Keller @ Large: Feds Might Not Help MBTA

BOSTON (CBS) - So they're now saying it will take at least another month to get the MBTA operating normally, as we head into our third week of catastrophic failure attributed to the snow and cold.

I would imagine that right about now, many unhappy T customers are thinking to themselves, yes, there's been an awful lot of snow, but most of it of the light and fluffy variety, and yes, the cold has been below average, but not every day has been that far out of line with a normal winter.

And that line of thinking leads to another thought – what combination of factors, including say, lack of money, poor management, and flawed oversight, might have led to such catastrophic failure, regardless of how bad the weather has been?

This is especially relevant because T officials say they're going to apply for federal disaster relief funds to help cover their repair costs. But in the wake of the budget-busting costs of Hurricane Sandy relief, the conditions for awarding those funds have been tightened, and if I'm reading the new rules correctly, we might be in for a problem.

I have repeated the phrase "catastrophic failure" here because federal regulations provide that "a catastrophic failure must not be primarily attributable to gradual and progressive deterioration or lack of proper maintenance."

Uh-oh.

Didn't the Herald alertly report a few days ago that the T hasn't filed repair reports in years?

You may recall that the Big Dig really started to unravel when the feds stopped writing blank checks and started questioning the project's wretched mismanagement.

Sounds to me like we may be subject to similar scrutiny if we seek federal aid, and the feds might not like what they find.

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