“Inadequate.” That’s the term used by the National Transportation Safety Board to describe Metro’s safety procedures following an investigation into three serious accidents that occurred after the fatal June 2009 Red Line crash. Although Metro promised to make safety a top priority, another Metro employee was struck by a train and critically injured in the Shady Grove rail yard just three days after the latest NTSB scolding. And with The Examiner’s Kytja Weir reporting Monday that many emergency subway exits are either locked or blocked by debris, it becomes painfully clear that Metro has not kept its promise.

The transit agency lacks “an effective safety management system,” which NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman notes should be “the central part of an organization’s operating plan.” NTSB investigators blamed the 2010 deaths of two technicians working on the tracks in Rockville on Metro’s failure to warn them that a train was approaching. Operator failure was blamed for a derailment at the Farragut North station in 2010 and a November 2009 crash in the West Falls Church rail yard that caused $9 million in damage. Now it’s doubtful whether Metro can safely evacuate passengers from its labyrinth of underground tunnels, should another accident occur.