BOSTON (CBS) — With aging cars, runaway trains, and budget issues, the MBTA is facing its share of troubles–but Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation Stephanie Pollack still takes the T to work.

“I take the commuter rail from Newton,” said Pollack. “Sometimes the Green Line, to keep an eye on it.”

Pollack sat down with WBZ political analyst Jon Keller to talk about the progress the MBTA has made since last year’s disastrous Winter shutdowns. She said recent hiccups–like cancellations and derailments–were the result of older equipment rather than the weather. While money is an issue, she said the most important thing now is getting the T to function and perform highly, and be more customer-oriented.

“I have to tell you right now that if someone wrote us the check today, I’m not sure that the agency is ready to put the pieces together that would be required to perform,” said Pollack, before adding that the organization was “in a much better place than we were a year ago in terms of building an agency that can deliver for its riders.”

So why does it seem like the T’s issues haven’t gone away?

“I think one of the reasons that it may feel worse to people is that, one of the biggest criticisms of last winter was that we communicated poorly,” said Pollack. “People didn’t know whether their car or their train was coming, and that was unacceptable. So, we’ve really upped the ante on communicating, which means every time there’s any kind of a service issue we’re letting people know, which means people are hearing a lot about what is going wrong.”

Keller and Pollack also talked about the future of the Green Line extension project, as well as the new MBTA control board.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.