Despite National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommendations and General Manager John Catoe’s personal pledge after the June 22 Red Line crash that killed nine people and injured 70, Metro is still putting old, unsafe rail cars at the front of some trains. Outrageous as it is, this is what inevitably happens with union-heavy, quasi-statist bureaucracies like Metro: They aren’t unresponsive to the public they are supposed to serve because there is no effective accountability to the public.

With billions spent to build and expand Metro, the most important day-to-day task for the system’s managers remains operating and maintaining it to ensure passenger safety. Despite huge taxpayer subsidies, 10 of the nation’s 25 largest transit agencies have had to raise fares (as high as 33 percent in San Francisco and Boston) to cover looming deficits. But Metro has taken a slightly different route: It’s deferred literally billions of dollars in needed maintenance while appeasing ever-escalating union wage and benefit demands. Even now, union leaders are demanding a six percent cost-of-living-raise for Metro employees – at a time when area private sector employees are being hit with salary freezes, furloughs, and even pay cuts. Since last year, Metro’s operating costs increased $159 million, and even with increased ridership, revenues fell $17 million. The $1.46 billion budget for 2010 includes a $130 million deficit, due mostly to increased wages and benefits for union employees.