Her performance has deteriorated dramatically this year, plagued by the same issues that dogged Jones — poor decision-making, ineffective leadership skills, and bad coaching. Jones was eventually benched and let go by the Patriots, but Healey has kept Tibbits-Nutt on her team, even though she is a timid shell of a Cabinet secretary at a time when a strong leader is needed.
Like Jones, who snared the starting quarterback job for the New England Patriots in his rookie year, Tibbits-Nutt started off with great promise. Governor Maura Healey appointed Tibbits-Nutt undersecretary of transportation at the start of her term but moved her into the secretary position in late 2023 when Gina Fiandaca abruptly quit after less than a year on the job. At the time, Healey called Tibbits-Nutt “a proven leader.”
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Not only do major transportation projects hang in the balance, including building new Cape Cod bridges and reconfiguring the Massachusetts Turnpike through Allston, but the secretary is the coleader of a task force charged with coming up with a new funding mechanism for the state’s transportation system.
The key turning point for Tibbits-Nutt came in April when she gave a talk and answered questions at a friendly gathering hosted by the advocacy group WalkMassachusetts. Brimming with confidence and clearly optimistic about the future, Tibbits-Nutt touted a progressive transportation agenda using none of the political filters bureaucrats usually employ.
She promised the transportation funding task force she heads would raise the money needed to get the state’s system back on track. She said options under consideration included tolls at the state’s borders, a payroll tax, and higher or new fees on Uber and Lyft trips and package deliveries — “basically going after everybody who has money,” she said.
She also slammed those who drive F-150 trucks on the state’s roadways, promised to use her policy-making power as a weapon, and nixed a proposed layover facility for commuter rail trains as part of the Interstate 90 Allston project. She said the layover facility would undermine a $335 million federal grant the state received to knit together communities ripped apart by previous transportation projects.
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Tibbits-Nutt confidently said she would pursue change aggressively and would not make decisions with the goal of hanging on to her job. She said the governor would have her back. “This governor likes fights. She does. She loves to fight,” Tibbits-Nutt said.
That didn’t turn out to be the case. With conservative critics calling for Tibbits-Nutt’s head after her remarks, Healey distanced herself from her Cabinet secretary and her talk of border tolls and other revenue-raising measures. “Our top priorities are making Massachusetts a more affordable place and bringing people together to get things done,” Healey said in a statement at the time. “The Healey-Driscoll administration is committed to collaborating with the Legislature and all stakeholders to make Massachusetts a more affordable, competitive place.”
Ever since that brushback, Tibbits-Nutt has been a shadow of her old self. The secretary says little of consequence at meetings of the MBTA and MassDOT boards and has taken a back seat role on the transportation funding task force, which is supposed to come up with a financing plan by the end of this month.
In November, she reversed her position on a layover train facility for Amtrak as part of the I-90 Allston interchange project. Heeding somewhat vague concerns raised by Amtrak, Representative Richard Neal, and members of her own staff, she said she now believes the layover facility in Allston is needed and also wants to downgrade the MBTA’s proposed West Station by allowing commuter rail trains traveling through the area to bypass the station entirely. The decision put Tibbits-Nutt at odds with local officials and advocates and could very well drive up costs on a project struggling to pull its financing together.
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Tibbits-Nutt offered no explanation for her flip-flop, and her office has ducked questions as well. The secretary didn’t even reach out to former transportation secretary Fred Salvucci, who convinced her to do away with the layover facility in the first place, to explain her decision. He told me that he learned about the decision only after someone shared with him a statement Tibbits-Nutt released to “members of the Legislature, municipal officials, and key stakeholders.”
The switch was a far cry from the transportation secretary who confidently told the WalkMassachusetts gathering in April to hold her feet to the fire and insist on follow-through. “You hold us to it,” she said. “Don’t let me forget. Don’t let me lie. Don’t let us sugarcoat something.”
Bruce Mohl is the former editor of CommonWealth Beacon.