- The new interim GM of Metro inherits huge financial and management issues from his predecessor, but transforming the troubled system is too large a task for any one person and depends more on the Metro board. - A recent safety hearing reaffirmed that last year's deadly Red Line crash was preventable and more will happen unless the board prioritizes safety over slogans. - Metro needs major restructuring, including reorganizing the board selection process based on transit expertise rather than political appointments, as well as investing in maintenance, training, and infrastructure to address its aging system and underfunding issues.

1. No GM can fix Metro alone
By Jackie L. Jeter
Washington
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Newly appointed interim Metro General Manager Richard Sarles, praised for his safety record as
chief of the New Jersey Transit system, inherits the huge financial and management woes that
defined the tenure of outgoing GM John Catoe.
But transforming Metro's beleaguered system, struggling from management turmoil and a string
of deadly accidents, is too daunting a task for any general manager to tackle, no matter who
stepped into Catoe's shoes. The challenges confronting Metro rest first and foremost with the
Metro board.
The National Transportation Safety Board's recent three-day hearings reaffirmed two things that
Metro workers already knew -- last June's deadly Red Line crash was an accident waiting to
happen, and something like it will happen again unless the Metro board makes safety more than
a slogan.
In short, Metro needs a major structural adjustment. Without a real commitment to oversight,
operational transparency, dedicated funding and institutional accountability, our transit system
will remain perilous.
We can begin with a restructuring of the Metro board itself. As it is currently composed,
members are largely driven by the interests of the jurisdictions they are appointed to represent,
and they fail to provide the kind of leadership that will benefit the system as a whole. Board
appointments should be based on expertise in overseeing operations and management of the
nation's second-busiest transit system, not on loyalty to the person who made the appointment.
Then there is the system itself. Recently, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
announced that it would spend about $813,000 to install software on 182 older rail cars that
would keep them from rolling backward and another $2.6 million to repair door control units on
about half of the fleet. While these upgrades are important, they do not address the most critical
changes needed to make our trains safe. More essential are fundamental adjustments to how
Metro operates, including making a priority of routine preventive maintenance and inspections of
the aging system. Also needed is new investment in training programs for workers to lay the
groundwork for a new generation of operators. (Supplying the workforce with functioning
communications equipment would help, too.)

2. All of which raises the major impediment to Metro's navigating this crisis: the woeful
underfunding that denies the system needed upgrades and infrastructure support. Failing to win
increased and dedicated federal appropriations, WMATA's response has been to rely on
management tactics to "do more with less." This incomprehensible concept places workers,
riders and the system at risk.
The result is that Metro is trapped in a dangerous cycle that has resulted in 17 deaths since 2005,
including five Metrorail employees killed on duty. The system's failings cannot be handled as
isolated issues addressed through ad hoc actions; such a staggering increase in accidents
demands a more comprehensive response. Metro's workers -- those who operate the trains and
buses, repair the tracks and make the system work -- stand ready to carry out the changes
necessary to restore passenger confidence and increase ridership to sustain the system now and
into the future. Is Metro's leadership also equal to the challenge?
The writer is president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689, representing D.C. area transit
workers.