Posts about John Catoe

Metro Local and Rapid buses pass each other on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica.

Metro Rapid won't fool anyone into thinking it's a train, but it's a good substitute in places that won't get rail for decades. It's what you might call Bus Rapid Transit lite: it doesn't have special lanes or fancy stations like the HealthLine in Cleveland or Los Angeles' own Orange Line, but it does provide faster service than a typical bus.

On many routes, buses come every 12 minutes or less, making schedules unnecessary; signs at each stop use GPS to tell when the next bus is coming. Bright red livery and specially marked stops distinguish Rapid buses from the rest of the system. And buses have special transponders that keep traffic lights green; when stops are far apart, they can easily reach speeds of 30 to 40 miles an hour.

It's on Wilshire Boulevard where Metro Rapid shines. Running sixteen miles from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica, Wilshire is like Wisconsin or Connecticut avenues here, lined with high-rises and posh shopping malls. Traffic is notoriously bad, but walking can be very pleasant in compact neighborhoods like Westwood or downtown Beverly Hills.

Metro Rapid stops have simplified maps for each route.

There are two Metro Rapid routes on Wilshire. The 720 stops every mile or so and is good for short trips. At rush hour, it does the 9.3-mile trip from Wilshire and Fairfax to Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade in 50 minutes, making 13 stops. The commuter-oriented 920 stops about every 3 miles and makes the same trip in just 40 minutes, stopping 3 times.

Both services are faster than a comparable "express" route in this area, the J4 Metrobus between Bethesda and College Park, a corridor with lots of activity and lots of traffic. During rush hour, it takes 56 minutes to go from the Bethesda Metro to the corner of Campus Drive and Regents Drive at the University of Maryland, a distance of 10 miles, making 18 stops.

The J4 was one of the routes that could've seen Metro Rapid-like service as part of Catoe's proposed 100-mile MetroExtra network of rapid buses, first unveiled in 2008. Today, just two of the proposed lines, the 79 on Georgia Avenue and S9 on 16th Street, are up and running while a third on Veirs Mill Road has been delayed. It's unclear whether Metro's next head will expand MetroExtra, especially at a time when the existing system is starved for funding.

I didn't think I'd come back to Maryland with a squishy red toy Metro Rapid bus, but it goes to show how a few small improvements can make public transit both fun and memorable. It's a shame that John Catoe won't have the chance to bring more of his innovative ideas to the D.C. area, but hopefully their time will come soon.

Check out this slideshow of Los Angeles transit and other stuff.

The agency needed to continue its evolution from a service-oriented one to a customer-oriented one. Trains will suddenly go out of service regardless of how good a leader heads Metro; only large piles of money will fix that problem, money Metro doesn't have right now. The General Manager can't magically stop buses from getting stuck at lights or in traffic and making riders wait in the cold.

But what Metro could have done better was to make riders feel listened to. Make sure customer service staff respond to complaints quickly, and that every employee feels a responsibility to contribute to customer service. Customer service means not only responding to individual complaints, but helping customers understand how the organization is addressing them in the long run. If good people make the system more efficient on the inside but underfunding makes it worse at the same time, all riders see is nothing changing.

At the roundtable, Catoe didn't know that many riders go weeks without hearing responses to complaints, and generally dismissed the complaints as stemming from unreasonable expectations. Maybe Washingtonians do whine a lot about their transit, and would feel differently if they lived in Atlanta for a while, but riders really were angry, and at the same time Metro was trying to fix the service, they could be helping riders understand the situation. Just like talking to the bloggers last night reassured them, so could a similar level of attention have assuaged the public's fears and frustrations.

There were also clear ways that Metro was indeed falling short. That's to some extent inevitable; any large organization has those. Riders wanted a leader to identify the flaws, admit to the flaws, and then explain how he's going to correct the flaws.

What about the crash itself? Sooner or later, with deteriorating equipment, something was bound to happen. Former GM Richard White warned about it, and Catoe was warning about it. Metro remained far safer than driving. The head of the Maryland State Highway Administration doesn't resign when a pedestrian dies on the roads, even if it's pretty clear that bad road design was a factor.

Yes, there were safety lapses at Metro. Those need to stop. But there are probably safety lapses on highway construction projects too, and in buildings, and everywhere. It's easy to find problems in hindsight. Now that we've found them, Metro must fix them, and with good safety monitoring, they will. Catoe wasn't an obstacle to this; he didn't even know that Metro had denied Tri-State Oversight access to the tracks.

If Catoe made a mistake there, it's that he let his subordinates make decisions like that; avoiding micromanaging people is usually a good quality in a manager. In his farewell letter to his employees, Catoe wrote,

All of us know that different situations require different leadership styles. My skill—and the reason for my past success—has been leading through empowerment. Now, I feel that Metro is in a period in which a much more directive leadership style is needed.

Finding someone to fit the bill might be tough; as Mike Silverstein commented, "Those who have been calling for his resignation should now remember the old adage of being careful what you wish for. ... There is no guarantee Mr Catoe's replacement will be any better, or will do a better job."

If we're lucky, the Board (hopefully with some input from riders) will find a new General Manager whose strengths best match Metro's needs right now. And once Metro surmounts its current funding and confidence crises, hopefully the new General Manager will be as capable of improving service as Catoe was in Los Angeles. Maybe when the time comes, he can come back and help out.

Mr. Catoe outlined the budget difficulties Metro is expecting this year and next, and the steps Metro is considering to close an anticipated $40M gap for this year and a $170M gap for the following fiscal year.

He also said that he deeply understands recent rider frustration. As a frequent Metro rider, he has customers come up all the time to vent their frustrations to his face. Recently, those frustrations have become more frequent and more severe. "I'm very aware of how angry people are, because they tell me to my face," he said. "I've always ridden Metro regularly and there has been a change in the comments. It doesn't make me feel good."

He explained for why Metrorail service during the latter half of 2009 has been so frustrating and unreliable. While ridership has decreased somewhat from its high peak during 2008, ridership is very high, and close to the theoretical limit that the system was designed for. At the same time, since the June 2009 accident, Metro has not been able to operate its trains in automatic mode.

Manual mode is not as smooth or efficient as automatic mode, limiting the number of trains that can be run during rush periods. As the trains get fuller, people have a hard time getting on and off the cars, increasing the station time and slowing down the system further. Under crowded conditions, people blocking or holding doors becomes more likely, and with the aging cars in the system, blocked or held doors are more likely to malfunction.

Additionally, while operating trains in mixed configurations (for example, a six-car train made up of 3000, 1000 and 5000-series cars) is safe, differences between the ways the doors operate in mixed configurations makes them less reliable and efficient.

Mr. Catoe outlined a strategy for improving Metrorail service. First, within the next couple months to a year, Metro will be rolling out an additional train detection system as a backup to the system that is suspected to have failed, causing the June 22 accident. Combined with the NTSB releasing its findings of the accident's cause, Metro should be able to return to automatic mode this year.

Metro will also soon ask the Board to approve ordering hundreds of 7000-series railcars, to replace the aging 1000-series cars. As these cars are delivered, the 1000-series cars, which are at the end of their design life, will be retired. Since the minimum time from ordering to delivery of new rail cars is about 2-3 years, this will improve service in the long-term as opposed to right away.

At the end of the meeting, Mr. Catoe also announced a change Metro is making to make its top staff more accountable: managers, from the level of superintendent up to the top executives, will now be "at will" employees, subject to dismissal at any time, without probation, if they fail to meet Metro's high expectations for its people.

The participants were still brimming with questions when Mr. Catoe had to leave for his next meeting, but Metro's PR Director Lisa Farbstein suggested there could be more blogger roundtables in the future. Based on the way the glimpses bloggers received into the more human side of Metro and its General Manager seem to have softened some of his fiercest critics' anger, that'd be a very smart move.

Statistically, mass transit remains the safest mode of transportation—above automobiles and airplanes. However, in every mode, in every work place, in every aspect of our lives, the threat of accidents is always there. But we must make every effort to avoid them. I, along with every Metro employee, will do whatever is necessary to minimize that risk. This is not lip-service. This is my declaration of war—war on anything and everything that stands in our way of making our system as safe as it can possibly be.

Today is about action. Not about reviews. Not about discussions. And not about planning to do something. We have a plan and have already started making changes in how we do business. Moving forward, this agency is only about action and implementation. From hiring to training, from procedures to operations, from leadership to front-line employees, every person and aspect of our organization will be affected.

These changes will come with accountability for everyone since it takes everyone to make Metro the safest system possible. However, no one is more accountable than I am. The responsibility for protecting riders is Metro's cornerstone and will guide everything we do.

Change won't be instant; it'll be a process. Tomorrow will be better. Things will transform and improve every day.

Some actions have already been taken. Major organizational changes have been implemented. And I will not hesitate to make more in the future if I think we're not heading in the direction of achieving our safety goals.

We are working with our union partners to enhance safety task forces at every location, we will expand our safety training program with the involvement and support of the National Transit Institute of Rutgers University and the Transportation Safety Institute, an arm of the US Department of Transportation.

While we have resolved many of the issues listed in past TOC and FTA safety audits, I am not satisfied with the progress and have directed our staff to complete all open items in the coming weeks.

This week Congress approved $150 million in capital funding for Metro. We expect the President to sign the bill next week. Virginia, Maryland and DC have committed their share of $50 million each, providing $300 million for needed capital equipment and safety repairs.

Early next year, I will bring to the Board procurement actions for rail cars which will begin the replacement of the 1000 series rail cars. In addition we will have funding to enact other safely recommendations from the NTSB and other capital upgrades to improve safety and reliable operations.

Let me address a critical component of implementing these actions: resources. Yes, Metro is in what might be the worst financial crisis of our existence. But as I said earlier, nothing, not even money, will hinder our efforts to make this system as safe as possible. This action plan is going to require more resources. I am prepared to shift current resources to fulfill our safety commitment. I will also say this: shifting resources may result in a significant change in how we do business. But please keep in mind: if riders don't feel safe, we won't have the need for service.

Finally, I'd like to tell you how we are implementing this action plan. Everyone at Metro has a role. We will ensure our employees are committed to safety by making them accountable through performance. I have also had discussions with Local 698 President Jackie Jeter, who will be at the Board meeting with us today. While we have our differences, we are firmly united in our common belief that the most important Metro goal is safety: safety of our riders and safety of our employees. Union members have pledged their commitment to accomplishing this goal.

We will also be working in partnership with the Federal Transit Administration and the Tri-State Oversight Committee to achieve our safety goals. Both agencies have offered access to resources to help us carry out these tasks.
Yesterday, I provided to you a new Memorandum of Understanding regarding the Tri-State Oversight Committee that was agreed to between the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. I fully support these initiatives. We will fully support and cooperate with the Tri-State Oversight Committee, the Federal Transit Administration and other entities in their roles of providing important safety oversight. As I've said before, I welcome stronger safety oversight and recommendations.

This week, I have been engaged in the Federal Transit Administration's triennial audit and have come away with a clearer understanding of what we must do to make substantial, real change in this organization. The audit findings in the final, comprehensive report will clearly articulate what obstacles we face and what we must do to make Metro the safest system possible. This will be substantial work.

While the report recommendations will be implemented, we are not waiting for the report to take action and move forward. We look forward to working more closely with the Federal Transit Administration and Tri-State Oversight Committee.

On January 14, I will be updating the Board on the progress of our action implementation. I will address what we've done to date, associated results and our next steps. I appreciate your support as we continue making Metro the safest system possible.

Below Catoe, Gerald Francis was the top man responsible for safety, and there's no denying safety has been a problem. On the other hand, he did step up after we criticized Metro's anemic response when some kids threw rocks at Tim Krepp and a Metro employee was unwilling to call police; Krepp says that Francis has continued to be very proactive and work with him to try to deal with the issue.

As for Milo Victoria, the Post noted that "Two high-profile Metrobus accidents and other incidents involving bus operators took place on his watch." However, there's little reason to believe management was at fault for the bus crashes, and bus operator incidents have decreased in recent years.

Sarah Wilson was the one who tried to justify Metro's lack of action on Google Transit by saying that the $70,000 in ad revenue they get from wmata.com is more important than a free service that helps riders. However, Metro since changed course and agreed to reach out to Google. I have no idea how involved Wilson was in the policy shift or in deciding the original policy.

And then there's Alexa Dupigny-Samuels, who was the one to deny inspectors access to live tracks. Most riders' reaction seems to be, why is she still at Metro, exactly?

Rearranging the chairs could be a start, but it will only improve matters if it leads to a new way of doing things. When he joined Metro, John Catoe said, "you won't recognize this place." The culture of command-and-control, not sharing information, and inadequate customer service has not fundamentally changed in most areas of Metro. We still haven't heard an explanation for the past year's problems and what Metro is going to do about it.

When a Web company has a major outage, for instance, employees write a "post-mortem," identifying the immediate causes of the problem, the more fundamental root causes for why that problem cropped up, and what they are changing to prevent a recurrence. Toyota pioneered a concept called the Five Whys. Catoe can begin to repair his agency's public image by undertaking a similar exercise. Ask why people have low confidence in Metro, then ask four more times more deeply. Formulate a clear plan with the new and remaining executives to repair the problems, and then communicate what they are going to change to the eager yet skeptical public.