Federal Transit Administration may step in to oversee SEPTA safety operations following spate of bus and trolley crashes
There appears to be nothing in common among the disparate crashes but SEPTA, state and federal agencies are investigating.
A runaway trolley smashed into the living room of a historic house. A bus jumped the curb and plowed into a Walnut Street storefront. A bus rammed into the back of another bus on Roosevelt Boulevard, killing one person and injuring more than a dozen.
SEPTA is facing intensifying scrutiny from state and federal safety regulators after a recent rash of Philadelphia bus and trolley crashes, including five major collisions during a single week in late July that killed one person and injured at least 25 more.
The Federal Transit Administration could step in with direct supervision of the transit authority’s safety practices, SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch said. “We know it’s a possibility … with that many major collisions in such a short period of time,” he said.
SEPTA is conducting its own investigation, including an examination of operator staffing levels and training, Busch said.
Already, the independent National Transportation Safety Board, the agency perhaps best known for investigating catastrophic airline crashes, is formally looking into the July 27 runaway trolley accident. An out-of-service SEPTA trolley with a mechanic aboard rolled out of a rail yard, struck an SUV, and then smashed into the ground floor of a historic home in Southwest Philadelphia.
PennDot, which has day-to-day oversight responsibility for transit rail safety in the state, and the FTA are participating in that investigation, according to an FTA spokesperson.
“FTA will consider appropriate actions as it receives additional information regarding this and other recent incidents,” the FTA spokesperson said.
In Philadelphia, one person was killed July 21 when two buses collided in Rhawnhurst and 14 people were injured.
While designated state transportation agencies usually handle on-the-ground supervision of transit systems, FTA has taken over directly in some cases when it has found systemic safety lapses.
In June 2022, the FTA cracked down on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), operator of the Boston T, for “continuous safety violations and failure to take urgent corrective action.” The action came after a train fire on a river bridge and the death of a man who was dragged across a platform when his arm was stuck in a malfunctioning train door.
Two months later, the FTA said that Boston’s transit authority had so prioritized spending on system improvements that it skimped on operations, including safety, and state regulators were lax in enforcement. The federal agency cited subway dispatchers working 20-hour days, runaway trains injuring workers, tracks in disrepair, and operators and supervisors with expired safety certifications.
Boston transit officials later submitted a detailed safety-improvement plan, as the FTA demanded.
Earlier this year, federal officials ordered the MBTA to speed up implementation of its plan after trains on four occasions narrowly missed hitting employees working on tracks, and another worker was injured when a 2,000 pound weight fell on him during station construction.
SEPTA’s mishaps are serious, but so far authorities have not found a thread connecting them, Busch said.
In March, the FTA urged PennDot to sharpen its oversight of SEPTA, expressing concern about several “safety events” in late December 2022 and February of this year, including a trolley collision with a bus in West Philadelphia; two trolleys colliding at Elmwood Yard; a runaway train at Bridge Street Yard; and a collision between trains at the Fern Rock Carhouse.
Information about the events “indicates a troubling lack of safety policies and procedures or lack of adherence to [them],” Joseph P. DeLorenzo, the FTA’s associate administrator and chief safety officer wrote. “Addressing these shortcomings requires in-person observation and aggressive oversight.”
In response, state Transportation Secretary Michael B. Carroll told the FTA that PennDot is in regular, on-site contact with SEPTA officials, oversees track and facility maintenance programs, and participates in all of the agency’s internal safety committees, safety audits and inspections. PennDot also has stepped up spot inspections of SEPTA’s preventative maintenance, Carroll wrote to the FTA.