If you are a resident of Washington, D.C., you are bearing witness to decades of neglect that have thrown the area’s Metro system into a downward dysfunctional cycle. With a safety and reliability record worthy of a third-world transit system, residents are struggling to understand what happened to their once-celebrated Metro. The answer is a lifetime of shortsighted decisions by officials who failed to spend the necessary time, energy and resources on the maintenance and improvement of a complicated mechanical system.

The reasons for Metro’s decline are legion: A tradition of managerial and employee incompetence and even corruption at WMATA; a lack of effective oversight and direction by a multi-jurisdictional board; and no dedicated funding stream like other major metropolitan subway systems enjoy. All of this has led to a culture of politically calculated decision-making, underfunding, corner-cutting and attempting to do more with less. While extending service and neglecting repairs and upgrades, Metro has been able to keep up appearances while in fact the system was in steep decline.