MBTA stations will receive a “top to bottom” examination in the wake of a pair of falling-debris incidents at Harvard Station, Gov. Healey said on Sunday as she urged riders to remain patient with the transit agency’s woes.

In an interview, Healey told WCVB’s On the Record that T stations are in a “state of disrepair” and attributed the problem to several years of inattention.

A woman sustained minor injuries last week when a piece of overhead equipment that had been inactive for a decade fell and struck her on the Red Line platform at Harvard Station. It marked the second incident at the high-traffic station; a ceiling tile plunged to the floor and narrowly missed a walking passenger on the platform in March.

“It’s absolutely unacceptable. As I understand it, people were out inspecting the panels, but a full inspection of everything was not done at the time,” Healey said. “It is now being done. Every single station is being inspected top to bottom because I want people to know that not only are we going to get to where there’s no concerns about what’s happening on the rails, but that you’re safe walking into a station, for God’s sake.”

“Any time I see something like that, it’s terribly upsetting,” she added.

Healey told WCVB that she joined MBTA General Manager Phil Eng on the scene of the Harvard Station incident last week.
In addition to picking Eng as the new top leader of the T, Healey hired Patrick Lavin as the first-ever transportation safety chief at the Department of Transportation and replaced three of the seven board members at the MBTA.

“I want the public to know that this is a top priority for me, that the team and I take this very seriously, and as you have seen already in four months, we are making moves to change things and change the course,” she said. “It will take some time.”

Debra Bingham and Kent Hamilton of Milton told lawmakers about the pain they have endured since Sept. 11, 2021, when their son, David Jones, fell to his death from a dilapidated set of stairs adjacent to the JFK-UMass T station that had been closed to the public.

Jones’s death was one of the most high-profile incidents in the past two years of crisis at the MBTA, which also involved a rider’s death due to a faulty Red Line door, a federal investigation that produced searing findings, and injuries stemming from derailments, crashes and deteriorating stations.

“David’s mother and I are asking our state legislators to stop the deaths, stop the injuries, stop the pain and suffering caused by the lack of effective leadership and oversight,” Hamilton, Jones’s stepfather, said at the Transportation Committee hearing about MBTA safety reform.
“We strongly hope David will not have died in vain and that his loss will help create the conditions to ensure a safe transportation system for Massachusetts.”

A pair of bills before the panel would reshape the hierarchy of outside safety review at the MBTA by stripping the title of designated state safety oversight organization from the Department of Public Utilities and giving it to another office.

Federal Transit Administration investigators concluded that the DPU for years had been falling short of its duties to oversee and enforce safe operations at the MBTA.

Sam Drysdale contributed reporting to this article.