Nearly six months after the deadliest accident in Metro’s history and multiple subsequent safety failures, the transit agency’s leadership is being jolted with the removal of six people from top management positions.
But more changes are also ahead as the federal government will soon gain a voice on the agency’s board of directors in exchange for providing $150 million in long-sought funding.
The existing 12-person board will expand to add four federal appointees, meaning that Virginia, D.C. and Maryland will have to share their clout with two new voting members and two alternates. Those federal appointees will likely have a say on next year’s already controversial budget, which includes proposed major fare increases and service cuts to help cover a $175 million gap in the $1.4 billion budget.
The changes may offer a chance to set a new tone after a bad year.
Metro has always had a special relationship with the federal government, being in the nation’s capital and with federal employees constituting about 40 percent of its morning riders.
But the recent troubles have prompted a major crisis in confidence in the transit system.
Congress has already taken notice. Last week Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., slammed Metro before a Senate subcommittee Thursday, saying the agency has been showing a “pattern of laxity, passivity and lip service” about safety concerns. She said the agency needed “more rigorous management.”
Late the next day, General Manager John Catoe e-mailed the board a memo detailing a major management change. In combination with a decision reported this earlier month, six members of his 16-person executive leadership team will be removed due to firings, retirements or reassignments within the agency.
Chairman Jim Graham called the changes both “significant” and “justified.”
Yet those shifts alone may not solve Metro’s problems, say some from both inside and outside the agency.
“I think no management shake-up will fundamentally address the problems from this year, because so much of the problems come from being severely underfunded,” said David Alpert, a transit advocate on the Metro Riders’ Advisory Council who also runs the Greater Greater Washington blog. “Metro needs $7.6 billion over 10 years just to fix aging rail cars and buses, and no clever management will fix that.”
Board member Peter Benjamin, who represents Maryland, said the best fix to the agency’s safety problems would be boosting employee morale.
Yet the staffing and board changes will bring in at least some new faces. It remains unclear who will be appointed to represent the federal voice at the agency — and what their agenda will be. The $150 million in federal funding needs final approval, then Benjamin expects the U.S. General Services Administration will appoint members to the board well before the June budget vote.
“If the federal representatives support good transit for the entire region and serve the public interest, or even include a rider representative, then they could do some good,” Alpert said. “If they are just focused narrowly on the budgetary interests of individual agencies at the expense of the region as a whole, then their presence could simply add a fourth faction to the existing interjurisdictional tussles.”
