More seriously bad news about Metro fills our press reports again. Seems like there has been nothing but bad news about service and safety of the system serving our nation’s capital since about the time the Silver became a reality.
Delays, service interruptions, collisions and fires are more frequent it seems.
Ridership, instead of increasing is decreasing as a result. Now, the new management announces possible entire line (e.g. red, blue) closures of up to six months for maintenance! Is the Silver Line a root cause of Metrorail’s decline?
Metro’s serious reliability and safety issues reflect deeply rooted problems in its governance, internal management, personnel, lack of reliable revenue stream and even basic infrastructure. Taken together, these are formidable obstacles to prospects for turning the system into a safe, reliable transportation system for our still growing nation’s capital region.
The top of the Metro problems’ pyramid is its governance structure. Imagine an organization directed, funded and overseen by not one private or public organization, but four. In this case, we have four governments—The District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, and the Federal Government, all with a vital stake in serving their constituents by “managing” our transportation system.
While they have lots of competent technical people to advise them, the appointed Metro Board cannot keep politics out of the decision process. One thing the pols have not been able to agree upon is a dedicated revenue stream, vital for planning and operating the transport system.
Instead, Metro is subject to four political appropriation regimens with attendant bickering, delays, and conditions to get often inadequate funds for operations, much less needed investment in capital goods and infrastructure. The best systems around the world in fact have dedicated revenue. They also have a hard time with anything long term; for example, the decision to save money by leaving out a fourth rail in the system (including the tunnel under the Potomac) so that maintenance, repairs and heavy loads in Metro often lead to single tracking and system-wide delays.
The appointees are also the ones who dictate service hours to make points with constituents. Unfortunately, serious maintenance and repair work must be done when the system is not running.
Over time, the Board has cut maintenance time from six or seven hours daily to now less than two. Maintenance is always behind and will be made up ultimately only with shutdowns of six months or more.
Internal incompetence also has plagued Metro. Audits over the years have cited lack of performance standards, and lack of written operating procedures as ongoing problems. Controllers who oversee daily operations of the Metro lines are the ones responsible to identify problems and organize responses to them. These folks are well-paid and powerful.
Despite this, they are always understaffed and seem to like it that way, routinely working a lot of well-compensated overtime. According to a recent report, this problem has existed for years. When you hear reports of confusion, slow response to a crisis in the system, this may be a major factor. This is a serious problem, yet it is hopefully relatively easier for new General Manager Paul Wiedefeld, to address than the others mentioned..
Unless major shortcomings are confronted soon, this limping system will continue to go downhill as will ridership.
Don’t blame it on the Silver Line. Blame it on the lack of political will to turn operations over to competent executives to set policy; to provide a dedicated revenue stream; and to assure the needed basic infrastructure upgrade essential to a modern metropolitan transport system.