The interim general manager poised to take over Metro will swiftly be confronted with questions about how the transit agency can be turned around after a deadly eight months.
Last week, a damning federal audit found deep flaws in Metro’s safety structure, including a lack of safety reports to top managers.
The week before the National Transportation Safety Board asked probing questions in three days of hearings that highlighted safety lapses leading up to and since the deadly June 22 train crash.
And in January, an independent safety oversight group issued its own report on safety failures including how a speeding train nearly hit its own inspectors during an announced track worker safety inspection.
Now the agency is dealing with a threat from a bipartisan group of U.S. senators to change or face an “intervention.”
Longtime transit veteran Richard Sarles is slated to take on these problems when he begins as interim general manager March 29. He said safety is his first, second and third priority.
“This is going to take a radical restructuring,” Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff warned last week during a hearing on his agency’s audit findings.
Rogoff offered the federal audit as a road map on how to fix problems including the silos separating departments from sharing safety information. The first step, he said last week in the hearing with the local congressional delegation: “Tear down these stovepipes right away.”
He warned that heads need to be knocked and employees fired, even though it may not be popular.
The lawmakers asked if more federal funding would help. “This system is critically important to our country. The federal government cannot operate without the transit system,” said Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md. “We saw that in the storm.”
Rogoff said more federal funding isn’t the answer. He called the agency “extremely well funded,” as Metro already receives direct federal funding and money from taxpayer-subsidized rides for federal workers.
“It’s not about money, it’s about leadership, management and focus,” he said.
The agency also needs to go beyond just a whistleblower protection, which he called the worst kind of model. Instead Metro needs to create a system in which employees aren’t chastised for asking questions about safety.
Soon Sarles will have even more directives and advice to follow. Former General Manager David Gunn is currently working on a two-week assessment of the agency for the board and the NTSB plans to deliver safety recommendations to the agency before the train crash anniversary.
