N.T.S.B. to Meet July 27, 2010 on Fort Totten Metro Crash Cause

The National Transportation Safety Board will meet on July 27, 2010 to reveal their findings concerning the cause of the June 22, 2009 Fort Totten Metro crash.

Metro Rail Track Death

A Metro Rail Track Death shuts down Dun-Loring Metro station

Metro Dilemma: Fire Negligent Bus Drivers, Arbitrator Reinstates Them

Metro fired two bus drivers including one involved in a fatal crash only to have an arbitrator reinstating them.

Maryland Governor Blasts Metro

Maryland Governor, Martin O'Malley Blasted Metro on WTOP radio today. Just how bad was it?

Metro gets it Wrong Again With Near Crash Cover-Up

Metro keeps making their situation worse by failing to come clean about near misses and mistakes. Will this help instill public confidence?

Metro Crash Federal Hearing Begins!

The long-awaited NTSB Hearing on the Fort Totten Metro Crash starts today. What will we learn?

Fort Totten Metro Crash Hearing

Here is the NTSB hearing site concerning the deadly Fort Totten Metro train crash incident

Federal Takeover for Metro?

Our favorite hometown paper reports that a federal takeover of Metro is a possibility unless tremendous progress on safety is made immediately. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/22/AR2010022204794.html?hpid=moreheadlines

The inevitable question, how do you measure improvement in safety? People seemed to think Metro's safety record was just peachy until the Fort Totten Metro crash on June 22 2009. Suddenly the nation's second most heavily utilized metro system received a level of scrutiny on a daily basis that disclosed many problems that had previously been overlooked.

The fact is that Metro is neither as bad as it looks now nor as good as it looked before June 22, 2009. An aging, underfunded heavily used transit system is inevitably going to have some serious problems. Tragically those problems were visible before the catastrophic Fort Totten crash but nobody was paying attention.

Wow! Metro train nearly hits safety inspectors!

Metro's safety problems worsen. On the same day that United States Senator Barbara Mikulski reamed them out they almost struck independent safety inspectors at Alexandria, Virginia's Braddock road Station.

Metro Crash Train Operator Fired

The operator of a Metro train involved in the crash at West Falls Church Yard on November 29th, 2009 is fired.

Metro Crash: Light and Heat

Maryland Senator, Barbara Mikulski made sure that Metro officials know she's keeping an eye on things.

Metro Problems : Beware the Escalators !

More Metro Woes

Metro Crash Draws Federal Probe

Metro's Problems Abound: Latest Crash to Draw NTSB Probe!

Fort Totten Metro Crash Precipitates Federal Oversight

Why Federal Oversight May Make Metro Safer

Metro Tests New Crash System

The June 22nd, 2009 Fort Totten Metro crash has confounded both Metro and governmental investigators. Despite this, a new crash avoiding software system will be tested next week. The precise cause of the crash has proven elusive, but a track circuit failure seems to be the culprit.

Metro had been laboring under the illusion that it had a "failsafe" system that would prohibit crashes but this notion was shattered in June.

The National Transportation Safety Board has made it abundantly clear that existing Metro crash avoidance systems are inadequate. The new proposed system should provide real time information about track circuit anomalies and will alert the Metro operations center.

The cost of this "improvement" is as yet unknown.

Metro Ridership Dangerous?

I know, I know, people are piling on Metro. However, WTOP's latest report should raise the hackles on its riders.

Metro train and bus operators reportedly have been the subject of more than 4,000 safety complaints since 2004. Wow!
Reports of speeding in residential neighborhoods, failing to obey traffic devices including stop lights and myriad collisions with pedestrians and other cars, are among the transgressions.

In addition to safety issues there are also numerous instances of discourteous and in some cases disgusting behavior.
Wheelchair passengers report not only neglect but instances where erratic driving caused them to tip-over. Sleeping on the job? Check. Watching TV while driving? Check. Assaulting a passenger carrying a child? Check. The list goes on and on.

So take a moment and go the to WTOP link and it will open your eyes to how naive we may all have been. http://wtopnews.com/?nid=226&sid=1787491

Metro Train Operator Leaves Train, Passengers in Lurch

Maybe it is just  the greater attention the Fort Totten Metro crash has brought but it seems there is some new incident at Metro every week. This week it was reported that a Metro train operator walked off the job due to illness, leaving a Metro train full of passengers at the New York Avenue Station.

The incident took place on Monday October 5th, 2009 around 11:25 p.m. The operator left the train and did not return and a second  Red Line train picked up the passengers.

The inevitable question, was this a potential safety danger for the passengers? Tune in tomorrow for more.

Metro Safety, Money and Transparency

From our blogs to their ears or something like that. Ever since the catastophic June 22nd, 2009 Fort Totten Metro crash, we have been reporting avidly on our perception of metro's problems and why they exist. We have tried to be even-handed, pointing out that other cities (Berlin, San Francisco) are having plenty of difficulties safely running big-city transit systems.

Our Metro is particularly susceptible to problems because of long-term funding problems. It's easy to complain about the 1000 series cars collapsing in collisions but not so easy to see where the money is going to come from to replace them.

It is easy to blame Metro's management and in some instances its employees, for collisions resulting in significant inuries and wrongful deaths. However, absent a consistent, dependable funding source for the Washington Metropolitan  Area Transit Agency (WMATA) fixing things and preventing future cataclysms may not be possible

And that is part of the point of today's fine editorial in our favorite hometown paper. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/29/AR2009092902934.html

Because of Metro's anomalous existence; a by-product of the transportation needs of Virginia, Maryland, the District and the federal government, they have had neither  consistent funding nor consistent oversight.

The Tri-State oversight committee created by the three local jurisdictions to oversee Metro safety is ignored. When Metro tried a publicity stunt like reconfiguring trains to put 1000 series cars inside more modern, crashworthy cars, the committee wondered if any safety engineering went into this decision. Metro balked at reponding and subsequent revelations have been discomfitting. http://www.maryland-law.com/blog/metro-appearances-can-be-deceiving-or-deceivances-can-be-appearing.cfm

So take the Post seriously Metro, we deserve honest answers so we can have confidence in not only funding our transit system but in also using it.

Metro: Appearances Can Be Deceiving or Deceivances Can be Appearing

Please excuse the pun in the title but Metro has had a bad enough summer that they really can't afford to be seen as misleading the public on safety. Yet, that is precisely what seems to have occurred with respect to their use of the older 1000 series rail cars.

In the aftermath of the catastrophic June 22nd crash, Metro implemented a policy of placing the less crashworthy 1000 series cars inside multi-car trains, as they had catastrophically telescoped during the Fort Totten crash.

When asked about this Metro General Manager, John Catoe had suggested that placing the 1000 cars sandwiched between newer cars was a safety measure designed with crashworthiness in mind.

As it turns out, our favorite hometown paper, the Washington Post, reports that this action was really mere window-dressing to make Metro seem safer. Metro officials confirm that no safety analysis underpinned the car reconfigurations and that they were done  to address "public perception."

Which is to say that assurances of the underlying Metro system were in this instance illusory. With numerous impending lawsuits it is important that Metro retain some credibility if it hopes to defend itself effectively.

This won't help.

Metro Bus Driver Who Struck Jogger is Fired

For those of you who have followed Metro's difficult summer, the news that Carla Procter was fired cannot come as a big shock, particularly on the day that the Metro board voted to extend general manager, John Catoe's contract for three more years.

Ms. Procter gained notoriety when she struck a jogger with her metrobus earlier this September and consequently earned media scrutiny. Our favorite hometown paper, the Washington Post uncovered a host of prior incidents and tickets
which tended to put Ms. Procter in an unfavorable light.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/15/AR2009091503546.html?nav=emailpage

The specifics of the firing were alluded to only as "failing to follow standard procedures". This bureaucratese probably means running over law-abiding citizens and exposing Metro to big civil liability.
 
This of course comes on the heels of the horrendous June 22nd Fort Totten Metro crash and a rash of other deaths and incidents.