All T stations under inspection after falling debris at Harvard stop, Healey says

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

In an interview that aired Sunday, 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 after 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."