The MBTA has responded to the Trump administration’s demand for information on how it’s working to make travel safer in the Boston area.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sent a letter last month to MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng, giving the agency until Thursday to explain how it is keeping passengers and workers safe and how it is paying for those efforts.
Duffy said the federal government may redirect or withhold funding from the MBTA if it did not respond to the request.
The Trump administration said funding could be on the line as it requested details on the MBTA’s plans to reduce crime, vagrancy and fair evasion by Oct. 2.
In a letter to Duffy, dated Thursday, Eng pointed to progress the MBTA has made in recent years.
“We share your commitment to the safety of our employees and the public we serve. All riders must be safe — and feel safe — while using any part of our network,” he wrote. “In partnership with FTA Region 1 and with support from the Administration, we have made significant strides in rebuilding our workforce and improving our infrastructure, making the MBTA safer and more reliable … However, I want to emphasize that this is only the beginning of our aggressive approach to accelerate the delivery of projects and service improvements for the riders, communities, and businesses we serve.”
Eng noted that he joined the MBTA in April of 2023, the year after the Federal Transit Administration placed it under a Safety Management Inspection for staffing and maintenance concerns. He said the goal of making 1,000 new hires in a year was exceeded.
The federal government is calling on the MBTA “to reduce crime, vagrancy and fare evasion,” threatening to pull funds from the transit system.
The MBTA Transit Police Department immediately has 228 sworn officers, compared to 195 in Fiscal Year 2022, Eng added.
The MBTA also pointed out that since 2012, it had built more than $512 million worth of security infrastructure.
“The MBTA responded in line with the request from the USDOT, we submitted our response yesterday, and immediately we await any response back,” MBTA Chief Operating Officer Ryan Coholan told NBC10 Boston Friday. “We continue to work with our federal partners, our state partners, to make sure that we continue to capitalize in delivering safe, reliable service.”
In making its request for information, the U.S. Department of Transportation cited an elderly woman who was pushed off a bus in Boston and injured earlier this month, as well as a belt attack on a bus in Cambridge in August. Duffy also referred to the fatal stabbing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutsk on a Charlotte, North Carolina, train in August — a killing that has sparked outcry from the Trump administration.
“Year to date, between January 1, 2025, and September 24, 2025, we have observed a 16% reduction in recorded crime across the system (632 recorded crimes in 2024 vs. 528 recorded crimes in 2025) or 2.63 crimes per million trips,” Eng wrote.
Read Eng’s letter to Duffy:
Read Duffy’s letter to Eng:
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