The state transportation board voted unanimously Monday to name Beverly A. Scott, head of Atlanta’s transit system, as the next MBTA general manager. Scott, aggressively courted by state officials, will be the first woman and the second African-American leader of the T, arriving at a time of record ridership, as well as financial uncertainty.
Scott, a former university professor who has spent 35 years in public transit, will leave Atlanta after five years and take a 30 percent pay cut to come to Boston. Now 61 and a widowed grandmother, Scott said she was not looking for new employment after announcing last winter that she would step down from MARTA, Atlanta’s transit agency, after her contract expires in December 2012.
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As a native of Atlanta now living in Boston, I'm really surprised that the T would hire anyone affiliated with MARTA. MARTA is even more disfunctional than the MBTA! http://www.ajc.com/news/news/transportation/marta-needs-to-privatize-functions-revamp-employee/nSKwS/
Beverly Scott may be a whizbang public transit exec, but why is she coming to Boston? She claims she didn't want a job after her Atlanta hitch ends this coming December. Did she just sit back and let American transit agencies, like the MBTA, come calling for her services? It seems she wasn't out for the highest bid, unless she was way overpaid in Atlanta. Or did she change her mind and just toss her business card into the MBTA hiring pot in a spur-of-the-moment gamble on being hired over and above her Atlanta assistant, a male. Was there some sort of gender competition here? And for the T, did they hire a woman thought to be the best all-around transit exec available in the national search, or did they hire a budget cutter with little knowledge or qualms about slicing off bus, railroad or rapid transit routes and services? She seems to have a fairly strong record of that kind of executiving. Atlanta had a budget crisis and services and employees were cut. Boston has a major budget crisis, difficult hurdles to overcome to obtain higher fare revenues, a governor that has made promises about passenger railroad expansion to MassaChusetts' south coast, legally required rapid transit expansion to Medford, and who knows what else. And this woman who wanted to retire at the end of her current Atlanta contract was not looking for a job? If a Globe reporter doesn't feel skepticism about that he needs to be put on the obit page.
So I'm assuming there won't be anymore fare increases since they have the money for an extra $70,000 per year. Obviously fiscal concerns are off the table and the MBTA is rolling in cash. The Board has just told us this by their vote ! Thank God no new fare increases.
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Anyone complaining about her salary is a complete idiot. They should be paying more than that to attract the most talented leadership in the country to this job, as this investment will benefit everyone. As to whether this describes Ms. Scott, this is a different discussion...
Yeah well, if she's so smart, why is she letting them (them being the Governor et al)get away with paying her 30K/yr less than her counterparts running Massport and the Convention Center Authority?