Keller @ Large: Stephanie Pollack On MBTA Service Improvement

BOSTON (CBS) -- It's been more than two years since the rough winter of 2015, when the MBTA collapsed, plagued with delays and service disruptions.

State Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack told WBZ political analyst Jon Keller there's been a lot of progress since then--not enough that customers have noticed it yet, but they will soon.

"We're buying new cars, 1/3 of the bus fleet is brand new," Pollack said. "I've ordered an entirely new Orange Line fleet, people will actually start to see the pilot cars out at about next year. Ordered an entirely new Red Line fleet. We're fixing tracks, we're fixing signals. Literally, hundreds of millions have been spent, we've changed over the entire leadership, hired new people. So, a lot of work has been done, and I think we're turning the corner."

Pollack also responded to a recent MassPIRG study that claimed the methodology behind the MBTA's on-time performance metrics was bogus.

"There's more than one way to measure on-time performance," Pollack said. "The way we measure it is against our schedules if we have them, that's on Commuter Rail, so what we're telling people is, 'Was your train within 5 minutes of your schedule?' I think that's a pretty fair way of measuring it, and that's how most systems do."

She said there are other ways of measurement and they're happy to work with MassPIRG on them--but said it should be noted that if someone asked what the MBTA's on-time performance was like in the past, they wouldn't have even had an answer, let alone a website dedicated to providing metrics.

Keller and Pollack also spoke about the troubled rollout of the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles'

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.