Feds outline tougher oversight plan for subways, Metro

Federal transportation officials are proposing to create national safety standards for the country’s subway systems for the first time, sparked by Metro’s deadly summer crash.

The proposal, laid out Tuesday before the House Highways and Transit subcommittee, would end a 1964 law limiting federal regulation of transit agencies. The plan also calls for bolstering 27 existing state safety oversight groups so they can be independent of the agencies they regulate, or letting groups with tougher standards opt out of the federal system.