MBTA Operations Control Center Open; DPU oversees progress
22-7 (June 15, 2022) MBTA Lapsed certifications Not among the open directives listed by the FTA
22-8 (June 15, 2022) DPU Overseeing the MBTA’s work on directives 22-4 to 22-7 Closed; FTA letter of September 25, 2024
22-9 (August 31, 2022) MBTA Workforce demands of operations, maintenance and capital projects Open; DPU oversees progress
22-10 (August 31, 2022) MBTA Safety management information Open; DPU oversees progress
22-11 (August 31, 2022) MBTA Safety communication Open; DPU oversees progress
22-12 (August 31, 2022) MBTA Operating conditions, procedures and training Open; DPU oversees progress
22-13 (August 31, 2022) DPU Oversight capacity: nine required actions under four findings Closed; FTA letter of September 11, 2026

Both directives addressed to the DPU are now closed, while seven of the eight addressed to the MBTA remain open under DPU oversight. Only 22-7 is missing from the open directives listed in the FTA letter of September 11, 2026; the letter does not give its closure date.

Sources: FTA list of directives to the MBTA and the DPU; FTA letter to the DPU, September 11, 2026; FTA letter on Special Directive 22-8, September 25, 2024.

FTA oversight of Washington’s Metrorail, 2015–2019

The FTA has handed rail safety oversight back before, under a different arrangement. In October 2015 the US transportation secretary directed it to take temporary, direct safety oversight of Metrorail, the rail system of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. It stepped in for the Tri-State Oversight Committee, which the FTA considered ineffective. That role passed on March 18, 2019 to the Washington Metrorail Safety Commission, set up by the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia, once the FTA had certified the commission’s state safety oversight program. In Massachusetts the DPU remained the state safety oversight agency throughout, and the directives were aimed at strengthening that role rather than replacing it.