No. Absolutely not. Unlike many others in the Washington region, I will not attribute the cause for the unprecedented Metro crash last week primarily to the lack of funding.
There’s no denying that officials with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and elected leaders have been crying poor mouth almost since the subway system was constructed. But to lay the death of nine people and the injury of 80 others at the foot of WMATA’s balance sheet trivializes the tragedy and excuses irresponsible decisions made by managers with the approval of the board of directors.
While the National Transportation Safety Board hasn’t completed its investigations, early reports suggest all tracks lead to management — poor management.
In 2004, when the NTSB investigated another Metro accident, it identified two serious problems. It issued a warning of future tragedy if officials didn’t do something about transit cars that had outlived their safety. NTSB also made recommendations about automated train operations.
Metro officials took those recommendations, said “thank you very much” and continued allowing its customers to ride in 30-year-old cars they knew could fold or split on impact. Metro managers and board members claimed there wasn’t money to retrofit or replace the ancient “1000 car series.”
Couldn’t they simply have stopped using them? Suspending their use may have resulted in service delays, shorter trains and other minor discomforts. But nine people may not have died when train 112 driven by Jeanice McMillan crashed into train 214.
Astoundingly, even now, Metro officials, including Board Chairman and D.C. Councilman Jim Graham, are talking about how they still might use the 300 cars of the deadly 1000 Series.
Help us!
WMATA General Manager John Catoe praised McMillan during funeral ceremonies, calling her a “hero.” Nice things always are said about the dead.
But how much did Catoe and others really care about Metro workers?
The NTSB found last week that an electrical track circuit might have failed to signal to McMillan that train 214 was stopped just ahead. If that circuit had worked properly, perhaps the single mother and dedicated employee would not have died.
Hadn’t there been maintenance work on that very stretch of track where NTSB detected the “anomalies”? Why did it take federal investigators to discover the faulty circuit? Aren’t inspections conducted by Metro managers to measure the quality and completeness of track work?
Undoubtedly, some of these same questions will be asked next month when the House Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service and the District of Columbia holds a special hearing to examine the cause of the tragedy. But most answers won’t be found in the $11 billion budget local officials suggest they need to prevent future accidents.
Even if President Barack Obama infuses that cash into the system, if the past is prologue, there isn’t any certainty that Metro officials will make good management decisions. In fact, there is every indication of the opposite.
Jonetta Rose Barras, host of WPFW’s “D.C. Politics With Jonetta,” can be reached at [email protected].
