[Hulka]

Underfunded. Perhaps. But I think there are also shot-through with waste and corruption that accounts for a significant portion of the budget “deficits.” I mean, sir, they submitted a $1.4 BILLION dollar budget to to operate, not to over-haul the system.

Regards.

[rockvillem]

I suspect that the budget situation isn’t going to be an issue here, although you are certainly right about the waste.

They’ve had previous incidents that were basically driver/management error - the operator killed on the snowy track at Shady Grove (because the bast**d GM insisted they be on automatic operation), the maintenance worker run over in VA (the operator ignored warnings), and the Woodley Park incident (oops - forgot to set the brake).

We’ll see - I’m probably biased because of the 1 1/2 hour delay I suffered from the EARLIER incident, but my suspicion is that there will be a connection to the Red Line being backed up and somebody got into a rush or a manager got so distracted that they made a fatal error. Sort of like the L-1011 that crashed in the Everglades 30+ years ago - the crew got so distracted by a landing gear issue that they let the autopilot “land” the plane in the Everglades.

[kristinn]

I don’t think corruption is the problem. It’s a high maintenance system.