In the News

By Lori Aratani and Paul Duggan

Federal transit officials have found significant flaws in Metro’s system for ensuring that trains and buses operate safely, members of Congress said Tuesday.

At a Capitol Hill news conference, four members of the Washington area’s congressional delegation said a report by the Federal Transit Administration, set to be released Wednesday, cites major problems with safety management at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

“Metro still needs to make significant progress,” Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) said. Joined by her Maryland colleague, Sen. Ben Cardin (D), and Virginia Sens. Mark Warner (D) and Tim Kaine (D), Mikulski said the FTA report will offer Metro a road map for restoring confidence in the safety and financial viability of the troubled system.

Although the four elected officials,among others, had been briefed on the report, they provided few specifics on its recommendations.

“Metro is critical to our capital’s future and our nation’s future,” Warner said. “This FTA report is one indication that what we have had at Metro is a failure of leadership.”

The FTA report shows there is “a gap between Metro’s own standards and [its] ability to achieve them,” he said.

The members urged others in Congress not overreact to critical reports about Metro by reducing federal support for the transit agency. “Cutting funding will not solve [Metro’s] problems,” Cardin said. “Don’t make it more difficult for Metro to do its work.”

Mikulski promised, “We will put Metro on a short leash.”

The senators face a difficult task. On one hand, they must show that they are holding Metro officials accountable. But they also must make the case that a funding cut would be counterproductive. That could be difficult at a time when Republicans dominate both chambers and have moved to significantly reduce the transit agency’s funding.

The report, as described at the news conference, is another black eye for the beleaguered transit agency, which has been under near constant criticism for the past six months for its performance problems and financial woes.

The FTA’s “safety management inspection” of the agency is one of several outside inquiries into WMATA that are expected to produce reports in coming weeks, offering a closer look at Metro’s myriad troubles.

The report is “going to be very detailed, very specific and, in many instances, troubling,” Kaine said.

After the fatal calamity Jan. 12 in which an electrical malfunction filled a Yellow Line tunnel with smoke, sickening scores of subway passengers, the FTA announced its inquiry into Metro’s processes for making sure that trains and buses operate safely. The three-month review concluded in late May, officials said.

Although the FTA’s report isn’t due to be made public until Wednesday, the transit administration has outlined its findings for the local congressional delegation.

The review, strictly speaking, was not an assessment of whether Metro trains and buses are currently in safe operating condition. Rather, the FTA sought to learn whether WMATA has an adequate “safety management system” in place.

A safety management system involves “organization-wide safety policy, proactive hazard management, strong safety communication between workers and management, targeted safety training, and clear responsibilities for critical safety activities,” the FTA said last winter in announcing the planned review.

“This FTA safety inspection confirms what many of us have feared, that Metro continues to lack a top-to-bottom culture of safety,” Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) said in a statement after the news conference.

He urged Metro’s board of directors to finish its protracted search for a new general manager, a process that has dragged on since former general manager Richard Sarles announced his impending retirement last September.

Since Sarles left the agency in January, board members have disputed over what skills to emphasize in the search for a replacement — whether Metro’s next chief executive should be more grounded in engineering, to deal with the agency’s performance problems, or more experienced in financial management, to fix Metro’s money troubles.

“It’s time for the Metro Board to bring on new leadership to get the system back on track,” Connolly said. “Restoring rider confidence in the system will require tougher oversight and new resources from all partners at the local, state, federal levels.”

In the Jan. 12 incident, a meltdown of track-based electrical components filled a Yellow Line tunnel with smoke just south of the L’Enfant Plaza station. The noxious fumes enveloped a six-car train that stopped in the tunnel, sicking more than 80 riders, one of whom died of smoke inhalation.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the incident, is scheduled to hold public hearings June 23 and 24. The NTSB said it expects to issue its final report on the L’Enfant incident early next year.

Meanwhile, at the behest of Congress, the Government Accountability Office has been conducting a review of Metro’s progress in improving safety since the Red Line train crash in 2009 that killed nine people. The GAO, which is also reviewing Metro’s financial management, has said it expects to issue its report by early August.

Also, a group of outside experts, assembled by the American Public Transportation Association, has been studying Metro’s Rail Operations Control Center, where train controllers monitor the subway in real time. The performance of the control center during the Jan. 12 incident has been called into question.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/federal-transit-officials-find-significant-flaws-in-metros-system-for-ensuring-safety/2015/06/16/4b125f22-143a-11e5-9518-f9e0a8959f32_story.html