Posted on 01/25/2015 8:36:17 AM PST by Kaslin
“Metro has a reputation for shoddy service and a history of not learning from its mistakes,” Aaron Wiener acknowledged in a recent column for The Washington Post. He then asked, “Why should we reward such a poorly run enterprise with our business, or place our lives in the hands of a system we can’t trust?”
Darn good question.
Wiener doesn’t answer it. Instead, he merely asserts that we should double down and commit ourselves to Metro. His is a pure and faithful devotion, as indicated in his headline: “Metro’s a mess. All the more reason to ride it.”
Spoken like a true-believer zealot.
Two weeks ago, a woman died traveling on Washington’s once regal subway system — built back in 1976 by American taxpayers from far and wide. The lady in her 60s was overcome by smoke after several train cars became stuck in a tunnel that filled with smoke. Another 84 riders were hospitalized, two in critical condition.
Accidents happen, of course. Even in the best of enterprises. But no one suggests the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority is that.
And consider the city’s response in this moment of peril.
First, the DC Fire squad was woefully slow to arrive; victims say more than 30 minutes. So slow that the courageous public officials ruling the District of Columbia have been unwilling to publicly comment as to precisely how slow. Not Muriel Bowser, the new mayor; nor the Chairman of Washington’s Metro board. The latter gentleman provided an excuse, however, claiming he “cannot speak to it” because of the ongoing investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.
There are also claims that Metro personnel failed to communicate to the emergency responders that this “mass casualty incident” was really any big deal.
Then, upon their late arrival, the rescuers’ radios didn’t work. “[D]espite hundreds of millions of dollars in upgrades and new training and safety protocols at the transit agency,” The Washington Post reported, “a critical piece of infrastructure — emergency communications — remains a significant problem.”
Soon we learned these fires have been occurring with greater and greater frequency. A 2014 television report warned that the occurrence of smoke and fire on the tracks had almost doubled in the first quarter over the year before.
Writing here for The City Paper, Aaron Wiener explains that the deadly smoke incident involved “1000-series cars . . . precisely the old cars that the NTSB warned in 2010 were not well equipped for a crash. Granted, this wasn’t a crash, but it does raise questions about Metro’s speed in upgrading its problematic fleet.”
Result? Problem uncorrected. Passengers injured, one dead.
This isn’t Metro’s first accident, either. Six years ago, nine people died when two Metro trains collided.
That crash was both predictable and preventable, according to an NTSB report, which found half of the system’s track circuit modules were “prone to malfunction” and that 25 percent of the train cars offered substandard protection in a crash.
At the time, then-NTSB Chair Deborah Hersman admitted, “Metro was on a collision course long before this accident. The only question was when Metro would have another accident — and of what magnitude.”
It seems little has changed. Or will change. Yet, Aaron Wiener implores us to ride Metro . . . now more than ever.
It is hard to imagine the good columnist suggesting that we continue to do business with a big corporation that was “poorly run,” provided “shoddy service,” forged “a history of not learning from its mistakes,” and had just been quite possibly negligent in the death of yet another customer.
You see, it is the public nature of public transportation that bestows upon the process of moving people from one place to another a near-magical, metaphysical goodness. Like liberty — though, it seems clear that, given a choice, Mr. Wiener would willingly sacrifice some measure of liberty for government-subsidized transit.
If we take Wiener and many other public transit enthusiasts seriously, government-managed transit is not best understood by the services it provides — not like the billions of things bought and sold on the market, or even many other things government might help provide. It is hallowed by something ineffable, setting it apart from food or shelter or clothing or even the protection of life itself. One indicator of this is Wiener’s continued promotion. By strenuously urging more ridership in the face of deadly failures, he implies that rescuing Metro might need to come before rescuing the people riding Metro.
Without that intriguing little voice called “the profit motive” — and its flip side, the fear of loss — D.C.’s Metro, like other systems all across the country, is run “politically,” bureaucratically. Comprised of a board of officials with no financial investment in the never-to-be financial success of the enterprise, their only skin at risk plays in a different game: the next election or round of appointment.
These directors please people now, rather than invest in future gains. There just isn’t the same incentive to make the necessary investment in infrastructure required to run the subways safely and sustainably into the future. There are no profits to “protect” and in the future, someone else may be holding the hot seat.
Were this contracted out to a private company, things might be different. A private contractor with Metro’s record of accidents and, moreover, the system’s repeated failures in addressing safety concerns, would be shut down. By the government.
Fired and replaced.
Sadly, Metro faces no such threat.
Having lived in the area, there are three basic issues that cannot be overcome:
1. No mayor, no governor, and no federal authority overseeing the mess. It’s an executive manager of sorts, with a committee, but practically impossible to fire.
2. The drivers, mechanics, and operations people, that all came after the original crew....got inside info on how to get hired, and there’s suspicion that half of them are not mentally alert enough to do their job.
3. Three separate states/districts oversee the mess with their funding.
I can onky comment as an out of towner who has ridden Metro on occasional visits to Washington. But, have to say, Metro has employees who, as a group, are very unhelpful. They are not helpful when people ask how to use the farecard machines or how to figure out how much it costs to ride from one station to your destination. They are unhelpful if you ask how to get somewhere, where to change trains, etc. The train conductors who make announcements on the trains are often hard to understand, due to poor pronunciation.
I’ve ridden public transportation in many cities but never encountered such basic problems as found on Washington’s Metro. Based on this, I have a feeling that Metro employees just aren’t very well trained. And lack of training had tragic consequences when this smoky train accident happened.
If you want to make sense out of the DC Metro, know one thing. It is not a public transportation system. It is a jobs program. It is a money conduit. This is why no money gets spent on unnecessary things like repairs or maintenance.
I agree based on my observation. I also question how mentally alert Metro workers are. There’s just something about them which doesn’t add up. It is like they are openly doing just the bare minimum to get by. And don’t care if the public sees them slacking off. Such job attitudes can be deadly in an emergency.
Oh, but the gubmint will run the entire health care system just fine, thank you very much.
In a few years, when I'm waiting months for an ultra-sound, I'll just picture myself stuck in a smokey tunnel, no forward motion, and no one in a hurry to get me out.
Pathetic.
The sheeple stayed on the smoke-filled car for over an hour waiting to be rescued at the behest of the conductor. This despite the fact the closest station was less than 300 feet away.
Third rail wasn’t shut off till over 30 minutes after the train reported a problem. Plus the ventilation system wasn’t working.
Sorry, but if I’m underground in a subway car filling with smoke my ass is out the door and walking towards the last platform.
Then just the other day the Metro said they wanted to increase fares or decrease service as they aren’t making enough money. The arrogance is astonishing.
I rode the metro routinely to work, in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Only one time did I experience a problem, when a train broke down and I had to take a bus to another station to resume the trip home. From my perspective, it was an excellent system back then. (I was, however, a local native; and when you learn the system well, you don’t need the help of the Metro people very often. I imagine it is a much different experience for tourists - which is something that the officials should be concerned about.)
I’m very grateful that I no longer have to use it; my friends who do are constantly complaining about the problems; and the crime rate has really soared.
-JT
If a malfunction could do this, imagine what a few terrorists could do. These metro folks damn well better get their $hit together in a big hurry.
“If you want to make sense out of the DC Metro, know one thing. It is not a public transportation system. It is a jobs program. It is a money conduit. This is why no money gets spent on unnecessary things like repairs or maintenance.”
Everything in DC is a “jobs program.” The Metro is just a “spin off” from the Post Office. If you happen to get where you are going, it’s jus incidental to paying a bunch of morons way more than they are worth to “operate” the system. Same here in SF Bay Area with BART.
Indeed. I would add that it's expensive and the service is poor too. The extension out to Reston via Tyson's Corner, recently completed, was one of the most expensive public works projects in US history.
“First, the DC Fire squad was woefully slow to arrive; victims say more than 30 minutes.”
Well, they had to take the Metro! Duh. ;)
I lived in Arlington for 3.5 years....leaving summer of 2013. I had the rare opportunity to talk one day with a retired guy at a coffee shop...he was in original crew of mid-70’s hired as subway ‘driver’. He’d done a couple years in the Army and this was the dream job of his life. He noted most of the guys who were hired...were former military.
So as we talked, he went into detail about small screw-ups in the beginning but the management team was the resolution type...fix it right and move on. So for about fifteen years, he had absolute confidence in the whole system. At some point in the late 1990s...he started to note folks retiring, and new people being brought in. New folks weren’t the same caliber...some had the “I don’t care” attitude...some with drug issues...some just didn’t grasp the significance of the job. He ended up retiring around 2000.
His assessment was centered around two issues. It was all state-of-the-art for 1976 when built. The basic design and technology of the whole system today? Still built off technology of 1976. For two decades, they’ve been talking of the way ahead, but it’d be into the billions and it’d take a federal grant to make it happen. As he pointed out...the automatic pilot system to watch and gauge speed has been taken off line since that big accident from five years ago....the trust isn’t there, and so it’s run on manual now...requiring maximum concentration.
The second problem he noted...guys come in to test and they’ve got a copy of the test. They memorize enough of this...to show aptitude but they really aren’t that bright.
I should note while I was there...they had the strange accident where no deaths but a couple of injuries. They discovered the gal-driver had been on injury time for three or four years, and then rushed back into service with just a refresher training course (violating every rule in their book)...she should have taken the entire driver course which requires a month of class. As far as I know...she quit after that accident, but they never fired the guy who approved her re-entry into the system with only refresher training.
I could probably write a sixty-page book off the 3.5 years I lived there and the various Metro stories I gleaned from daily news and local gossip. We even had the 16-year old kid who stole a Metro bus from the ‘yard’ and in a Metro uniform....he drove a third-of-a-route with passengers before he hit tree, and cops stopped him.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.