They found that some rail operators would retaliate against wayside workers that reported safety rule violations.

Is that a reference to the train operator who allegedly tried to run down NTSB inspectors with his train?

by Eric F. on Mar 12, 2010 9:14 am  

@eric f: similar but no, The inspectors were TOC, not NTSB, and the finding was that wayside workers who reported safety rule violations by rail operators would be retaliated against by other rail operators. The retaliation would take the form of unnecessary loud horn sounding.

Metro's response to this finding, which I consider inadequate, was to impose rules on horn sounding as well as sponsoring empathy sessions between track workers and rail operators.

by Michael Perkins on Mar 12, 2010 9:20 am  

I'm really coming to the conclusion that the long term answer to to separate Metrorail/Metrobus/Metroaccess.

We need to knife MetroAccess. Raise costs, and cut down on eligibility. I still don't know how many users MetroAccess has but I suspect it is tiny -- they are just multiple users.

The local jurisdictions do a better job running their bus services than Metrobus does. The buses don't knit the metro area well together. Given what is killing Metro is personal costs, moving drivers to another entity would allow us to save rail.

That would also get DDOT away from focusing on marginal products (streetcar in Anacostia, some bike lanes, some Circulators) and back to actually providing bus service that works for its residents.

by chARlie on Mar 12, 2010 9:33 am  

So, essentially, it's a 'stop snitchin' culture amongst Metro operators. Great. Just great.

by Alex B. on Mar 12, 2010 9:41 am  

This report again confirms my image of a self-centered institution that needs to have its windows opened and fresh air. I hope that the new temp GM will do that. He can open the windows, show people that the sun shines outside, get some of the dust of and wake everybody up. The new permanent GM can then clean up the place. However, this will require some money and flexibility from everybody involved.

Makes me think of The Crimson Permanent Assurance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX61PUZ3xkI

by Jasper on Mar 12, 2010 9:52 am  

@chARlie If Metrobus was killed, how would we deal with inter-jurisdictional routes like the routes that go between Montgomery and Prince George's counties or the 38B or the downtown-to-southern Prince George's routes? Also, how would you ensure a similar level of service if the jurisdictions did all the service? Look at the neglect of bus transit in Prince George's for example (TheBus has no night/weekend service); shouldn't there at least be a rider forcing to expand as such?

I think half the problem with the WMATA compact as written is that it was done under the assumption that WMATA would be rail-only a la BART and that having DC Transit/WM&A/AB&W forced on them only made things worse. Remember that none of the local providers existed pre-WMATA.

by Jason on Mar 12, 2010 9:52 am  

@Jason;

Well, two answers:

1. First is if there is really a demand for the inter-jurisdictional routes somebody will offer them.

2. You could retain a small core of inter-jurisdictional routes operated by WMATA (or contracted out by WMATA to a bus company).

If PG County wants to starve bus service, that is their business. It isn't something that bother me in Arlington.

by Charlie on Mar 12, 2010 9:59 am  

@chARlie:
I can't speak about all the other jurisdictions, but I'll tell you this: PG County Transit is a joke. If I had to rely on that instead of the Metrobuses I use, I'd probably just walk 3 miles to Metro.

Routes are circuitous (like you wouldn't believe), buses are in awful shape, headways are typically an hour, service ends at 7P on many routes, and there is no weekend service.

So, if you don't like the Metrobuses in your jurisdiction, write your jurisdictional representative, and ask them to cancel them, but don't try and screw the rest of us out of decent bus service.

by Matt Johnson on Mar 12, 2010 10:01 am  

@Charlie:
It's not up to PG County. The state of Maryland funds bus service in Prince George's and Montgomery Counties. Metrobus is at least one way that the people of Prince George's manage to have decent access to transit.

There is a legitimate reason to have a regional operator, and saying, "I don't take buses across county lines, it's not my problem," is not constructive or reasonable.

by Matt Johnson on Mar 12, 2010 10:06 am  

It's clear Metro has a culture of self-entitlement that won't get fixed with a new GM. It needs to be cleaned out from top to bottom. It's staffed by people who seem to like the union-negotiated paychecks, but not the riders they are supposed to serve.

The region's transit future lies in non-WMATA services that cater to riders, not self-entitled employees. The DC Circulator, Fairfax Connector, ART bus, Streetcar, and other services that don't require dealing with this bloated organization all need to be supported. Sadly, the single jurisdiction services are far more responsive and safe than the Jabba The Hut of local transit.

by Kyle on Mar 12, 2010 10:11 am  

@Matt Johnson,

Single jurisdictional services already cross county lines. Fairfax Connector has express service from Reston to Crystal City, Loudoun Transit has service to the Pentagon and DC.

WMATA is simply not getting the job done, and is unlikely to improve.

by Kyle on Mar 12, 2010 10:18 am  

Good post. Given that the Board decided the report would be delivered in private, there seems to be a bit of irony in Gunn talking about the need for open, honest discussion with the public about Metro's challenges.

I also don't buy that we need an engineer to run the agency. We need a smart leader who hires and holds accountable damn good engineers.

by Dennis Jaffe on Mar 12, 2010 10:18 am  

One advantage is splitting off intra-jurisdictional bus service is that the leadership would be held more politically accountable via the election cycle. Voters here in DC, where transit is a vital part of city life, would put more pressure on the mayor and council to ensure good service. Transit serves more people than the schools do and it would be a city service with a very wide constituency covering the poor and the Ward Three elite.

by Eric F. on Mar 12, 2010 10:36 am  

@Jason: Let's take another page from California - the Dumbarton Express is a multi-jurisdictional route that is jointly operated by several transit systems (BART, VTA, Union City Transit and AC Transit). Now I'm not saying that this is the way forward, but it's a rough idea that, if refined, might work: The 38B could be jointly operated, in a sense, by ART and DDOT. The 1, 2, 3, and 4 could be jointly operated by ART and Fairfax Connector. It would be a horribly confusing system but I think all of the wrinkles of fares, customer service, scheduling, etc could be worked out.

by Tristan on Mar 12, 2010 10:54 am  

If Metrobus was to end, wouldn't it make sense to make two state-specific regional authorities? I think a Ride On/TheBus merger with expanded scope into Frederick, Howard, Anne Arundel, and maybe Charles county would do better than the status quo and a merger of ART/FFX/DASH/CUE and either PRTC or Loudon would also work well. The two agencies could then set up cross-river services that have been sorely lacking for too long as well.

I'd allow the DC routes to exit the district to serve fringe areas (30's in Friendship Heights/Southern Ave/Naylor Road, 70's and S's in Silver Spring, etc.) since it's only logical and fair.

by Jason on Mar 12, 2010 10:58 am  

Metro needs a mixture of a Michelle Rhee (controversial and hated as that will be) and someone who demands (and provides) customer service excellence (private sector experience- maybe hospitality) using both the carrot and the stick.

The Unions will have to be faced down, and sooner rather than later. Train operators making six figures (incl. overtime) is the norm, and that is not even close to realistic wages.

by SG on Mar 12, 2010 12:14 pm  

Oh- and can we bring in an operations/efficiency guru from Germany, Switzerland, Japan, or Scandanavia?

by SG on Mar 12, 2010 12:15 pm  

"He looked at our financial structure and said it was basically unsustainable," said Peter Benjamin in a video released by WMATA.

This is a polite way of saying that until rapidly escalating personnel costs are brought under control, WMATA's financial structure is basically unsustainable.

by Anonymous on Mar 12, 2010 12:19 pm  

On WMATA bus service. Did I miss something? Didn't Gunn say it was a well run operation and set a target of 35% cost recovery (currently around 30%)? Hasn't WMATA bus service made some pretty dramatic improvements with much newer vehicles, Next Bus, and MetroExtra service? On time performance continues to decline but isn't that a function of increasing traffic that all the local bus systems are subject to (except possibly the Fairfax Connector routes on the Dulles Toll Road)? Wouldn't on time performance and efficiency (cost recovery) for all systems improve with bus priority treatments?

by kreeggo on Mar 12, 2010 12:35 pm  

@ SG: When's the last time you were treated nicely in the "hospitality" business? If you do that, we'll end up with escalator fees and gas surcharges.

by Jasper on Mar 12, 2010 1:13 pm  

Regarding safety, there are three things I have always been curious about.

First, why couldn't Metro have a safety tip line that anyone could call to report safety concerns (i.e., staff, customers, etc.)? This would not take away required reporting procedures for staff, but it would provide an additional avenue for reporting.

Second, many years ago companies like IBM-- know for its closed culture-- created a department for what they called "speak ups"-- where staff could bring up concerns about just about any sensitive issue. Wonder if that would help.

Third, I think I recall that when you file a comment/complaint, late/early buses are listed together. Early buses can-- not always, but sometimes-- be an indication of speeding/unsafe driving. Not to mention "running hot" is generally considered to be much worse than running behind schedule-- which can be caused by traffic. I'd like to see these two issues separated for analysis purposes.

by Penny Everline on Mar 12, 2010 2:03 pm  

I agree with Mr. Gunn. In order to improve safety, all technicians, highschool drop outs and staff with fake degrees who are making the technical decisions at WMATA shall be replaced with experienced engineers.

WMATA should make an independent inspection department with qualified staff to inspect and approve all work by the maintenance department. The maintenance department shall not be allowed to control the inspectors and create fake inspection reports. This is the biggest flaw at WMATA which has lead to all these accidents.

All fake overtimes must be stopped too to lower the cost.

by Eric Huff on Mar 12, 2010 2:06 pm  

So many 'experts' in these comment areas. I've worked in transit my entire life and am a senior manager at Metro. I'm so happy we don't run this place based on the whims of you 'experts'. I don't tell any of you how to do your jobs and I certainly don't need you to tell us how to do ours.

And don't start with saying the recent accidents justify your intrusion. Every industry has accidents, including those in which you find yourselves.

by Give it a rest on Mar 13, 2010 8:49 pm  

Public transit agencies that exist through massive public subsidies are certainly an appropriate topic of public criticism.

Though many WMATA employees do a fine job, some, including some in senior management, need to learn that the mission of a public agency is to serve and be accountable to the public, rather than considering the public an intolerable inconvenience standing in the way of an easy stroll to retirement.    

by Eric F. on Mar 13, 2010 10:44 pm  

@ "Give it a rest"-- I am a member of the Riders Advisory Council and I've been riding transit all my life. I pose questions that are respectful, thoughtful, and, frankly, reasonable to ask. And-- for the record-- I will not "give it a rest". It's MY job to ask questions and offer input. I am one of Metro's advocates and, believe it or not, I'm on your side. But we all know-- inside and outside the organization-- that Metro can do better. If you would like to speak with me directly, you know where and how to find me. Oh, and by the way-- this is my real name.

by Penny Everline on Mar 14, 2010 10:29 am  

Just to comment, I knew David Gunn well when I worked at Amtrak. In the almost 10 years I have known him he has never made a reccomendation on transit operations, finance, or planning that has been wrong. This includes the instances where I intially was skeptical myself. The guy knows how to run a railroad and fundamentally that's what Metro needs right now.

I'd actually say that the person hired to be GM should focus on Metrorail and hire a good person to run bus and let them run with Metrobusbus. Improving the bus system and bringing it to where it needs to be will be significantly easier than doing the same on the rail side so what Metro needs is a rail guy. Case in point, Catoe essentially ran bus operations at LA MTA. Except for the cutbacks in on the street bus supervisors (more a budget cutting move than a strategy) whcih has affected reliability, the Metrobus has actually improved under Catoe with new routes, new liveries, and even restructuring routes (30s, 28s, etc.). The same can be said for the CTA in Chicago which runs a pretty good bus system (okay not so good after they cut 18% of the service but that too was a budget issue) but the rail system is a more difficult animal.

I will also disagree with David Alpert on the issue of hiring a technical person. If you hire a technical person they may not be best in communicating with the outside which is important in the political environment Metro operates in not to mention the hypermedia world we inhabit. On the other hand, someone who is technically sound will be able to provide the leadership to turn Metrorail around. Let's face it the average tenure of a CEO in a really big transit agency is 3 to 4 years. Gunn's report said it woudd take 3 to turn Metro around. So let's focus on turning it around and not with issues of command and control structure.

by Dharm G on Mar 14, 2010 12:14 pm  

@ Dharm G-- Well said.

by Penny Everline on Mar 14, 2010 1:15 pm  

WRT Dharm's comments, that has been my criticism all along. John Catoe is not a rail guy. He was hired to improve the bus system. That was great. But his hiring was evidence that the Board and WMATA took the rail system for granted. That is evident in the comment by "give it a rest." But it wasn't a good choice in terms of deal with festering problems.

Indications of the problem that ended up killing 9 people were turned up beginning in 2005. The rail division didn't fully explore the problem, called it an anomaly, and didn't adequate institute protocols to monitor the situation.

I don't think that the bus, access, and rail systems need to be separated. Why is it that all other transit systems in the U.S. seem to manage multiple modes? There is no need to break up WMATA in terms of mode. But there is no question that the organizational structure and culture needs significant improvement.

But it also requires rethinking how the board is constituted, funding from the jurisdictions, regulatory oversight, etc., as well.

Having to "Mainstream" safety is a sad comment on how the rail operations division is run now. If safety isn't foremost in their management and operations protocols (and I would argue it isn't) then the top managers need to go. (I've believed that since the accident.)

I will repeat, once again, my suggestion that WMATA and the region need to engage in a region-wide re-planning process in order to begin to rebuild and transform the system, and rebuild trust: http://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2009/11/st-louis-regional-transit-planning.html

by Richard Layman on Mar 14, 2010 10:39 pm