Boston City Council demands answers from BPS, TransDev over fatal school bus failure

BOSTON -- August 28, 2025, Boston City Council grills BPS and TransDev officials over fatal school bus failures days before school opens. The August 28 hearing, chaired by Councilor Henry Santana and co-sponsored by Councilors Edward M. Flynn and Erin J. Murphy, focused on the Tidwell Report, an independent investigation by Attorney Natasha Tidwell of the Mintz Law Firm released the same morning, which found that TransDev failed to maintain driver records, kept incomplete training files, and that neither BPS nor TransDev had implemented "meaningful or sustained auditing and oversight mechanisms." The hearing came four months after the April 28 death of five-year-old Lenz Arthur Joseph, struck and killed by a BPS bus on Washington Street, and three months after an eight-year-old was hospitalized with a broken leg when a bus mounted a sidewalk in Jamaica Plain. BPS Executive Director of Transportation Daniel Rosengard confirmed the city will adopt all report recommendations and disclosed that the drivers' union contract limits discipline look-back periods to 13 months, blocking TransDev's 24-month three-strikes policy. Councilor Murphy, who filed her hearing order in May citing "$189 million spent on BPS transportation each year," demanded a specific implementation timeline and was told none could be provided.