This is the first story in 蜜桃视频app’s series,聽, scrutinizing the decaying infrastructure in the D.C. region and what’s being done to fix it.
WASHINGTON 鈥� After a deadly 2009 crash on the Red Line, Metro plowed $5 billion into improvements. But the transit agency was left with little to show for the money spent after a train filled with smoke near L鈥橢nfant Plaza nearly two years ago, trapping dozens of passengers and killing a 61-year-old rider.
The fatal smoke incident exposed faulty work and the fact that Metro had continued to ignore safety threats, which still plague the agency today and has led to renewed attempts to .
鈥淭here will have to come a day of reckoning as to what happened here,鈥� D.C. Council member and Metro Board Chairman Jack Evans said . 鈥淐arol Glover died on the floor of a Metro car after a five-year period of fixing this place, and that鈥檚 an unacceptable end to that whole experience.”
Evans spoke this summer as Metro launched a new series of work zones and temporarily cut late-night trains on weekends.
General Manager Paul Wiedefeld has said that rebuilding plan, now known as SafeTrack, has given workers the extra time that were being done incorrectly or not being done at all. And just this month, the Metro Board that will begin July 1.
Wiedefeld: ‘I鈥檓 not going to turn it around in months’
Even amid the safety blitz, problems on and off the tracks have persisted.
Standing in a 聽this summer, Wiedefeld detailed repairs to reporters, pointing out crumbling rail ties. 鈥淭his has been pushed off as long as it can be pushed off,鈥� he聽said.
Just days later, a Silver Line train derailed due to crumbling rail ties a few hundred feet away from that work zone. The investigation into what led to the July 31 derailment eventually exposed that resulted in Metro leadership .
Separately, the Federal Transit Administration concluded in that radio communication to and from the troubled Rail Operations Control Center is improving, but some transmissions still do not always go through. Communication with the control center was in the January 2015 smoke incident that led to .
Evans proclaimed in November that Metro was doing 鈥渞eally well鈥� compared to just before Wiedefeld took over a year earlier.
鈥淭here has been a culture here over decades that has evolved, and I鈥檓 not going to turn it around in months,鈥� Wiedefeld told lawmakers at a congressional hearing this month.
‘Back2Good’ or ‘death spiral’
Wiedefeld said he hopes that if Metro one day runs on schedule with fewer , and 聽that riders will come back.
Ridership has steadily declined since 2009.
鈥淲e鈥檝e lost 100,000 riders a day. That鈥檚 a staggering variance,鈥� District Department of Transportation Director Leif Dormsjo said at a regional transportation forum. 鈥淲e鈥檝e got to recapture those riders. Our highways, our roads, can鈥檛 withstand any more diversion away from the rail system.鈥�
The agency’s plan for bringing discouraged rail riders back into the fold after SafeTrack work ends is unambitiously dubbed “Back2Good.”
“[Riders] get more frustrated when we say we鈥檙e going to do something and we can鈥檛 deliver,鈥� Wiedefeld said.
奥颈别诲别蹿别濒诲’蝉听 would cut the number of trains and increase scheduled wait times at all times of day. It would also raise fares for the first time in three years while also asking for more money from the region鈥檚 governments.
Jackie Jeter, the head of Metro’s largest employee union, has argued the proposed budget would put the agency in a 鈥溾�� something then-Metro leaders warned more than a decade ago would be the result of putting off needed maintenance.
Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 is in the middle of contract negotiations with Metro, and Jeter said the transit agency is and is lacking a long-promised safety culture.
‘Groundhog Day’: Issues keep popping up
Documents released by federal inspectors that at least some workers . In part, Jeter laid the blame on a lack of intensive training.
鈥淲e鈥檝e done this over and over again; we鈥檝e looked at operations, we鈥檝e found people that don鈥檛 know what speed limits are, we鈥檝e looked at track, we鈥檝e found that defects are left in place for long periods of time 鈥� it鈥檚 got to be fixed within,鈥� Federal Railroad Administration Chief Safety Officer Robert Lauby said at December鈥檚 Metro Board meeting.
Lauby said more outside oversight 鈥� like that Metro has had from the Federal Transit Administration for just over a year 鈥� or more consultants will not solve the problem until Metro can actually show that work and inspections are being done and are being done correctly.
Federal inspectors are like umpires at a baseball game, Lauby said.
“They can call the balls and strikes, they can tell you if you鈥檙e safe or you鈥檙e out. But the people on the field have to play the game, and the people on the field are the staff here at Washington Metro,” Lauby said. “They have to play the game, they have to play it to the best of their ability, and the coaching has to be there to actually work with the folks and make sure that they understand what the job is and that they understand that they鈥檙e actually achieving that,鈥� he said.
Federal Metro Board Member David Strickland said Metro seems to just go through cycles, over and over.
鈥淲e keep having a ‘Groundhog Day’ number of issues about things that we find, we get a good report out, and then we have a similar issue pop up some period later,鈥� Strickland said.
Tug of war on the Metro Board
A series of over a variety of issues, including billions of dollars Metro needs for basic maintenance and repair requirements, has not helped the situation. Those disputes have聽contributed to Metro sticking with the status quo at times previously.
鈥淲e鈥檙e not even close to fixing this thing,鈥� Evans said at the as he sparred with Virginia Democrat Gerry Connolly.
鈥淟amentations about performance will not solve Metro鈥檚 problems if we continue to ignore the dysfunctionality of the Metro Board, the culture of indifference that pervades the workforce, and the absence of stable revenue,鈥� Connolly said.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe called the board 鈥渁 joke鈥� in late November.
鈥淣o one has come to me with a plan: ‘Here are the problems. Here鈥檚 what we need to fix. And here鈥檚 what it鈥檚 going to cost’,” he said. “I mean, this is lunacy.”
But Maryland Transportation Secretary Pete Rahn has said that while the Metro Board is complex, the massive effort it would take to overhaul it, including congressional action, is not worth the energy when the system faces such monumental problems.
Metro has made some progress getting its fiscal house in order, including finally completing a clean and on-time audit and for documenting spending that now allows easier access to some grant funding.
The agency is in the process of figuring out the actual condition of every single item it owns, and believes that , it would need $25 billion over the next 10 years for basic safety, technology and other upgrades.
The transit agency is only now trying to figure out exactly how much money it would really take to keep the system running at any reasonable standard.
鈥淗ere we are in the nation鈥檚 capital with all the visitors we have from around the world, and we have a system that we鈥檙e not very proud of. And I think that鈥檚 a disgrace,鈥� Wiedefeld said.
