In 2008 and 2009 LIRR on-time performance was a little above 95%. It declined to 90.4% in 2018 (the worst since 2000). Eng took over in 2018 after his predecessor’s improvement plan was mocked. Eng led creation of the “LIRR Forward” improvement plan in 2018, and in 2021 LIRR set the highest on-time performance record in 50 years (2020: 95.9%; 2021: 96.3%; 2022: 95.8%).

Eng did oversee a time where the LIRR performance went back to where it had been. So, much credit goes to Eng and I hope he did turn around LIRR but there may have been other factors, such as changes in budget or cuts in service that people don’t talk about.

Eng has been working in New York transportation for his whole career, from Junior Engineer up to Executive Deputy Commissioner of DOT and President of LIRR. It seems possible that he might bring assumptions and approaches from NY that are not a fit for MBTA. But I hope that Eng finds and fixes the right problems — godspeed!