The official voice of Metro riders has formalized its view on how the transit agency should be run – offering a vision that diverges from one made by a regional task force of business leaders and elected officials.
Metro’s Riders Advisory Council, made up of 21 riders from across the region, issued a final report on Thursday calling for local elected officials to remain central to the Metro Board of Directors structure.
That contrasts with a report issued last month by a joint task force of the Greater Washington Board of Trade and Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. The task force had urged a system in which Maryland and Virginia’s governors and the D.C. mayor would each select one board member and also create a commission to oversee the actual board. They also called for term limits and creating a stronger role for the board chairman, who would be appointed by the oversight board, not from a local jurisdiction.
The task force’s recommendations would dilute the effect of local elected officials – and would eliminate seasoned members such as Christopher Zimmerman and Jim Graham who have more institutional knowledge about the transit system than many of the agency’s top executives. Some see that as a good move.
On the other hand, the riders’ group said that adding an oversight group, executive appointees and term limits would weaken the connection to riders and local funding sources. Furthermore, the riders council opposed strengthening the role of the chairman as that person has “sometimes exercised too much control, rather than too little.”
The two reports create a dueling view of how Metro should be changed. Supporters of each version are lining up on either side. The Coalition for Smarter Growth backed the riders’ vision Thursday. The two reports do mesh on some areas, including having a chief executive officer lead the agency instead of a general manager.
Meanwhile, another model exists entirely. In San Francisco, the board overseeing the BART system is elected directly by local riders and taxpayers. But that system doesn’t straddle state lines, making elections easier to coordinate.
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