Breakfast links II: Metro says little

by David Alpert • November 10, 2009 11:01 am

Photo by ArcaHeradel.

See no unsafety, speak no unsafety: The Post discovered that Metro prevented safety monitors from accessing the tracks to watch normal Metrorail operation. Jim Graham promised to "fix this", and Senators Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ) are calling for investigations.

Not communicating about not communicating: SmarTrip head Cyndi Zieman joined in Dr. Gridlock's chat yesterday. A benefits administrator in Annapolis was very frustrated that Metro said nothing between November 2008 and October 2009 except a brief press release. Zieman didn't really answer the question, saying they did some outreach in January but really started in earnest in October. (Post)

689 asks court to enforce award: ATU Local 689 has filed suit (PDF) to enforce the arbitrator's award of 3 percent raises each year for three years along with higher health care payments by workers. ATU notes, among other things, that Metro gave non-union employees a 3% raise in 2009.

A little Giant addition to SmarTrip: Metro riders can now add value to SmarTrip at 42 new Giant locations. 27 are in Maryland, 14 in Virginia, 1 in DC. (WMATA)

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David Alpert is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Greater Greater Washington and Greater Greater Education. He worked as a Product Manager for Google for six years and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He loves the area which is, in many ways, greater than those others, and wants to see it become even greater.

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Cyndi Zieman's answers were really lame. Typical Metro attitude.

by Pap on Nov 10, 2009 11:11 am • link • report

Contracts with Wall Street bankers and traders: unbreakable and sacred. Contracts with blue collar unions: breakable and derided. Kind of explains a lot about the country's current condition.

by crin on Nov 10, 2009 11:26 am • link • report

You may have read that the wage increases would cost WMATA over $100 million. That does sound scary. But is it true?

ATU 689 wages & ot: 486 million
FICA & Medicare: 37 million
Subtotal for 2009: 523 million
Increase for 2009: 3%
wage increase for 2009: 15.7 million
Subtotal for 2010: 539 million
Increase for 2010: 3%
wage increase for 2010: 16.2 million
Subtotal for 2011: 555 million
increase for 2011: 3%
wage increase for 2011: 16.6 million

Total wage increases: 48.5 million
2% bonus for 2008: 10.5 million
Total pay increases: 59.0 million

Health savings: 9 million

Total Cost: 50 million

And they are only asking for a court review of the wage increases--not the "bonus" pay

To put in perspective, a 3% pay increase for union members is about one-half of one percent of WMATA's 2.1 billion budget.

If you think union members are undeserving, perhaps you'll consider that Catoe (while take a salary freeze at $315,000 per year plus $60,000 in housing expenses) received new benefits of $6,000 per year in health benefits in addition to what he already receives through the WMATA health plan (for anything the plan doesn't pay). Oh, and he also picked up a promise from WMATA to pay him $27,000 a year for the rest of his life when he leaves Metro.

I don't begrudge it--but it's a little hypocritical when you then turn around and seek "judicial review" of blue collar workers' nominal pay increase that was supposed to be a "final & binding" award.

by kreeggo on Nov 10, 2009 12:28 pm • link • report

Is it just me, or do some people want to shake dr gridlock by the lapels sometimes for his complete "missing the question" on his chats? It really vexes me sometimes how off tangent his answers are. I don't see a whole lot this week, but it seems he's not doing a good job of bringing up transit questions to his contacts at WMATA or whatever and getting answers.

by Aaron on Nov 10, 2009 1:40 pm • link • report

Over the last year WMATA has been in he process of upgrading the entire fare collection system. This means the replacement of legacy systems in Metrorail, Metrobus, and other regional smartrip equipped systems. As an early adopter the metrorail system could not accommodate a wide range of new fare products. To accomplish this project a number of hardware and software issues had to be overcome. Regional testing has to occur to insure that system changes don't result unintended failures to previously working systems. WMATA has a finite group of working professionals that work to maintain and improve this and other authority systems. These people are aware of your impatience but also very cognizant of the need for these systems to work correctly. All should remember that several million smartrip card holders now depend on this system to work seamlessly.

by ccip on Nov 10, 2009 1:57 pm • link • report

ccip: The issue is not that there is a lot of work to do. It's that Metro promised certain upgrades this fall, then changed the work plan around without telling anyone. Also, the changes will likely have to be rethought or even scrapped because they don't work for employers or riders, and substantial work wasted because staff didn't explain what they were going to do back when they were deciding to do it. All of this could have been averted if the team had communicated thoroughly, but that didn't happen.

by David Alpert on Nov 10, 2009 2:03 pm • link • report

That 42 Giant location, 1 in DC is pretty misleading. If you follow the links to the wmata listing of all the sites it ends up being 5 Giants in DC with an additional (mostly CVS) 33 locations around the District; http://www.wmata.com/fares/smartrip/smartrip_load.cfm

by DAJ on Nov 10, 2009 2:12 pm • link • report

Yeah, it's not quite so depressing. There's pretty substantial coverage in Northwest - with the mild west excluded. The lack of options in Southeast is a little more disappointing - but if easier fare collection makes bus ridership more simpler in any way, it's worth it.

by Neil Flanagan on Nov 10, 2009 2:50 pm • link • report