A tale of two transit agencies

In late March, the MBTA announced it would be paying an additional $148 million to the Chinese locomotive manufacturer CRRC, in hopes of pushing the company to complete its order for desperately needed T cars by 2027. The order, which was made in 2014, was for 404 new T cars to be delivered by September 2023. To date, the MBTA has only received around 130 of those cars and with this latest payout, the total deal between the agency and CRRC is now valued at over $1 billion.

Just last week, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA, canceled its $185 million dollar contract to buy passenger rail cars from the same manufacturer, CRRC. The railway cars were expected by last year. So far, SEPTA hasn’t received a single one.

Today on The Common, we look at these two very different approaches to a similar problem with transportation reporters from Boston and Philadelphia: Tom Fitzgerald from The Philadelphia Inquirer and Taylor Dolven from The Boston Globe.