The Washington-area delegation of U.S. senators has reintroduced last year’s effort to provide more safety oversight over Metro and transit agencies nationwide.
Senators Jim Webb, Mark Warner and Barbara Mikulski, all Democrats, reintroduced the National Metro Safety Act on Monday after a similar bill languished last year.
“We should renew our commitment to strengthening Metro’s management practices, safety procedures, and funding levels,” Webb said.
The initial bill was crafted in 2009 in the wake of the deadly June 22 Fort Totten train crash that killed nine and injured dozens more. The crash in the nation’s capital had highlighted the fact that transit systems don’t face any national safety standards even though airlines and even commuter trains have strict oversight rules.
The bill calls for the transportation secretary to work with the National Transportation Safety Board to develop safety standards for all subway systems, including creating minimum crashworthiness standards for rail cars.
But the bill comes even as Metro’s federal funding remains in jeopardy. Republicans have threatened to cut the $150 million allocated to the agency as part of a broad-based set of cost-cutting measures. Those very funds are slated to help improve Metro’s safety, according to the transit agency.
“Eliminating federal grant funding for Metro would be a devastating blow to our ongoing efforts to improve system safety and reliability,” said Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein.
She said the agency would continue to follow NTSB recommendations made after the crash but she said “the state of good repair program will be gutted for the coming year, unraveling the progress that we made in 2010 toward restoring system reliability.”
