Posts from July 2010

There could be two boards for WMATA, a policy board and an oversight board. The policy board would decide fares, budgets and service patterns. The oversight board would monitor the operations of the agency and have power to enforce them.

The policy board would be more akin to a legislature. The legislature sets policy, and decides budgets, but doesn't get into the details of executive operation most of the time. When Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans, we didn't really blame Congress except indirectly. The primary responsibility was on the President and his executive agencies. The oversight board would fill the role of the executive.

The policy board could have elected officials or people responsible for budgets, like Chris Zimmerman or Jim Graham. In addition, it should include elected representatives from riders. Perhaps its composition could be 2 DC, 2 Maryland, 2 Virginia, 2 federal, and 3 elected rider reps.

Meanwhile, the transit experts, like Mort Downey or Gordon Linton, would serve on the oversight board. That could have more of the executive-selected members, including one from the Governor of Virginia if Virginia decides to grant one. DC's reps would be selected by the Mayor. There would again be 2 DC, 2 Maryland, 2 Virginia, and 2 Federal. Perhaps the head of the Tri-State Oversight Committee could serve ex officio as well.

The oversight board would need some authority to enforce the changes it sees necessary. Perhaps the oversight board can fire the GM if it feels it necessary, and both boards would jointly hire a GM. The inspector general could report to the oversight board. Perhaps there are other powers it should have as well.

To keep the two from becoming too separate, the members of one board could act as alternate members in meetings of the other. Today, half the members are voting and half alternate; instead, everyone could be voting on one board and alternate on the other.

After recent safety incidents, some board members complained that even they had a hard time getting information on safety. One member said he found out more about the derailment at Farragut North from reading Matt Johnson's posts than he did from staff. Why? Because staff said they were forbidden from discussing an ongoing NTSB investigation publicly, and the board is public.

Ultimately, they were able to get information from staff under strict secrecy in executive session, but that prevented the board from pushing for specific policy changes to address the safety issues in the more than a year between the crash and the NTSB's conclusions. The NTSB should change this policy, but that's a larger debate. Meanwhile, an oversight board, while it should be public as much as possible, could hear more information in executive session.

Both boards could be part of the same board, which is largely the way things work today. But today's system runs into problems. The veto and rotating chair are maintain balance when it comes to fare policy but does slow down the board's ability to take decisive action on operations. Elected officials are more responsive to riders, but also have other commitments that reduce their ability to spend enormous amounts of time delving into the depths of WMATA. Some jurisdictions choose reps more suited to the policy role while others choose reps more focused on oversight.

Right now, the Board fills both roles but only about halfway. Two separate boards could ensure that each role is handled fully, by people suited to the task. The oversight board could be better at oversight, and with rider representatives and more elected officials, the policy board could be even more responsive to rider needs.

Given the situation, should this block even be a street? Would it make more sense to close it off and call it a park? Or maybe go halfway and continue to allow cars, but in a redesigned space? Or maybe this block is so valuable precisely because it's a street rather than another park square, and we should leave well enough alone.

The great thing about the world of urbanist blogging is that we can ask these questions, and get an educated, insightful discussion going. So what do you think? Convert this block to a full-time park? Leave it a street but program things differently? Leave it be? If you think it ought to change, what's the ideal solution?

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

The signal system should have worked. It's inexcusable that it didn't. It's inexcusable that the NTSB could find all these problems with it but WMATA could not. It's inexcusable that a lot of people seem to have ignored the fact that the systems were generating errors and nobody was looking into why.

The 1000-series railcars should also be replaced. But can we really say the Board ignored the NTSB's recommendation? Actually, they spent a decade fighting for federal and local funding to replace the cars. This year, that funding finally came through, and WMATA is replacing the cars. Sure, it would have been nice to replace them earlier, but it wasn't like the money was sitting in a bank account gathering interest.

In lambasting of the Board yesterday, the NTSB sounded petulant that WMATA hadn't dropped everything to replace half its railcar fleet and magically come up with the money to do so. It's too bad they didn't follow that NTSB recommendation, but that NTSB recommendation was wildly unrealistic. Nonetheless, leaders spent 15 years on it and are now close to achieving it.

But I still object to the NTSB's continued focus on crashworthiness of railcars, their pressure to replace or revamp the 2000 through 4000 series, and their peevish attitude that WMATA hasn't done that already. The money isn't there. The achievable safety gains revolve around avoiding crashes, not rebuilding cars around handling crashes.

An obsession with crash survivability, instead of crash avoidance, already led the FRA to wreck intercity passenger rail in the US. Sure, new cars should be safer, and WMATA should replace ones that are unsafe as quick as they can, but despite running all these supposedly unsafe cars, Metro still had a fraction of the injury or fatality rate of highways. We might demand safer cars to be built going forward, but we don't demand that every driver on the road immediately replace his or her private car with the fanciest side curtain airbags on the luxury models.

Could the Board have done better? Yes. Should we demand better in the future? Absolutely. Did they just ignore NTSB recommendations around railcars? No, they pushed for 15 years to find money to satisfy that particular recommendation. And ironically, one of the only reasons the feds even came through with the money for new railcars was because of the crash. If it hadn't happened, WMATA might still be lobbying to replace the 1000 series.

According to the Post article, a survey conducted by students of George Mason University "found that one-third of participants said they took the shuttle for safety reasons" and that "twenty-five percent said they had difficulty walking, and nearly two-thirds said they do not own a car or do not drive." Consequently, designers of the Shuttle-Bug service believe that the service addressed unmet community needs.

In addition, the Arena Stage, which was closed during the Shuttle-Bug's period of operation, will re-open in October 2010. Arena Stage patrons who take Metro will need safe, reliable transportation from the Metro to Arena Stage and back again. Consequently, staff at Arena Stage also drafted a letter of support to continue the Shuttle-Bug service.

Shuttle-Bug ran on a fixed-route basis, complete with bus stop signs. If a rider with disabilities wanted a special drop-off that was safe, the driver would accommodate the request provided the drop-off was on the route.

Shuttle-Bug served the morning peak from 7-10 am, the evening peak starting at 4 pm, weeknights for after-work grocery shoppers and people who attended Blues Night on Monday or Jazz Night on Friday, and a Tuesday/Friday 10:30 am to 1:30 pm service that ran on a slightly larger route to serve another building with a high percentage of older adults.

The average number of rides per day on Shuttle-Bug ranged from 98 to 165, and the total number of rides provided since the program's inception was 44,055. According to SWAT, fare revenues were unnecessary because the cost to collect, handle, and secure the small amount of fare revenue would exceed the value of the fares collected.

How Shuttle-Bug Could Save DC Money

Since about twenty-five percent of Shuttle-Bug riders expressed having difficulty walking, it is likely that at least twenty-five percent qualify for MetroAccess service. MetroAccess service costs on average $38 per ride, whereas the average operating cost per ride on Shuttle-Bug was $4.98.

Now that the Shuttle-Bug service no longer exists, it is likely that those individuals who qualify for MetroAccess who rode Shuttle-Bug will go back to using the more costly MetroAccess service. As we know, MetroAccess is subsidized by the WMATA Compact jurisdictions including the District of Columbia. Clearly, $4.98 per ride is a bargain when compared to $38.

Even when you compare Shuttle-Bug to traditional fixed-route bus service, the cost differentials are striking. The cost per hour to operate Shuttle-Bug was only $60.11 due to there being no overhead costs. The current cost for WMATA to provide fixed-route bus service is $102.41 per hour. (Note: I provide this comparison only to show how much it would cost if WMATA provided the Shuttle-Bug service, and not to suggest that regional bus service is the same as a community shuttle.)

Shuttle-Bug was funded through a public-private partnership, with Waterfront Associates, LLC (the developers of Waterfront Station) and Fairfield Residential (the owner/developer of the View at Waterfront) funding 70% and the District of Columbia funding the remaining 30%. SWAT is presently requesting that the District of Columbia fund the Shuttle-Bug program for an additional year while they seek diversified funding.

One possible strategy to diversify funding would be to ask area businesses that benefited from the service (Safeway, CVS, etc.) to contribute to the service. However, achieving a new public-private partnership would take both time and a demonstrated financial commitment from the District of Columbia.

Shuttle-Bug riders and community residents have already submitted over 500 signed testimonials to continue the shuttle service. According to SWAT, this represents ten percent of the 5,000 households in the target area served by Shuttle-Bug.

Shuttle-Bug is a less expensive option for the District of Columbia in this neighborhood compared with traditional MetroAccess and Metrobus services. Of course, some will argue that Metrobus and Metrorail customers should just walk the four or so blocks to the Waterfront Metro station. Nevertheless, the potential for significant paratransit cost savings for local governments makes Shuttle-Bug an alternative transportation model worthy of further exploration in our region and beyond.

According to the NTSB discussion, the Board asked the General Manager to explain the top safety incidents and what was being done about them. The Board sees itself as a policy-making body, and doesn't meddle in day to day operations. Asking the GM for a safety summary seems like the right approach. If the GM's summary was misleading, it would be nice if Board members had psychically divined this, but it's hard to see how exactly they could have.

Sumwalt also criticized the way the WMATA Board has a committee on Customer Service, Operations, and Safety. "We at the NTSB only focus on safety," he said, "but that committee has to balance customer service with safety." Yes. It should. Customer service and safety are both important. The NTSB may have the luxury of ignoring everything but safety, but that doesn't mean that boards or agencies can do so.

The Board could have constantly asked the General Manager what the agency was doing to comply with NTSB recommendations, said Groff. But we know that many of those recommendations were financially unrealistic. The NTSB members might wish that everyone spent all their time sitting around and only worrying about safety and nothing else, but that's not how it works in reality.

Another NTSB member noted that in a hearing, Board Chairman Peter Benjamin previous Board Chairman Jim Graham said he hadn't heard of the Tri-State Oversight Committee before the crash, though then-General Manager John Catoe was well aware of it. But few of us out in the public had heard of it either. The TOC, by all accounts, operated in obscurity and for some strange reason didn't feel it could talk to the Board or the public.

We were all ignorant of the safety problems before the crash. Now, following investigations, it's clear that there were many organizational problems within WMATA, and the TOC wasn't functioning properly. I wish that the Board or other leaders had found out and fixed it, but it's hard to throw stones at leaders who only knew what we knew, and we didn't know about the problem.

The fault lies with General Manager Catoe and the safety officials at WMATA. Now, knowing this was such an issue, the Board does have a responsibility to ensure it gets fixed. Now, the Board should delve more deeply into the progress the agency is making on safety. Now, they shouldn't be satisfied with vague answers from management.

And now, if future crashes happen that could have been prevented, it would be fair to blame the Board if they don't take adequate action. I'm not sure that stepped-up level of oversight is happening. The NTSB said that even today, the Board doesn't claim responsibility for safety. They're right that this should change. It should start now.

Update: I've revised the headline and intro paragraph to reflect some further thoughts on what the Board needs to do going forward.

They reiterated their recommendation to replace the 1000 series cars, which WMATA will do with the Kawasaki order which, as of this morning, is now cleared to go forward. The NTSB said the 2000 and 3000 series cars are also susceptible to telescoping in a crash, but it's unclear what WMATA can do about it unless the federal government is interested in coming up with billions more to replace them.

DCist has a good summary of this morning's session. The meeting is now on break for lunch until 12:30. I will be tweeting the afternoon session @ggwash and will post about it again later.

Update: Steven Yates made a good point I also wanted to make but wanted to get the post out quickly:

"When safety is more important than schedules, their lessons will have been learned," said NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman.

Placing aside for the moment how well WMATA keeps to schedules, I think this is flawed thinking. As we've discussed before, a decrease in the quality and reliability in regards to speedy transit will result in more people driving, which is much more dangerous than taking Metro.

The NTSB tends to focus on just how to improve the particular mode they're investigating at the time, but that carries problems. If they're going to make strong statements about the importance of safety, they should put it in some context rather than simply scaring people away from Metro.

Investments in traffic safety finally began to matter in 2004. According to the Brookings Institution, "driving, as measured by national VMT, began to plateau as far back as 2004 and dropped in 2007 for the first time since 1980," obviously due to rising gas prices. As a result, the rate of traffic fatalities per 100,000 population finally began a much steeper decline in 2004 compared to earlier periods when safety improvements had been largely undermined by VMT increases.

But did this demonstrate the urgency of reducing traffic? Not according to NHTSA Administrator David Strickland, who said the following in a press release celebrating the decline:

This continuing decline in highway deaths is encouraging, but our work is far from over. We want to see those numbers drop further. We will not stop as long as there are still lives lost on our nation's highways. We must continue our efforts to ensure seat belts are always used and stay focused on reducing distracted and impaired driving.

Attributing the declining fatality rate to safety improvements also allows the myth to perpetuate that moving to the suburbs is safer than living in the city, a myth that, left unchallenged, increases VMT and undermines safety improvements. This myth was exposed by the New York City Department of Health, which recently revealed that their low VMT per child made NYC a much safer place for children than the rest of the country.

So why does the CDC, WHO, NIH, NHTSA and probably every other public health agency treat poor traffic safety as the preventable cause of the top killer of children worldwide, and not traffic as well? And how many children will have to die for this to change? Are we serious about public health? The sooner we start demanding honesty about the causes of the top killer of children here and abroad the better, because during the 2 minutes you spent reading this article, another child died in a traffic collision.

I got an out of office reply from Diana Jordan, DDOT's FOIA officer, saying she was out of the office on May 20th. Since it wasn't May 20th any more, I assumed she had forgotten to update the message, and in any event would get the request when she next checked email.

DC law gives the agency 15 business days to respond, including the day they receive the message. That would mean they had to respond by June 10th. On June 9th, I emailed Ms. Jordan to inquire about the request, and she informed me she hadn't received it, but would process it "as of today." I wouldn't have interpreted "the date the request is actually received by the FOIA Officer" to exclude any time the officer wasn't aware of the request due to incompetence or negligence on her part, but perhaps Attorney General Peter Nickles would take that position.

On June 21st, Ms. Jordan sent me a form denial saying there were no records matching my request. In my original request, I had told her George Branyan probably had the documents, so I assume she spoke with him, and he would have known exactly what I was looking for.

But apparently my request had not been worded exactly right, giving her an opportunity to deny the request by narrowly construing the definition of the term "report." I found out that DDOT didn't have the actual report by WMATA on the issue, but that Mr. Branyan had discussed their conclusions and his objections in an email on August 28, 2009.

I therefore submitted a new FOIA request on June 24th for "any email messages sent by George Branyan on August 28, 2009 concerning the Sherman Avenue, NW streetscape project or concerning bus stops on Sherman Avenue, NW." And I asked Ms. Jordan to confirm she received it just to make sure she couldn't conveniently neglect to see it this time. She did.

15 working days from June 24th inclusive is July 15th, but I didn't hear back from Ms. Jordan until July 21st, at which time she informed me that "DDOT is extending the time period in which DDOT will provide you with the public records you have requested. This extension is based on the need to search for, collect and examine the amount of records in order to respond to your FOIA request. [D.C. Official Code] § 2-532(d)."

She now promises to respond by August 2nd. However, 10 more business days from June 24th is not August 2nd but July 29th. Math must not be a strong point at the DDOT legal department. Neither, apparently, is understanding of the law. According to the relevant section of the DC Code:

(d) In unusual circumstances, the time limit prescribed in subsection (c) of this section may be extended by written notice to the person making such request setting forth the reasons for extension and expected date for determination. Such extension shall not exceed 10 days (except Saturdays, Sundays, and legal public holidays). For purposes of this subsection, and only to the extent necessary for processing of the particular request, "unusual circumstances" are limited to:

(1) The need to search for, collect, and appropriately examine a voluminous amount of separate and distinct records which are demanded in a single request; or

(2) The need for consultation, which shall be conducted with all practicable speed, with another public body having a substantial interest in the determination of the request or among 2 or more components of a public body having substantial subject-matter interest therein.

It's interesting that Ms. Jordan's explanation of the "reasons" for the extension quoted the section of the code but conveniently removed the words that made it not apply to my request. She doesn't even seem to be claiming that my very narrowly tailored request involves a voluminous amount of records; instead, she's simply rephrasing the law to allow them to get the extension for any quantity of records whatsoever.

I still don't know if I will get an answer by Thursday, the deadline from the actual law, or Monday, the deadline from Ms. Jordan's imaginary view of the law. I don't know if that answer will even contain the information I asked for, or if she'll find some legal excuse to deny the request again.

AG Peter Nickles has argued that the government can't handle all the FOIA request they are receiving and needs extra time. It seems that if they simply complied with the requests instead of spending so much time trying to resist them all, they could probably get through them faster. Ms. Jordan knows exactly what I want, and it's not even going to embarrass DDOT (at least, I don't think so).

She could have simply forwarded me the email in the first place, or at any time since, and been done with it. Instead, she's wasted a lot more of her time. Meanwhile, she's transformed my desire to write an article supporting DDOT in their disagreement with WMATA (assuming the email matched what I'd heard from Mr. Branyan) into an article criticizing DDOT and Mayor Fenty.

These particular bus stops weren't that big of a deal in any event, but the Fenty Administration's dogged resistance to following the FOIA laws is a much bigger deal, and now they've managed to get me as frustrated about this as the other witnesses at Mary Cheh's hearing. This can't be a good outcome for the Mayor.