MBTA General Manager Beverly Scott Is Stepping Down [Updated]

Photo by Olga Khvan

Update: 5:30 p.m.:

Mayor Marty Walsh released the following statement on the resignation of Beverly Scott:

“I thank Dr. Beverly Scott for her deep commitment to our public transportation system and to the people of Boston and the Commonwealth. She has shown leadership and courage during the challenges we are facing, and I wish her the best of luck in the future. I look forward to working with the Governor to improve our public transportation system to better serve our residents who rely on it everyday.”

Earlier: 4:46 p.m.:

In a resignation letter submitted on Wednesday, general manager of the MBTA, Beverly Scott, announced she is stepping down from her position after two years.

It’s been a rough week for the MBTA over the past month with winter weather, this week in particular. Commuters have raised questions about the performance of the outdated T after weeks of severe delays, and poor operations overall. In just one month, the MBTA saw kicked out windows on the red line, stranded passengers, and enormous lines for replacement shuttle services. The association took a day to reassemble on Tuesday by closing its services.

Scott defended her decision to shut down the T in a presser on Tuesday.

“We had too much snow, too much accumulation, too much unreliability and instability in what we were seeing in terms of the track conditions and the associated impact in terms of fleet. So that bottom line was the decisions I made, the decision to take the service off,” Scott said.

“Quite candidly, I’ll take my own head off for you, OK?’’ she also said. “I’m not the issue.’’

But apparently enough is enough for Scott, and made her resignation effective on April 11. She did promise, however, to “place priority attention on working with our team [to] return T services to normalcy” over the next 60 days.

“I am stunned by the resignation of Dr. Scott,” said John Jenkins, Chairman of the MassDOT Board of Directors.

Here’s the letter she submitted to MassDOT Board of Directors:

Scott Letter