Meet Phillip Eng, Boston Transit’s New Boss With a Big Job Ahead

A late-pandemic, early-Anthropocene April evening on the Boston waterfront: along Long Wharf, the outdoor patios were full and raucous for an unseasonably warm happy hour. Brisk-walking commuters hustled onto the 6:10 ferry to Hingham, while a smaller, more relaxed group of middle-aged people milled around the dock and asked passerby if they were in the right place for the 6 p.m. ferry to the casino (in a stroke of ambiguous luck, their boat never showed up).

Phillip Eng, who was just wrapping up his fourth day running the MBTA, was also there, and stopped for a small press conference before he caught a ferry back to the hotel where he’s been staying this week in East Boston.

“I’ve been engaging with a lot of riders on the trains, but also just in my walks to the stations. I guess you (the press) have helped make me a little more recognizable, so people have come up to share their thoughts, which I appreciate, because that’s important to me,” Eng told reporters.

Eng noted that he’s been experiencing some of the T’s reliability issues first hand this week as a Blue Line rider. On Wednesday and Thursday, problems with the Blue Line’s overhead power lines forced the T to abruptly replace trains with shuttle buses.

“One of the things that we worked on today was giving the riders an anticipation of when we expected the incident on the Blue Line to subside. And we hit that off at 7 a.m.… This is just the beginning of information that’s going to allow (riders) to make decisions. When when an incident does happen… is it five minutes, 15 minutes, an hour or longer? And that’s what we’re working on. And that’s a little bit to hold ourselves accountable as well.”

Eng said that better, more honest communication is his first priority for regaining riders’ trust in the MBTA as a reliable way to get where they need to go.

“When (riders) speak to us, they need to know that we’re listening, and we’re responding,” said Eng. “And I think that will be demonstrated in our actions… This morning, I had a chance to speak with a number of people that got off the bus to get on the Blue Line. And I realized that a lot of them are folks that have to take mass transit, right, they have no other way. I understand what their frustrations are, because if you don’t have another option, then you are relying on us.

“For the folks that do have options, again, it’s going to be based on actions, it’s going to be getting that service to a point where that trip (that’s scheduled to be) 45 minutes is 45 minutes, right? What we need to do is give our riders a schedule, and then adhere to that schedule. Obviously we have some work to do. But we’re committed to getting the work done.”

Eng says that even though it’s only his first week, he’d already spent a lot of time learning about the T before he arrived here, and that he hadn’t really encountered any big surprises in his first week on the job.

“When this first came up as an opportunity, I started monitoring a lot of information and watching the board meetings. Because I wanted to kind of get an understanding of the challenges, and it was good for me to look at it from an outside perspective, right? Obviously, once I was offered the position, and I accepted it, then I really dove even deeper. And that’s where I started to have briefings, even before I physically started here, because time is of the essence and it was really important for me to get that.”

Eng also says that the Healey administration assured him that the state government would give him and the T the resources they need to succeed.

“In fact, Gov. Healey, Lt. Gov. Driscoll, and Secretary Fiandaca, their support was vital to me in agreeing to take the decision. If I did not believe I had that support, I would not be here right now. And I am fully confident that we will be able to deliver on the things that we promised,” said Eng. “And I know there’s others that are rooting for us as well.”

Once on board the ferry, Eng made a point to introduce himself to most of the other passengers, many of whom recognized him and wished him luck.

“Despite the frustration that some of the public has, the welcome that I’ve gotten has been really uplifting. They are pulling for us,” Eng told StreetsblogMASS. “And I think, you know, you kind of need to because there is no alternative, we need to deliver mass transportation.”

“I’m not fully settled yet. You know, I mentioned I’m staying in hotels in East Boston. And next week, I’m gonna stay in Dedham, I want to ride the commuter rail line.”

When you agree to take this job, obviously a lot of challenges. Did Governor Haley or the Healy administration offer you any assurances that she was going to give you the support you needed financially or administratively to make sure you’re going to succeed with all the stuff that you need to do?

I guess we could go off at a higher rate has that changed over the course of the last few days or any plans on that I’m getting more people want to attend.

So the hiring is going to ramp up even more, right? We, and the team has before I even started, worked out a way to take pioneering efforts to the masses, right? Instead of having them to come to us, having (candidates) come to our office, or go to the website, we’re gonna go out to them. And I’m proud, you know, the first one is this Saturday and Mattapan, and I’m going to be there. I want to support not only the internal staff that have worked so hard on this, but I want to encourage folks to come.

I’ve met some people on the train where their families are here working, or one new hire that I met the other day, and she’s going to be if I remember correctly, a green line operator. And I felt that, you know, obviously you love it, you’ve chosen this for a reason. Spread the word help us spread the word. So we’re gonna go to Mattapan first, we’re gonna go to all the other communities next. And, and what we’re gonna also do is we’re gonna look at how do we go into schools and get get people before they’ve made decisions, right? I know, often, your minds are made up your, your career paths are shaped early on. We want to stop promoting that. I’m told the T was the job of choice in the past. That’s what we’re gonna get back to what it really is. And if you love public services, if you love helping the community, your fellow neighbors, come to the T work with us. Work with me. And, you know, we’ll be we’ll be colleagues for a long time.